S8E6: Toni Pecchia

Hello and welcome back to Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines! This episode, I'm joined by Toni Pecchia, who makes zines under the name Chicken Milkshake. We talk about her solo work, her work with Oakland-based DIY arts nonprofit Rock Paper Scissors Collective, having your own style, and more! We also do a follow-up to last episode's conversation with Brigitte about digitizing archives! Continuity, baby!

Find more of Toni's work here:

IG: @chickenmilkshake

Find more of my work here:

http://linktr.ee/LNGRMSTPLR

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Logo by Miquela Davis: @ghostsb4breakfast

Intro/outro:

Who Likes to Party Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Hello and welcome back to Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines. I'm your host, Beyra. Today, this episode, I am joined by Tony Pecchia, who is the main brain behind Chicken Milkshake Zines. Chicken Milkshake Zines started as a zine review blog way back in the early 2010s. Tony was just starting to make her own zines around this time, but didn't feel super confident about it yet. So she just went to Zine Fest, traded with people, and reviewed their zines on the blog, and sometimes left zines in public places for people to find. She made a few friends this way and gained a lot of confidence. Now, Chicken Milkshake is the name that Tony publishes her zines under. Many of her zines are comics that feature a cast of characters known as the Chicken Milkshake family. Members of the family are Good Tony and Bad Tony, Bok Choi the Red Hen, Flower Cat, and Strawberry Ghost. She also has a series called Spider Veins, starring a spider named Greg who is unlearning his toxic masculinity. Greg is Tony's dad's name, but she absolutely wasn't thinking of him at all when she created the character. Her dad is a great guy who she doesn't really think of as Greg, just Dad. Out in the real world, Tony is a high school culinary arts teacher. Yes, that's a thing. When she's not barking at teenagers in the teaching kitchen, she is hosting zine workshops, readings, and open mics at Rock Paper Scissors Collective, an arts organization in Oakland, California. She is also a hopeless jock who loves swimming and biking. Hello, Tony.

SPEAKER_02 1:36

Hello, yeah, that's that's me. I am I am the hopeless jock who loves zines and uh teaches in a culinary arts kitchen at a high school. And uh yeah, loves to make zines.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Hell yeah. Um, yeah, let's get into it. We have a bunch of stuff to talk about. I'd love to also like I'd love to talk about your own work as well as um your work with RPS. But let's start with how did you get into making zines?

SPEAKER_02 2:04

Well, I got into making zines actually because I was trying to get my writing published uh when I was in my early to mid-20s. I had felt like I'd been graduated from college for a while, and I did a lot of writing and creative writing, and I was trying to get published and was just just kind of kept hitting a wall. Um, as far as I got I got a few things uh published, but not really, I wasn't really getting the response that I expected. And I was just like, I know that I'm a good writer, like so I'm just got tired of asking for permission um and started printing things myself. And uh, and then I quickly went from that to doing more visual art, which I had kind of dabbled in but never really done much of, at least not seriously. And the very first zine I ever made was called You Are Not Special. Uh, and it was just various collages and visual art pieces and visual representations of the phrase you are not special, which was something that I'd been internalizing a lot, um, having grown up in a culture of participation trophies and now coming face to face with the real world. Uh, so it was kind of my way of coming to terms with that, uh, putting it on paper, and uh, and I took it to San Francisco Zine Fest. I having no idea, I didn't know anything about zine culture or that trading was a thing. Um, but it turned out yes, trading is a thing. And I so I printed a bunch of copies and just went around to people's tables and talked to them and traded zines with them. And then I came home with an armful of zines, feeling very inspired, and I was like, maybe this is something I could do. Maybe I should make more zines. And I think it was it was either a year or two years before I finally felt confident enough where I was like, I have a body of work, I can apply to table at a zine fest. And um, and I did, and I got accepted, and I've been doing it ever since.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

What was your first zine fest that you tabled?

SPEAKER_02 4:10

It was eBabes 2016.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Yeah, yeah. It was at the um at the David Brouwer Center, which is uh still still where it's held. It's been held in other places since then, on and off, um, at other venues, but that's where it's been. That's where it was when I first tabled, and that's where it was last year and the year before.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Um that was the first year that I organized it, it was 2016. That's when I started. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Yeah. Oh I didn't know that. Great.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, that was a big year for eBabes.

SPEAKER_02 4:40

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I love e-babes. They're they've been, you know, we've collaborated with them with uh rock, paper, scissors a lot. Uh, we used to do the zine picnics in uh in late summer. We haven't done those in a while, but I think I want to yeah, try try doing those again because those were fun.

SPEAKER_00 4:55

Bring them back. Bring them back. So that's cool that you like kind of were so inspired by SF Zine Fest. Shout out to SF Zine Fest. Great people, great organizing, great fest. Um, and that you were just like so inspired that you just kind of you know developed your own body of work and were like, oh yeah, I can table too. Um, how was that experience for you, your first time tabling?

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Uh, it was also very positive because I got a very uh I I sold a lot, I talked to a lot of people, I traded a lot, um, made a lot of new friends. And uh weirdly, it was my first experience with meeting internet friends in person. Um, I had always I grew, I think like you, I kind of came of age in the in the MySpace era. Um, and uh definitely having a lot of online friends was was a flex. And uh and I kind of I was like, if you have a lot of internet friends, it means you're either really, really cool or really, really uncool. Um and that was kind of always, but I had never been like cool enough online where people would see me in person and recognize me. And that that actually happened last night um when I was at a show at Eli's, but it happened for the first time in um at the David Brouwer Center at eBabes, and somebody came up to me and was just like, hi, and I and I was like, hi, and then they're like, I'm, you know, and they said their name. And I was like, oh my gosh, hi, like internet friend. Um, so that was cool. And uh I think at the time, I'm trying to remember how many zines I had on my table. I want to say anywhere from four to six. Uh, and I understood that, and I've I've definitely seen it before that some people come and they only have one zine, and that's that's totally fine. Um, you you do you, but I felt like I was like, I need to have a couple, I need to have a body of work, um, just things that are all over the place. So I had um my travel zine I did, uh Loner Chicks. Uh, I think that was the launch of it. I think that was the launch of Loner Chicks. I had that one, I had a poetry one, I had You Are Not Special. Um, and I had, I don't think I'd started doing many comics yet at that point. I think I had one. It was this one I made called Germs Everywhere. Um, and it was about like germophobia and wanting to leave the planet and blast off into space because there's too many germs. Uh, and that was, and I had drawn a little character that kind of looked like me, but um, Tony versus Tony wasn't a thing yet. Uh, that became a thing a year or two later when I first started drawing those uh kind of spy versus spy comics, those two versions of me that I do. Um but uh yeah, I think it helped having more than one thing on my table. Um, because when people came by and were looking at my stuff, they were like, okay, this is nice. Ooh, but I want this. Um again, like no not hating at all on anyone who only has one zine or not telling them they're doing it wrong or anything like that. But that's I think that's what helped me personally was having a lot of stuff. And uh when people came up and approached me, I was like, oh hey, I have this and this and this and this.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Something and that way it's like you have something for everyone, kind of, or like something for most people, you know, like they'll see something and be like, okay, that's not up my alley, but then something else on your table will grab their eye and they'll be like, ooh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:30

Yeah, exactly. And that's and that's what you do too. Your table like always always has a ton of stuff on it. Um, and I I have I I'm pretty sure I have almost every single zine that that you've made, at least like since I've been going to fests. Um and then when I hear you have a new one, I'm just like, let's go, let's go, new Mayrazine.

SPEAKER_00 8:49

I've got a couple new ones, um, but now that I'm not on Instagram, it's like a secret, I guess.

unknown 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Don't tell anyone I've got new zines um available on my Kofi. Just kidding. I mean, they are, but like this isn't an ad for that. Um so I'll I'll gat I'll gas up your Kofi. I'll do that for you. Thank you.

unknown 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Um so what inspires you to keep making zines?

SPEAKER_02 9:16

It's like what doesn't inspire me? Any it I just have I feel like almost every day I have an idea for something, and I just have to add it to my little, you know, it's a list of a messy, disorganized list of things in my notes app. This could be a zine, that could be a zine, anything can be a zine. I think that's what people like you and me are always shouting from the rooftops. Anything can be a zine, and a zine can be anything. That's the refrain, right? Yeah. Um but it uh it's hard not to just be like, I want to make everything and be like, you know what, let's do a little quality over quantity. Um I had I had this idea when I was, I think, 26 or 27 when I've been making zines for a little bit. I was like, I want to have made a hundred zines before I turn 30. Um and then so I did the math, and I was like, okay, for that to happen, I need to make one zine a week uh until I turn 30. Um, because I have exactly it just right around that time, I was like, okay, I had there there happen to be exactly a hundred weeks before I turn 30. So I need to make a zine every week. And I was like, you know what, that's possible. I can do that. And then I started thinking about it and I was like, would that would they really be my best work though? Would they really be something that I would want out there in the world forever? Because once you put something out in the world, it's just there and it's and you know, it's got your name on it. Uh and so I was like, you know, I don't think, I think that I want to do the the quality over quantity thing. And maybe that was just an excuse. Maybe I was just being lazy. Maybe I totally should have done that 100 zines before 30 thing. Um, because that was that was a big deal. It's like, oh my gosh, when I, you know, I definitely internalized that whole, you know, once you turn 30, your life's over and you get all boring and you have to be an adult, and now that I'm like kind of pushing 40, it's like, oh yeah. I yeah, I've definitely done a lot of growing up in my 30s. And uh I don't know, maybe, maybe there is a little part of me that's like, I should have just hunkered down and done that hundred zine challenge, because I I do like a challenge and I do um like I do a lot of like self-set deadlines and limits just to keep myself accountable, keep myself going. Um, like for example, the the comics I draw, you may or may not have noticed that for a very long time they were only in three colors, not not including white. They were only um red, black, and green. Um, and that and I started doing that because I had started drawing with whiteboard markers that happened to just on white computer paper that happened to be red, black, and green. And then when I graduated to like using the iPad and you know, getting nicer markers, it's like, no, this is this is my thing. Um, and then I and then I did that for a long time and I was like, no, I can't do this because it's not red, black, and green. And I'm I'm I'm you know starting to starting to branch out a little, and people would ask me, why can't you use other colors? And I'm like, I just I I just can't. I just I can't. Maybe someday I will, but right now it's red, black, and green.

SPEAKER_00 12:29

That's such a rude question, I think. Be like, why isn't your work more colorful or like why aren't you doing this?

SPEAKER_02 12:37

Yeah. Another thing they would ask me is why are your characters always naked? Of course, of course, everybody wants to know that, because they because they almost always are. Um, and the answer is number one, vulnerability. Number two, drawing clothes is hard. Number three, tits get attention. Okay. Number three is the number three is the one I just thought of the at the top of my head. But yeah, those first two definitely mostly drawing clothes is hard.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And I feel like it's Oh, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

Sorry? Yeah, it's I'm finally getting to the point of like drawing clothes where it's just like it's not, you know, a sleeve doesn't cling to the arm, it it hangs off, you know. It's like, oh, it's like okay sometimes, but you know, drawing movement in clothing and all that.

SPEAKER_03 13:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

For those of us who are not trained artists, it uh, you know, and it's like, yeah. And that's that's another reason that I feel strongly about zines, is is that uh, you know, my art definitely is not uh, you know, it's not highbrow, it's not, I'm not a trained artist or an illustrator, and you know, I have my style is kind of, you know, look at it as be like, oh, this looks like a little kid drew it. And it's like, okay, well, so does peanuts, and everybody likes peanuts. So, and so does Kathy. Like, you know, all the all those newspaper comics we grew up with and loved, like, those comics look like shit. Like, can I swear? Am I allowed am I allowed to say bad words? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and I think Charles Schultz, like, people even told him, like, hey, you suck at drawing, you should stop drawing. Your drawings are ugly. And he was like, Okay, they're I don't know what he said to that, but it's like, okay, no, you the point is you have your own style. Like, yeah, you have your own style that's recognizable.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

I feel like if someone told him that peanuts look like shit, he would like, okay, but look at Snoopy. Like, how can you possibly say that to this man?

SPEAKER_02 14:25

Yeah. This man, this dog. Snoopy, Snoopy is a man.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

Yeah, yeah, I meant Snoopy in that scenario. Yeah, how can you possibly tell Snoopy that he looks like shit?

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

You can't. That's just rude.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

No, no, he's Snoopy. He's he's proud to be Snoopy.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yes. As he should be.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Um, so when you're making zines, I know earlier you said that you used to kind of draw on paper with like whiteboard markers and you've like graduated, I guess, to like iPad, but what is your general creative process like when you're making a zine or a comic?

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah, so uh if I'm making a zine, it definitely starts with an idea um that I kind of build on, and I'll usually just like start kind of spitball word vomit typing about this is what I want this to be. Um, and then when it gets to the point of actually making the zine itself, I'll be like, okay, what what kind of zine is this gonna be? Is this gonna be a mini zine? Is this gonna be the half-folded eight and a half by eleven kind of zine, which is uh my favorite kind of zine to make, but also it's much more difficult because I am not good at the layout thing. Um, and then I'm like, okay, what's gonna go where? What's this gonna look like? Um if it's a comic, uh usually I will do a page, um, like what do you call this? Like a page by page outline. So I'll be like, page one, this happens, page two, this happens, page three, this happens. And then depending on how many pages I end up with, when I start thinking about the layout for the zine itself, I'm like, okay, I have an odd number of pages, and so I need some filler. I need like an inside front cover image or an inside back cover image, or maybe this thing that happens in the comic, rather than just making it part of a really busy page, I can make it its own entire page. Boom, this big thing happens and it's an entire page. Um and uh if it's writing, if it's poetry, uh, if it's anything like that, I just write it and I'm like, it's however long it is. And if I need some filler pages because I end up with a weird number, then I'll do a photo or uh this zine is dedicated to this and this and this. Um actually when I did the You Are Not Special, my very my very first one, um, in the inside front cover it said, This zine is dedicated to, and it was I had written something and scratched it out with Sharpie. Because like that was the whole point. It's like, no, this nobody's special, you're not special, I'm not special, this is dedicated to nobody. I was actually so dedicated to that idea for a while, it was like so stuck in my head that I got it tattooed inside my lip.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Oh. Oh, you also have a lip tattoo?

SPEAKER_02 17:28

I do, I do. Nice, it's and it's mirrored so that only I can see. So like it's for me to see when I look in the mirror.

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Nice. I have mine says fuck it, but it's in my own handwriting, and it's like 14 years old at this point.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

I know. I haven't looked at mine in a long time. I'm looking at it in the camera, and all I can see is the because it says S N-A-Y, but all but backwards when I look in the mirror, it's Y-A-N-S. For you are not special. But all I can see is the I can see the Y and an A. I that's that's all I can see right now. Surprisingly, only one dentist has ever commented on it, which makes me wonder how common lip tattoos are. They were definitely like very, very trendy for a while, so they probably see because be like Miley Cyrus got one and stuff, so that's or somebody like that, I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah, so people were getting them.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

I've been like, I no dentist has ever commented on mine, which is great, like, because that would be embarrassing for me. I don't know. Like, I had a tattoo artist comment on it one time because I told him about it, not because he was like looking in my mouth, but like he was like, Oh, okay. But it was like an inside joke with my best friend in high school, and we were both supposed to get them, and then she didn't get hers, and mine is so like they did such a good job, and it like healed so well that it's still like very dark and very noticeable. And one time my boss was like, Do you have a lip tattoo? And I was like, Yeah. Your boss saw that?

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Oh, so oh, is it like high uh high up enough that you can almost kind of see it?

SPEAKER_00 19:00

Or yeah, when I smiled really, really big. Um, yeah. So I was like, I had to show my boss my lip tattoo for when I was like 21.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Well, I'll try to make you laugh sometime so I can see the fuck it, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Um, okay, getting back to zines. Um, so I have I would love to know more about your work with Rock Paper Scissors Collective, um, and like a little bit about the organization. If you want to give a like a very brief history of it, or just talk about how you got involved.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Um, yeah, I would love to do that. Um so I am on the uh the Rock, Paper, Scissors Zine Committee. Um, and we do, we are actually, I'm really glad that we're doing our pot that this podcast now because we are releasing a uh a new zine at just as an organization that's hopefully it's not gonna be monthly. We we don't quite have the the bandwidth for that right now, but it's gonna probably be quarterly. Um so yeah, that's I'll I'll talk about that. Um that's something big that the zine committee is doing right now. We're also gonna be working on uh digitizing our zine library um and uh just having having like an online archive uh because we have an enormous zine library, and it should be more than just a bunch of boxes of zines. Um and as far as I know, people have been trying to do that for years and years and years, and it looks like it might be finally happening. Um so that's good. But yeah, Rock, Paper, Scissors, um, for those of you who don't know, is a uh arts organization, uh nonprofit in Oakland that has been uh around for 21 years now. I believe it was 04 uh that it started. Um and we have uh uh we do workshops, we do um gallery shows, uh zine work nights. Uh I really like hosting uh open mic nights, poetry readings, um, performance kind of stuff, um, zine readings. I I really like that kind of stuff. Um and last year we had a we had this really fun Halloween party um where we had all these just different craft stations, just different crafts you could do, um like caramel apples, uh block printing, which which I do a lot of, so I've I kind of uh oversaw that. Um the uh what is it called? Dyeing the um coffee filters to look like uh big uh flowers, um make Yeah, making uh trash art. We have a volunteer um who's really into the repurposing um and that kind of art. Um but yeah, a lot, yeah, and uh a very robust uh history uh especially of of gallery shows. Um art uh it used to be monthly art shows. We're in a bit of a we're in a bit of a rut right now because we're looking for a new physical space. Um we're currently just a collective, we don't have a gallery space anymore as of about a month ago. Um so we're gonna be hosting things at various other locations until we get our own spot again. Um and uh yeah, it was it was nice for a while to have that, to have that gallery to uh to have shows in, art shows and uh and events. Um because that's that's really that's really why I joined was because I wanted to like I wanted to organize events. Um and I got involved maybe on I I I was kind I was volunteering maybe five or six years ago. I would go in on Saturdays and help uh former zine director uh before you, you're also former zine director, but former zine director Alex Sodari, I would go in there and help them uh organize the zine library. And it was really, we would just like listen to music and read zines. Um and then uh yeah, and I went to just various events over the years, and then I started wanting to really get involved in this would have been around 2023. I actually went to a um for my former job as a chocolatier, I went to a chocolate event where I was vending for my for my work and bumped into somebody from Rock, Paper, Scissors and said, like, hey, we're looking for a new zine director. And I was like, okay, I'll do it. And then uh there's another person who joined who was who was had a little bit more um more time than I did, a little more energy than I did, and kind of became was the zine director for about a year and a half, and then it was me again. Um I'm though I'm technically the zine director, there are only really three or four of us on the zine committee as a whole, so it's I can't and I can't do that all myself. So I don't even really I'm I'm kind of the director in name only. I'm what guys, like I need I need help on this. Like, I'm don't don't think of me as your boss telling you what to do. I I need to swallow my pride on that and not be like, I'm the boss, listen to me. It's like no, how how can we make this happen? Like, I need your help. Plus the whole I'm the boss, listen to me thing is antithetical to being a collective, which is which is in our name, after all. Um, yeah, so we're collective, uh nonprofit. Uh during our members' meetings, we vote. Um, nobody has veto power or well, well, people have people can very, very strongly state that they feel strongly about something, but nobody actually has the power to say, no, we're not doing this. Um we work through it. Um and uh yeah, I've been, I guess I've been a member for about, it must have been, I think it was early 2024 that I officially became a member. So yeah, about two years now. Um that I've yeah, been a member, go to weekly meetings, voting on things. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:35

Yeah, it's a great organization. Um, like you mentioned, I was the zine director for about a year. Um and it was it was great to be involved. I loved doing events. Um, I wish that I had had a more robust zine committee because it was really hard to like get people. This was like early-ish during the pandemic, like so it was still hard to get people to like come to events and like get involved, and I was doing a lot of it on my own and I got burned out, but like really great organization with a lot of history.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Yeah, the history behind it is is really incredible, um, especially when it comes to really we have rock, paper, scissors to thank for Oakland First Fridays. Um, you and me know that, but people listening might not know that. So yeah, you see you see a rock, paper, scissors person say thank you for Oakland First Fridays. Um But uh yeah, and for our 20th anniversary uh show, oh, something something else I should mention about the gallery shows is they're all group shows. Um I've seen one that was two artists, but uh, but most of them are group. The point is not just one artist. Um and uh I made a 20th anniversary zine for the for the 20th anniversary uh party that we had at the end of 2024 uh gallery show. Um and I, yeah, and I I interviewed you for it, I think. Um you were in there, and uh, and it was it was great good just going through all this old stuff we have, old flyers, um talking to people who were who weren't really involved and had gone and gone on to do other things, but having them reach out and be like, hey, this is this is me, this is a picture of me hosting a homemade soap workshop in like 2011 or something. Um so it was it was really cool to see all that. Um and uh interview, I I really love doing interviews like a lot. Um, and I know you probably do too, because that's what we're doing right now. Um, but uh yeah, I really love doing that. Um so that was it it was very difficult for me, um, just because of mostly because of the formatting stuff, um, and also just making myself find time to do it in the in an increasingly busy life. Um, we're all just getting busier, it seems. It's just the world we live in now. I don't know if it's like a aging and growing up thing or if it's just we're all busier in general and there's ex more is expected of us than used to be. Um that's certainly what it feels like. Um, but yeah, I got myself to do it. I did it. Um it's uh currently I think we're sold out of those, but I think I will probably print a couple more for um in a couple weeks, the weekend of I believe, yeah, the weekend of March 28th and 29th, we're gonna be tabling at Dollfest. Um, which will be.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Oh, this will go up after that.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

I'm sorry?

SPEAKER_00 28:41

This will go up after that.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This will go up after that. But anyway, I should print more of those scenes.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Yeah. Um, and also Rock Paper Scissors is the fiscal sponsor of Bay Area Queer Zine Fest, um, which I think is really cool because that gives us us, Queer Zine Fest as an organization, more like opportunities to get like grants and stuff, which I think is really cool and really special.

SPEAKER_01 29:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:10

So it feels good to be pairing with an organization that one has such like a long history of arts advocacy in the Bay Area, and also two, like an organization that is close to my heart and that I've been involved with, and that feels really cool.

SPEAKER_02 29:27

Yeah, we're we're happy to be paired with you as well. I've been I've been to uh yeah, a few Bay Area Queer Zine Fests now, and I've enjoyed it very immensely every single time.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

So Yeah, we just announced we just announced our date for 2026.

SPEAKER_02 29:47

Oh my gosh, when's it gonna be?

SPEAKER_00 29:49

It's gonna be September 27th.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

Okay, alright. I'll make sure that we yeah, because we dropped the ball on uh on tabling last year, so I will uh try to try to apply this year.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, I'll reach out. Um because you get you guys need a table. Thank you. Um okay, so I've got some crowdsourced questions for you, including one from a conversation that I had with a previous guest, Bridget. Um, but the first question to ponder is what do you feel are some faux pas for a first-time zine maker?

SPEAKER_02 30:27

Oh, that's interesting. Thank you for asking me that. I think it, well, it depends on what kind of faux pas you're talking about. Are we talking about content? Are we talking about uh the actual nitty-gritty physical stuff of printing a zine? Um I think a faux pas would probably be not doing a mock-up, not um taking a physical piece of paper, especially if you're a visual person, and like making just a fake zine, be like, this number is gonna be this page, that number is gonna be that page, you're this is gonna be here, that's gonna be there. Um yeah, not doing that and not having just a ton of redundancy in general, because when it comes to things like that, uh if something can go wrong, it's gonna go wrong. Um, also waiting till the last minute, right before a zine fest, to go to FedEx and print your stuff. Um total newbie move. If everything takes longer, the printer's gonna jam, your stuff's not gonna come out right. Um, you know, if you've ever tried to print anything at any FedEx store, there's maybe one or two employees there and they're always swamped. So any getting anybody to help you is gonna take a long time, unless you're like extremely lucky. And then by the time they get to you, they're either gonna be cranky or they're just not gonna know how to help you at all because they don't know. So um, yeah, I think that yeah, not not having not leaving room for things to go wrong, I think is a faux pas because things things will go wrong.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Yeah, I agree. It is funny that not making a mock-up was your first answer, though, because like I don't know if I've ever made a mock-up of a zine. Like even when I was first starting, I was just like, I'm just gonna do it. Like, who cares? It'll be cool. Um yeah, I've just never done it.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Okay, well, I mean that that works for you. Maybe you just have a your your brain works with that stuff a little better than mine does. Yeah, like if I don't have it in my hands, it doesn't make sense to me. So yeah, that's just kind of that's just kind of the way I am.

SPEAKER_00 32:45

For sure, yeah. No, I'm not saying like any one way is better. I'm just like, oh, that's funny that that was like because that's just I don't know, I've never thought. And people have come on the show before and been like, always do a rough draft. And I've just been like, I don't wanna.

SPEAKER_02 32:59

Like, no, no, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

I just don't want to do it.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

I just want to have the rough the rough draft is the zine. It's in a the process is part of the result.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah, I just want to bang it out.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

Yeah. Um bang it out. That's a that's a that's a phrase I use a lot too. It's like, I'm just gonna bang this out, have it in front of me, and then I can change it. Like, I need it in front of me in in order to like make any changes.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

Yeah. At least like I guess I guess in that way I do sometimes make a draft. Cause like once I have it finished, I'll be like, Okay, is this good? And like, how can I make it better?

SPEAKER_02 33:36

That's the age-old question, isn't it? Is this good? Yeah. Is this any good?

SPEAKER_00 33:41

But the thing about zines is that that's so subjective, and like, yep. It could you could think it's trash, and somebody else is like, this is the best zine I've ever read. Or conversely, yeah, you could be like, this is the best thing I've ever made. And somebody could be like, not for me. I don't know, like, not into it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

No, I've definitely because of what I mentioned earlier, just because of my art style, some people are gonna see it and be like, This is amazing, I love your style. And then some people are gonna be like, this looks like a kid drew it, or this looks like somebody made it on MS Paint. And it's just like, okay, well, if you don't like it, it's not for you. You know, don't you don't like it. There's plenty of other art out there for you to consume with your eyeballs and your money. So my stuff's not for you. That's okay. It's not it's not for everyone. Not every thing is not for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

Yeah, just move it along. Go to the next table, leave me alone.

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Um, okay, next question to ponder is how do you price your zines?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

Um, I'm not, I'm honestly not the mathiest person. Um, I've had to come to terms with that in my professional life. Um, both uh being a longtime pastry chef and now being a culinary arts high school teacher. Um, I've had to start thinking about that stuff more than I used to. Um and I really I I usually price them at about twice what it cost me to print them, unless it's gonna be outlandish. So for example, the uh Rock, Paper, Scissors 20th Anniversary zine, it was a lot of pages and it was in color. So it uh it was uh it cost a lot. It cost, I want to say, close to 10 bucks to like print each one at uh at FedEx. So I was like, okay, should I sell these for 20? Is anybody gonna buy them for 20? And I kind of sucked, I was like, nobody's gonna buy their for buy them for 20. So I priced them at 15, which to me felt very steep. Um, but people bought them. People gladly bought them. Um, so it's like, okay, maybe I should have made them 20, or maybe I, you know, no, no, or maybe it's a good thing I made them affordable. It's like, okay, we didn't get back, we didn't get twice what we made, but at least we made a little bit. We made uh, you know, broke even and then got half more of that back. Um but yeah, usually around, yeah, around twice what it costs me to print them.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 36:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:20

Which, yeah, I but and then that said, I've never had a zine on my table that costs more than 10 bucks, other than the one I just mentioned. Um for my own personal stuff, yeah, I've never I've never had one that costs more than 10 bucks. Um and you know, I know you go to zine fests and you see people with like really, really nice zines that are full on, you know, you pick, you're just like, this is not a zine, this is a book. Um, and a lot of times those are those are very expensive to print. Those get sent, you know, to professional printers and they're bound. Um and so those might sell for like 20, 25 bucks or sometimes even more. And uh, you know, if that's what works for that person, then they can go ahead and do it. But I like I like my floppy, crappy, fuzzy dirtbag zines, and that's what I that's what I print.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Um I feel like to your point about the RPS zine being like, you know, 15 bucks or whatever, it was also a fundraiser, wasn't it? So like Yeah. So that like makes a little more sense.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Yeah, because it's like you're donating to us, you're donating to us, you know, being able to continue doing what we're doing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

So um Oh go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 37:33

Oh yeah, no, that's that's basically it.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

So the final question to ponder is actually a question that came up in the last episode with um my guest Bridget, and she was talking about digitizing her dad's like ancient zine collection, and how you know, some people who were making zines in the 90s never really fathomed that the internet would turn into what it is now, and they were putting, you know, their full names, their full addresses, like really personal thoughts in a in a zine and like putting it out there in physical form. And this is not like this context is not to like inform your answer or anything, it's just to like like give context to the question. But it's like how do you manage consent to digitize zines? How do you how do you personally feel about that? Like, kind of getting consent to digitize zines that are maybe older and you don't know the person who made it and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 38:33

Yeah, that's a really good question. Um, and that's just that kind of thing in general is something that I think about a lot. And the answer is there's really no one size fits all answer answer to that question. It's very, it's very case by case. Um, so for example, our huge zine library that we have at Rock, Paper, Scissors, we have a lot of zines that are from the 90s, some that are even maybe from the 80s. And it um, and we think, oh, these people have long since moved on, or maybe they're still making zines, maybe they would be delighted to have this out there on the internet, or maybe they would consider that a major violation um of their privacy, of their uh artistic vision. Um and there, and on one hand, you could say you put something out there in the world, you you go around giving things to people, you give someone permission to sell your zine or have it in their library. You don't you once it's out in the world and it's out of your hands, you don't really get a say what happens to it. But then on the other hand, you could say what you just said. Somebody's somebody said, Yes, I made this back in 1994 and gave it to my friends and left it in coffee shops, and it was just for people to grab and look at. And now it's on the internet forever with my name on it. Um, and uh with the life that I'm living now, that's not really what I want people to see when they Google my name. Um, when you know, potential employers Google my name or whatever. Um and then of course, um there's been a in our very online, very digital world that we live in, there's been a resurgence of of print, especially zines, um, in the in some radical political communities who may or may not want their stuff online for a very, very, very good reason. Um and so I think it's a it's a case by case. I when we're working on digitizing our rock, paper, scissors library, um, yeah, we're definitely gonna take what we have and put it online. Um and I think that um that that is generally okay for us to do because the zines were given to us. Um, but it is there is a little bit of a moral gray area there, I agree. Um and I think that we're gonna we're gonna go for it. And if somebody, even if it's not act, even if you can't actually see the zine online page by page, even if it's just like here's an image of the cover, and we have this in this part of our physical library, almost like like checking out a book at the library. Go find it in the stacks. Even if it's just something like that, maybe people wouldn't even know that they they don't want their name out there in that context at all. Um, and if we're gonna do if if we're gonna take on a project like that, we need to accept that that might happen. We might have somebody reach out to us and be like, hey, I don't want this online. Can you please take it out? And I think that, and of course, we're collective, we need to uh consult each other on things like that. But if somebody asked me that, I would say, sure, you know, I'll take it down. Uh, because you made it. Um, and you didn't, I didn't sign any kind of contract with you that says that we own it, you don't get what you know, and then and that's not our style anyway, not even close. Um so yeah, I think it's I think it's case by case. I think generally, if it's out there, if it's been out there forever, and we're trying to make a zine archive that can be accessed anywhere in the world, that we're gonna put it out there. Um, but but yeah, definitely as we're going through them, you know, if anything seems particularly sensitive, uh, that yeah, maybe we will skip that one.

unknown 42:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Is that another question?

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Yeah, and that's something that didn't come up in my conversation with Bridget, per se, the concept of like just kind of scanning like, you know, the cover, the front and back cover, and being like, this is who made this zine, come check it out in this specific area of our library. Because I think I think when I was talking with her, it was more like should I scan every page of these zines and put it online? You know, but yeah, like, and there's there's definitely a difference in the two ways to do it, you know, because one is like one is like, you know, we're providing you with the cover and maybe a synopsis and information on where to get it yourself or where to come check it out in our collection. And that to me feels like a better way to manage potential consent issues, I guess, around that.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Yeah, because then it's because in that that would be called a library, and then I guess what um it sounds like you and Bridget were talking about would be like an online archive.

SPEAKER_00 43:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:37

Where you can see these are the thousands and thousands of zine we have, and you can click on them and read it every single one page by page. So that's a that's a different story.

SPEAKER_00 43:44

Yeah. Um, yeah. Yeah, and that's something that I didn't even think of when I was talking to her about it, but that's that's an interesting, like, kind of new branch of that conversation.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Yeah, yeah, because it's like yeah Because number one, like what do you mean when you say digitizing library? Are you meaning what? Library or archive? Um, number two, what it what exactly is in here? Um number three, if this person reaches out and says, hey, take my stuff down, are you willing to do that? What's your policy? What's your org's policy on that? So this person, Bridget, had just a bunch of zines from their dad from the other day?

SPEAKER_00 44:25

Her dad's been a zine star for like his entire life, and he's in his 70s, and so he's just got this like huge collection of zines that she inherited. Um and she's like, How do I share these with people? Should I share them with people? That kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 44:42

And she wasn't it really it able to just ask her dad, hey, can I share these? Oh, because they were not his zines, they were just zines that he had collected that belong to other people. Yeah, I see, I see. Okay. Well, then yeah, then that's the same, that's that's the same issue that we would have.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

Yeah. Um, alright. Those were the questions to ponder. Thank you for fielding them. Um I now want to ask you about some of the specific zines you sent me. Um maybe not the RPS 20th anniversary zine because we already talked about that one, but I definitely want to talk about Chicken of the Seaweed and Sick Breakfast Ritual. Um Yeah. So tell me, tell us about Chicken of the Seaweed.

SPEAKER_02 45:27

Okay, so um Chicken of the Sea is is it okay if I talk about Sick Breakfast Ritual first? Because it's kind of one is kind, it's not exactly Chicken of the Seaweed is not exactly a sequel, but it's kind of featuring the same character. Um, so uh both of these comics feature uh Bok Choi the Red Hen, who has become um, I conceived of her when I was in culinary school in 2018. I just drew a cute little chicken on the back of my notebook and drew a little speech bubble saying, like, Bok, be okay. And I was like, Bok like Bok Choi. Um, and then I just started drawing this red chicken um with a big yellow eyeball and four little uh combs coming out of her head. And I was like, this is a really fun character to draw. I think I'm gonna name her Bok Choi the Red Hen. Um so she was born February 3rd or February 2nd, 2018. So she is an Aquarius, and uh she is uh she's busy, she's hardworking, but she's not always the brightest because uh because she's a chicken, and that's okay. She's still she's still lovable, even if she's not too bright. Um, and in um Sick Breakfast Ritual, um, also a uh I'm in that one. Um I draw myself as uh not good Tony or bad Tony, but just Tony. And it's about me uh living in a house with a hen house that she lives in, and I wake up and there's and it it's kind of implied to be a daily struggle where I steal her egg for breakfast. She lays an egg every day because she's a chicken, and then because she's not too bright, she's not always the best at guarding it or keeping it away from me, and then I steal the egg and eat it, and she just goes goes to war with me. So basically in the comic, she lays an egg, she says, Ooh, that was that was rough that I laid that egg. That shit hurt. I gotta, I gotta, I, but I gotta I'm gonna go get a cup of coffee, but I'm gonna lock my hen house so that Tony can't steal my egg for her sick breakfast ritual, which is what a chicken would call, what I imagine a chicken would call a human eating eggs for breakfast. Like, oh, that's disgusting. How can they, how can they do that? Um, and so when she's gone, I I go to the hen house, but it's locked, and then but then she leaves uh the chicken likes to garden, so she leaves her garden hoe by her hen house, and I use it to smash the lock, steal the egg, and cook it. And then she gets back, she sees that the hen house is open and the egg is gone, so she comes after me right as I'm enjoying my egg, and then I have a a secret uh secret stash of magic dust to use in case of a chicken attack. And so I throw it on her, and then we switch heads, and it becomes a chicken with a with a person's head and a person with a chicken's head, and that's the that's the end. Um really that entire comic was just an excuse for me to draw that page. Like that, that, and that actually might kind of harken back to what you were asking before. What's your prop what's your creative process? In that context, I wanted that to be the end. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna draw a chicken with a lady's head and a lady with a chicken's head. How does that happen? And I'm like, okay, this is how it might happen. So that sick breakfast ritual. Um Chicken of the Seaweed is um actually about Bok Choi and her gardening. And uh she's gardening, you know, having a chill morning, afternoon gardening, and then she gets a call from her friend Flower Cat, who's another uh another character in the chicken milkshake family, um, and who's a bit of a conspiracy theorist. And so Flower Cat calls and says, Hey, what are you doing? And they're like, I'm gardening, and Bok Choi says, I'm gardening. And Flowercat says, You know, if you want, if you want healthy vegetables, try seaweed. It's it's good for you. Like, and they're like, Okay, sure, I'm gonna go garden now. And then they notice, um, then she notices that when she was on the phone that a bunch of snails have eaten her entire garden, um, and they're just eating her vegetables, and so she's freaking out, and she grabs her hoe to smash a snail, but then the snails form a big wall of snails in front of her, and she's like, I'm outnumbered, so she has to just walk away and let the snails eat her garden and be sad because she doesn't get her vegetables. And then she remembers what Flower Cat says about seaweed. So she's like, Okay, if I want to make a salad, I need to go find some seaweed. So she dumps out the fish bowl that the fish was in, and if you read it, there's a little, a little tiny fish giving a little middle finger with its fin, which not everybody clocks when they read it, but I have people tell me, like, oh my gosh, the the fish's middle finger was the best part. Um, so yeah, and that was fun to draw. And so she puts it on her head, and then she uses a weed whacker for a propeller, and that's her diving suit. So she walks down to the beach, and um Bokchoy, Bokchoy has a character flaw. She's uh she's a little bit racist. She doesn't like seagulls. Um, she thinks that chickens, chickens are superior to seagulls because they're refined and seagulls eat trash. And uh that would that came from me as a child because I would always just see like after the bell would ring at school and we'd run in to you, but then you'd walk out on the playground after lunch and there would just be seagulls going through the garbage. So if you'd ask Little Me what seagulls eat, I would say seagulls eat trash. Um and so she's like, Oh yeah, seagulls eat trash, but then she goes down to the beach and sees the seagulls swimming. Um, and she's like, Ugh, I don't I don't want to talk to seagulls because they're trash eaters, but they can swim. So I need to ask them, how can they swim in this cold water? It's so cold. And then the seagulls say, Oh, just get in, you'll get used to it. So she goes in, she gets used to it, and then she uses her diving suit to go down and find some seaweed. And then down under the sea, uh, good Tony and bad Tony are there, but they're mermaids. And uh they're looking for some uh some lunch and they're all out of tuna. So they they and then they see a chicken swimming around and they try to eat her. So she uh yeah, that's basically the long story short. I won't spoil the ending of this one, but uh basically the plot of Chicken of the Seaweed is Bokjoy goes under the sea to find seaweed, and then the Tonies are mermaids who try to eat her. So, yeah. Definitely we'll be thinking of uh wanting to do more Bokjoy comics in the future because they're really fun. Um just the zany adventures of a of a not too bright chicken.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Yeah, those comics seem really fun to draw, and like I don't know, I've never done comics because I don't like my drawing style very and I only really know how to draw dogs, but like I don't know, comics seem fun to like conceive of up here and like make and kind of figure out a storyline and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 52:27

Yeah, that would I would love to see your dog comics. Um, dogs are very, very fun to draw. Um I forget who it was. I wish I remembered so that I can properly credit this person, but somebody said, like, there'll come a time in every artist's life when they start drawing dogs. Like it's just it's just like dogs are fun to draw. Like they're all dogs, but they're all so different. There's different shapes, different colors. Um birds are kind of the same way. Um cats are just like, okay, you know, it's you know, it's all the same shape, but just some of them are fluffier and some of them are having you know different colors. But dogs, they have like different shaped heads, different shaped ears, um, smash noses, long noses, pointy ears, floppy ears, tails, no tails, um, and all that.

SPEAKER_00 53:16

Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:19

So dogs are dogs are fun to draw. So I would, if you would ever consider doing a dog comic, I would absolutely love to read it. Um, I've actually had this idea in my head for like years that I've started and never finished. I picture it being more of like an animation. I've done like just very basic animation in uh just on Procreate on the iPad. And I picture like three dogs having a conversation about and like an argument about whether like sticks, tennis balls, or frisbees are better. Because I feel like that's what dogs would talk about.

SPEAKER_00 53:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:54

They'd be like, oh my god, don't you just love frisbees? And they're like, no, no, no, it's all about sticks. No, no, no. You you know, you guys know, come on, tennis balls, but clearly. And like sometimes you'll see somebody walking their dog and it'll just have a stick in its mouth, or it'll have a tennis ball in its mouth. And like every dog I've ever had is just like you, it drops its toy and then you have to carry it. But some dogs will just not put their toy down. Like they'll, and they'll there's this dog in the neighborhood I grew up in, she who she always had her tennis ball in her mouth, and she would even, she never put it down. I think probably because she didn't want the other dogs at the park to take it. Like she never put it down unless she wanted her owner to throw it for her, to the point where she would even bark with her ball in her mouth. It was really cute and really funny. She'd just be like, oh, oh, oh! So yeah, that's a that's a conversation that I that I think dogs would have.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Annie would not participate. She doesn't like any of those things. But she'd be like a quiet observer. She'd be like listening in to see what the other dogs are thinking.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

She seems like a very chill dog.

SPEAKER_00 54:57

She is, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:00

Um, okay, are you currently working on anything? I know earlier you mentioned an RPS quarterly zine, but what else is going on?

SPEAKER_02 55:09

Yeah, so the RPS quarterly zine, um, one of our uh members, Lexi, is kind of spearheading that, Lexi Saret. Um and uh there is a uh I have a piece in there. I won't I won't spoil it. You'll have to get get your get your little pause on the issue, but yeah, uh shoot. Uh it's called the it's called shoot, like rock, paper, scissors, shoot, you know. And uh yeah, it's gonna be a quarterly zine, um, mostly kind of a fanzine format about just what's going on in our local arts community. Um, and that can be anything from I'm part of that community, and this is what uh this is what I make, to hey, check out this band, check out this venue. Um here's where you can find this thing. So it's it's gonna be stuff like that. Um and our yeah, our first issue's done, it's just uh Lexi's compiling it right now, and then we need to send it to print, and then it'll yeah, it'll be out sometime in March. So that's very, very exciting. Uh as far as what I'm working on personally, um well, number one, I'm making a photo zine about my partner's cat. Um, but a little more exciting than that, I have uh this mini zine um that I actually started working on during a um when I was doing a zine workshop at uh Providence House, um, which is in uh uptown Oakland. It's um like affordable housing. Um and I've I've been doing a uh a workshop there uh almost monthly. Um I kind of fell off at the end of last summer, but I started doing them again in February this month, or I guess it's March now, um in February, and we did a um sorry about the texts. Let's see if I can put it on Do Not Disturb. I didn't think anybody. Um yeah, so during that workshop, I made a prompts list because uh unlike me, most people don't just have a bunch of ideas sitting in their notes app waiting to be made into something if they would only have the time. So some people have a lot of free time and no ideas. I have the opposite problem. So I made a I made a list of prompts of just like, don't know what to make your mini zine about. Here's what you can make it about. Um and uh one of the things I wrote on the prompts list was sea creatures having a dance party. And um, and I was like, okay, I guess you know, people want to see an example, and I need something to do while I'm sitting here waiting for people to show up or waiting for people to ask me questions. So I'm gonna work on one. So I I'm working on, sorry if it's backwards or anything, but it's called uh the great big dance party under the sea. Um and you can see I I haven't finished coloring it yet. I need to color these turntables, but there's a dolphin with uh doing like DJing on the cover. Um yeah, so I'm doing it. It's a mini zine, it's the the eight-page mini zine, and I'm I'm still inking it as you can see, um, doing it with colored pencils. Um, but yeah, it's it's a little rhyme. It's like a kid-friendly zine, um, inspired by stuff like the teddy bear's picnic and the owl and the pussy cat. Um, stuff stuff like that that I loved when I was a kid that has definitely influenced me. Um it's very short, I can read it to you if you want. Sure. Um, okay. The Great Big Dance Party Under the Sea. It was a sunny summer day at the beach, just like any other. Waves crashing, surfers thrashing, kids chasing each other. But little did they know, way down below, past the thermocline, the sea creatures were having a party, a dance party, and it was a whale of a good time. DJ McFlipper was feeling quite chipper. Shrimpy Joe was getting low. Sally the seal let out a squeal, and the snails danced very slow. All of the eels were up in their fields when that one lovey song came on, and the sea creatures danced the night away from moonrise until dawn. Yes, it's very short because it's a little eight-page zine, but uh yeah. It's fun, it's a fun, fun little thing. And uh now just anytime I have uh time to kill, I'm can just like pull out my pen, ink, pull out my colored pencils, color. Um, because yeah, anybody who draws comics or anything like that, uh, when you ask them what their favorite part of the process is, they'll be like inking, because you know you've done your pencil sketch already, then you can do your hard black lines, and then it's just like doing a coloring book. That's the fun part. So I'm almost in the coloring book phase of the Great Big Dance Party Under the Sea. And uh yeah, and you will see it at probably whatever is the next Fest Week table at.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:10

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:13

Um, is there anything else zine related you want to promote or talk about?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

Um no, not really. I just want to say, yeah, thank you for doing this. Thank you for hosting this podcast, thank you for having me, and uh all the amazing zines that that you make and uh and for very queer zine fest. Just thank you for all that. Thank you for being you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:35

Thanks. That's so nice.

unknown 1:00:39

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:40

Um where can people find you online?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

Well, um, yeah, I make my uh I do I have my uh art under Chicken Milkshake. Um if you look that up, you can find me. Um and uh yeah, you can find it there, and you can find me at uh yeah, most most zine fests in the Bay Area. I'll try to try to make an appearance. But yeah, chicken chicken milkshake is the name that I that I do my stuff under.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

Cool. I'll put a link to your um I'm looking up your actual I typed in chicken milkshake and it went to Google Images and it's gross. But oh are there like actual chicken milkshakes on there? Yeah, there's like milkshakes with like a chicken wing sticking out. Um and I'm just trying to find your Instagram that I will which is literally just chicken milkshake and yeah. Oh wait, yeah, okay. So I'll link to that in the show notes.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

Wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

Um yeah, thank you. This has been great. It's always so much fun. Like, I think I say this every time I interview someone local, but it like I love interviewing people and I love talking to everyone about zines, but it's also really special to interview like a local person and like a friend. Um, it reminds me of when I first started and I was like just having people over in my living room, like around the site, like this very mic. Uh, everyone would just crowd around. Um so yeah, this has been really fun. Thanks for doing this.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:16

Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:18

Um, yeah, just also want to thank everyone for listening to every maybe not every episode, but if you've been listening to every episode, that's great too. In fact, it's fantastic. Um, but thanks for listening to season eight of Long Arm Stapler. Thank you to all of my monthly Kofi podcast supporters. It means a lot, and it really helps subsidize the cost of hosting and production. Um if you've been enjoying the podcast, or if you've found a new zine maker you like from the podcast, please consider supporting it for as little as a dollar a month. Um, after fees, that's like 60 cents. And again, what else can you do for 60 cents these days? Um there's a link in the show notes and on my webpage, which is also linked in the show notes, or you can go to my Ko-fi, which is uh co that's ko-fi.com slash L N G R M S T P L R, which is just longarm stapler with no vowels. Um I'm back on Tumblr if you want to see my work. Um yeah, uh check out my work if you wanna. But um, thanks again for listening. Stay tuned for the rest of the season. If you're interested in talking to me about your zines or your zine fest, there's a form in my link tree. Um and if you know a zine star who would be interested in chatting with me, send them my way. Um so yeah, thanks for listening to Long Arm Stapler. My name is Meyra. Thank you, Tony. And