Zines.

I really think we as Folks Who Make Things and Folks Who Like Art Writing Poetry Music Comics Other Things need to explore zines. And I mean ZINES. Nothing glossy. Nothing fancy.

Very. Cheap. Zines.

I've been threatening mentioning I was going to create a guide on how I'm going to approach this -- and I'm going to -- but I am also realizing in the writing I Do Things Highfalutin because I am who I am + had a career in graphic design.

Let's talk about how you can make a zine very cheaply and very pretty.

STEP ONE: SUPPLIES

STEP TWO: ZINE CONTENT

If you are feeling fancy, design it like a booklet -- mock up a sheet of blank paper as if it were a brochure. If not, just design it straight up and down like a letter. There are no zine laws.

STEP THREE: ZINE PRINTING

FedEx Office has photocopiers. Your local library may too. Or your job.

Print 1 copy of your zine on white paper and then photocopy the rest onto colorful paper (or white paper, it be yer zine seadog).

Or print everything on the color paper if you have access to free printing, that's fine too.

The photocopy setup is purely "printing tends to cost more than photocopying."

If you want to slash prices, print 2 per sheet and have FedEx office cut them for you, this will cost $1 - $5 depending on how many sheets you are dealing with. This is for when you're doing a LOT of zines at once.

Or use their manual paper cutter yourself for free.

STEP FOUR: ZINE STAPLING

"Long reach stapler" is what I recommend. There are a few varieties. They tend to be $20 - $30.

Or just use 1 sheet!

STEP FOUR: ZINE POSTAGE

A single first class stamp for 1-2 pages. If you get up to 3+, go to the post office and ask them to weigh a comp you have assembled.

This is a guideline.

It's a really good idea to check at least once how much your zine weighs just in general. Post offices have scales. And are pretty. And have stamps.

OKAY ENOUGH LUSTING FOR THE POST OFFICE FROM THE GHOTS POST OFFICE BLOG BACK TO WORK

STEP FIVE: ZINE MAILING

This is actually the most difficult part. Label printers exist with various costs -- if you're starting out? Go with printable labels.

Your office supply shop will have them and they'll have templates you can drop in the customer addresses.

Save yourself time by using this label as the thing that seals the envelope -- don't lick envelopes.

A key tenet to staying in business is constantly reviewing physical (and mental) labor and stressors and reducing them as much as possible.

Return address labels are intensely cheap in literally every online printer, google "return address labels." Make sure you have this because at least a few of your shipments will come back to you.

STEP SIX: ZINE PRICING

Okay here is where we get uncomfortable because we're talkin' coins.

Prices are based on above links. You can get whatever paper you want, so this is guidelines. All numbers rounded up.

Retail option 01: $1.50 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.09 / net / zine.

Retail option 02: $2 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.56 / net / zine.

Retail option 03: $3 - 1.20 = $1.80 gross - 30% = $1.26 / net / zine.

Should it be $1.50? Should it be $3.00? MORE? LESS?! That is for you to decide. Base it on what your zine contains, how long it takes you to write/draw/etc. it and how you want your flow to be.

STEP SEVEN: ZINE FREQUENCY

When my shop launches, it'll have a zine once a month. We are going to offer a subscription option + a "I just want 1" option.

You can do a zine monthly, or every few months, or whatever.

Keep in mind that the purpose of doing this is to break the dependency on social media marketing.

KEEP IN MIND AS AN AUDIENCE MEMBER TO A CREATOR YOU LIKE THAT THEY ARE DOING THIS TO BREAK THEIR DEPENDENCY ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.

If you have a lot of energy and an audience that comes to your shop a lot? Consider doing a zine monthly.

If you do not have a lot of energy and/or your audience is tapped for cash frequently? Considering doing 1 zine per season.

Consider 2 zines a year if that works better for you!

NO RULES ONLY JOY

Not sure? Experiment! Be upfront! "This is new. I'm figuring this out. Billionaires are tinkering with these things and we gotta figure something else out."

BONUS STEP: NETHERWORLDPOST.COM

so hi I'm atty and I'm your loud long rambler today

Netherworld Post Office used to be @evilsupplyco and now we are rebranding in prep of relaunching. Same person behind the rambles and comics, new name with a more focus (mail instead of mail + seemingly everything else in experiment)

if you enjoyed this ramble and/or like ghosts, monsters, witches, mermaids, and fun stories and projects focused on cozy Halloween, you may like us when we finish the rebranding and relaunching in autumn 2023.

email sign up (the zine will come when we are open)

WHETHER YOU JOIN MY LIST OR NOT

I really, really, really hope you consider doing a regular, or irregular, zine. Something outside of email, something outside of social media, something that connects I MADE A WEIRD THING and the people who say I LOVE THIS WEIRD THING YOU MADE.

The walls are closing in on free social media as a platform for people who make weird things to build audiences for free or very cheap.

And with that...

netherworldpost.com as one final hat pass

good luck folks

thanks for listenin' to the ol' ghost

Zines.

I really think we as Folks Who Make Things and Folks Who Like Art Writing Poetry Music Comics Other Things need to explore zines. And I mean ZINES. Nothing glossy. Nothing fancy.

Very. Cheap. Zines.

I've been threatening mentioning I was going to create a guide on how I'm going to approach this -- and I'm going to -- but I am also realizing in the writing I Do Things Highfalutin because I am who I am + had a career in graphic design.

Let's talk about how you can make a zine very cheaply and very pretty.

STEP ONE: SUPPLIES

STEP TWO: ZINE CONTENT

If you are feeling fancy, design it like a booklet -- mock up a sheet of blank paper as if it were a brochure. If not, just design it straight up and down like a letter. There are no zine laws.

STEP THREE: ZINE PRINTING

FedEx Office has photocopiers. Your local library may too. Or your job.

Print 1 copy of your zine on white paper and then photocopy the rest onto colorful paper (or white paper, it be yer zine seadog).

Or print everything on the color paper if you have access to free printing, that's fine too.

The photocopy setup is purely "printing tends to cost more than photocopying."

If you want to slash prices, print 2 per sheet and have FedEx office cut them for you, this will cost $1 - $5 depending on how many sheets you are dealing with. This is for when you're doing a LOT of zines at once.

Or use their manual paper cutter yourself for free.

STEP FOUR: ZINE STAPLING

"Long reach stapler" is what I recommend. There are a few varieties. They tend to be $20 - $30.

Or just use 1 sheet!

STEP FOUR: ZINE POSTAGE

A single first class stamp for 1-2 pages. If you get up to 3+, go to the post office and ask them to weigh a comp you have assembled.

This is a guideline.

It's a really good idea to check at least once how much your zine weighs just in general. Post offices have scales. And are pretty. And have stamps.

OKAY ENOUGH LUSTING FOR THE POST OFFICE FROM THE GHOTS POST OFFICE BLOG BACK TO WORK

STEP FIVE: ZINE MAILING

This is actually the most difficult part. Label printers exist with various costs -- if you're starting out? Go with printable labels.

Your office supply shop will have them and they'll have templates you can drop in the customer addresses.

Save yourself time by using this label as the thing that seals the envelope -- don't lick envelopes.

A key tenet to staying in business is constantly reviewing physical (and mental) labor and stressors and reducing them as much as possible.

Return address labels are intensely cheap in literally every online printer, google "return address labels." Make sure you have this because at least a few of your shipments will come back to you.

STEP SIX: ZINE PRICING

Okay here is where we get uncomfortable because we're talkin' coins.

Prices are based on above links. You can get whatever paper you want, so this is guidelines. All numbers rounded up.

Retail option 01: $1.50 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.09 / net / zine.

Retail option 02: $2 - 1.20 = $0.80 gross - 30% = $0.56 / net / zine.

Retail option 03: $3 - 1.20 = $1.80 gross - 30% = $1.26 / net / zine.

Should it be $1.50? Should it be $3.00? MORE? LESS?! That is for you to decide. Base it on what your zine contains, how long it takes you to write/draw/etc. it and how you want your flow to be.

STEP SEVEN: ZINE FREQUENCY

When my shop launches, it'll have a zine once a month. We are going to offer a subscription option + a "I just want 1" option.

You can do a zine monthly, or every few months, or whatever.

Keep in mind that the purpose of doing this is to break the dependency on social media marketing.

KEEP IN MIND AS AN AUDIENCE MEMBER TO A CREATOR YOU LIKE THAT THEY ARE DOING THIS TO BREAK THEIR DEPENDENCY ON SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING.

If you have a lot of energy and an audience that comes to your shop a lot? Consider doing a zine monthly.

If you do not have a lot of energy and/or your audience is tapped for cash frequently? Considering doing 1 zine per season.

Consider 2 zines a year if that works better for you!

NO RULES ONLY JOY

Not sure? Experiment! Be upfront! "This is new. I'm figuring this out. Billionaires are tinkering with these things and we gotta figure something else out."

BONUS STEP: NETHERWORLDPOST.COM

so hi I'm atty and I'm your loud long rambler today

Netherworld Post Office used to be @evilsupplyco and now we are rebranding in prep of relaunching. Same person behind the rambles and comics, new name with a more focus (mail instead of mail + seemingly everything else in experiment)

if you enjoyed this ramble and/or like ghosts, monsters, witches, mermaids, and fun stories and projects focused on cozy Halloween, you may like us when we finish the rebranding and relaunching in autumn 2023.

email sign up (the zine will come when we are open)

WHETHER YOU JOIN MY LIST OR NOT

I really, really, really hope you consider doing a regular, or irregular, zine. Something outside of email, something outside of social media, something that connects I MADE A WEIRD THING and the people who say I LOVE THIS WEIRD THING YOU MADE.

The walls are closing in on free social media as a platform for people who make weird things to build audiences for free or very cheap.

And with that...

netherworldpost.com as one final hat pass

good luck folks

thanks for listenin' to the ol' ghost

wallpapers ^~^

Grass Unicorn! 

It was a good little practice painting after so long! 

Couldn’t decide if I wanted a border of not, so here we go! I really like how it came out!!:D

North Beach, San Francisco

the elixir of life

chameleon chameleon

a comic about being bigender, and bisexual, by me! happy pride everyone.

he thinks he's being so smooth with his little face on my leg. i SEE you, villain

bg practice from a photo i took some summers ago, biking home.

i think you might be lost

for those of you not in the uk!

Mermaids - which is a charity that supports trans youths and education about transgenderism - is currently bringing LGB Alliance - an anti trans hategroup under the guise of a "safe space for same sex attracted people" - to court to rid LGB Alliance of their charity status! which would be a big win for us trans people over here in terf island! if youre able to id highly recommend donating to or checking out mermaids they have some nice resources and trans organisations in the uk need all the support they can get !!!!

Exciting news.

y’all better hype this up because this is BIG and is evidence that the berlin patient wasn’t a fluke, and this could revolutionize medicine (there’s already cases of cancers where methods similar to these have worked), and while you’re at it, please join a bone marrow registry!! (especially poc bc these therapies usually only have been done on white patients due to genetic similarities, and the more poc we get in registries the more access poc patients can have to this for cancers, SSS, etc)

Article y’all !!

Just an update from August 2022, we’re onto to number 5 and potentially number 6. Big things are happening at great speed!

WHY CANT WE CATCH A FUCKING BREAK

SOME BITCH JUST REALLY LOOKED US AND OUR CATS IN THE EYE AND SCAMMED US UNDER HER OWN GOVERNMENT NAME... KNOWING WE ARE HOMELESS IN A MOTEL RIGHT NOW... HAHA...

Anyways... if anyone would be so kind as to help us recover the $250 we just lost, so that we can find a REAL place to live before we have to leave this hotel tomorrow, it... would almost make up for the faith in humanity I have lost today.

p/aypal: cryptidfriend105

c/ashapp: $AlyssaKennedy96

v/enmo: Alyssa-Kennedy-37

c/hime: $Alyssa-Kennedy-9

so it turns out our credit is too bad to rent even low-income housing. my girlfriend has started paying off her collections out of necessity, but we can't do this all by ourselves. We NEED about $400 to finish paying off these debts so we can rent ANYTHING ANYWHERE, or we are truly going to be out of this hotel and on the streets. I am begging anyone for ANY help right now. Even 1 dollar, even 1 reblog or repost.

This blog is pro-choice and believes that Women have an absolute right to decide what to do with their own body and should be given the absolute best when it comes to their health and safety.

That’s absolutely horrific.

In nursing homes, hospices etc people with dementia and other similar issues may forget that they are old and out of the closet with a wife and kids and panic and think that they need to hide their sexuality all over again. It is very traumatic for them and their family, often is the people who had violent and homophobic parents who suffer the most severely.

Remember your own mortality and fight for when you can’t

It’s not that queer people with dementia forget they’re out and happy, it’s that people who work the care centers are homophobic. Elderly people in hospice care are already targets for abuse; it’s so much worse for queer elders. Not just abuse from the workers, but other residents, whom they are in 24/7 living space with and dependent upon.

Don’t make this about passive forgetting they’re out and erase the active abuse and homophobia/transphobia elderly people in care face.

when i was 15, i felt like… really deeply DEEPLY uncomfortable with the fact that there were cameras everywhere at my highschool. the sensation of not being able to walk to class without being monitored somehow really fucked with me for some reason.

this only worsened after seeing this segment on the school news that featured various stupid stuff caught on the hallway cameras, like people falling down or readjusting their underwear when they thought the hallways were empty. 

but they werent. there was someone watching, and they forgot to police their behavior and ended up getting embarrassed for it. everyone laughed at this segment. i remember the classroom being filled with snickers as someone fell flat on their face. i wasn’t a “superwoke” kid or anything, but i didnt think this was funny. i thought it was scary. what if that was me? what if i got caught fixing a wedgie on camera without even knowing it? 

i remember these cameras being used for everything – spotting dress code violations, catching students skipping class, etc. you can argue that they shouldnt have broken the rules, sure, but that doesnt excuse the concept of Being Constantly Watched. 

and what about the times when they weren’t doing something wrong? like when they were walking back from the bathroom or tripping over their own feet? did that warrant embarrassment and shame from their watchful spectators? does existing in a school hallway warrant surveillance? 

this brings me to the concept of anti-shooter architecture. there is a rising interest in school layouts that prepare for the possibility of a shooter roaming the halls. these improvements include bulletproof glass, concrete cover, and…. something scary. 

many of these highschool floor plans include some type of circular or central “watch tower” feature, and the designers actively boast about it being a panopticon. a panopticon. the same thing they use in prisons to enforce the idea that the prisoners are always being watched, though they can never really know when. 

what kind of effect will “anti-shooter architecture” have on kid’s minds? the constant threat of violence is already taking its toll on teenagers who have undergone active shooter drills, and this concept of air-tight security (clear backpacks, metal detectors, camera surveillance, constantly locked doors, etc) is not really an environment you would want to raise a child in, so why are we sticking kids in schools like that for 7-8 hours a day?

which leads into the next thing. many people’s solution to this is more guns, which equates to police presence in schools. ive already seen videos coming out of school cops beating black kids and ordering muslim girls to take off their hijabs. but beyond the racism and xenophobia, it’s another (now living) reminder of the unsafe environment these kids find themselves in. another reminder that theyre being watched and their behavior is being judged according to the law, or whatever the cop or teachers find inappropriate. that standing up for themselves or arguing can be taken as hostile and warrant physical intervention. 

police presence on campus grounds is DIRECTLY used to suppress student activism. you know that.i know that. we know that. you remember that photo of the cop spraying a line of peaceful protesters? you remember that cop that tackled a student for holding a sign? you remember the fucking car fuls of kids that were arrested for protesting? 

police are our enemy, but they can be found in plenty of highschools and colleges now. even in elementary schools, where young children are being taught to obey and trust cops. the conditioning is being started young, and if you don’t conform to it, you become a watched enemy on your own campus. 

what kind of affect will this militarization and surveillance in schools and campuses have on future generations? it’s impossible to deny that environment has an effect on development, so what kind of behavior are we encouraging when we educate children & young adults in schools that not only prepare them for violence, but instill them with the idea that they are constantly being watched, monitored, and judged? that they could be victims of gun violence at any time, or that protests are an excuse for police brutality? 

She has a FREEEEE online event coming up at the US Botanical Garden -

A link to her tiktok. She’s got lots of great information on foraging!

Cops use 'I'm afraid' as they turn off their body cams and execute someone. #ACAB

Finally, some good news.

👉🏿 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/16/health/abortion-pills-fda.html

STILL USE PRIVATE AND SECURE BROWSERS TO MAKE THESE PURCHASES AND CHECK YOUR BANK DISCLOSURES RE: privacy information. Do not post about it and do not leave digital trails about if and when you do this