I was trying to remember when I last did a real zine and without digging them all out I think it was around 1998, so today was rather momentous as I printed out and stapled (with my dusty but trusty long-armed stapler) the very rough draft of the GDFAF zine in all it’s 44 page glory. Mainly this was so I could check the layouts I’d done on the computer actually worked on paper but I was also getting impatient and wanted to hold it in my hands, no matter how unfinished (and in the case of the last seven pages unwritten) it was.
As expected, the whole experience is kinda strange. Firstly it’s interesting how web-based my design thinking is these days. I’ve structured the reviews as one long flow of text rather than making each post an individual item, which works because that’s how they were presented in the first place. Originally I tried breaking them up but it just felt wrong. I’ve also inserted the photos in the same manner as the posts with each band having a photo at the point where they’re talked about. Again, this works but it does mean the layout of each page isn’t consistent and is probably something I’d have avoided back in the day.
Another weird thing has been going back to DTP. Back in the 90s the most advanced I got was using WordPerfect to lay out the text in columns leaving spaces for the images which would be stuck on with glue later. Now I’m using the Apple Pages package for the whole thing and producing a PDF (using the excellent CocoaBooklet to paginate everything properly). Again, it’s really strange coming at this from a web design perspective. The whole concept of objects not flowing with the text is really odd along with the fact that inserting or deleting a sentence will mess up all manner of things further down the document. And there are some limitations to Pages that I can’t find a way around (not helped by Pages being a fucking stupid name for a program when it comes to Google…). In fact, unless I’m just doing it all horribly wrongly I’d say Pages is not a robust DTP package by any stretch of the imagination. It’s very user friendly but that’s probably its downfall. But I also suspect a lot of this is me really wanting to just print out the text and break out the glue.
And then there’s the photos themselves. My zines were usually about comics so the artwork was easy to get down to stark black and white for photocopying but my gig photos tend towards large patches of colour, usually red, so I have concerns about the zine being populated by black rectangles. Some experimenting did reveal the Halftone Pattern filter in Photoshop which is pretty crude but seems to do the job, though I’m not overly happy with seeing my lovely hi-res photos reduced to the resolution of a cameraphone. But then I am going for that photocopied zine aesthetic…
The weirdest thing, though, is how long it is. 15,000 words doesn’t seem that much when you’re scrolling in a browser but spread over 35 pages it’s most impressive. I look at it and think “I wrote that”.
I may have gotten my zine bug back.
Funnily enough, I’ve been reading Vicious 2 today, lent to me by Leon Hewitt, who’s active on the small press comics and zine scene. We met up yesterday to talk about all things zine and he brought along some samples of zines past and present. Vicious had bypassed me so it was interesting to delve into this new and unfamiliar slice of comics history. Anyway, I loved its access to everyone ethic and the mix of articles. The pick of the crop was, for me, the article on drawing by Andy Roberts. So if you’ve caught the zine bug again, Pete, I for one think it’s a good thing.
I too am struggling with getting the most out of Pages. Part of the problem seems to be that there is no formal manual to refer to – even a pdf file would be better than what is provided in the Help field. The DTP stuff is probably all there – for example you can hard anchor an image or object – but the default settings seem to be more like the floating horror that is a Word document. I am also trying to import large digital files and this is not working as well as I would like. It probably makes sense to pare the image files down from megabytes to kilobytes.
The good news is that you have been able to produce a largish 35 page document. Looking forward to reading it again in print form.
I used to use Adobe PageMaker on TRS2. Robbins would put together his Leaflits on Word which would completely baffle me. Tried it once and confused the much !
Have to design a booklet for the day care centre i’m part-timing at, and its gonna be Microsoft Publisher so I guess i’ll be getting some practice in. You’re right about the glue thing Pete ! Blu-Tak was an indispensible aid to my small pressing days.
I still remember how confused i got when i first met a double-sided copier that didn’t need to have its trays open for one side copied booklets. Yadda Yadda Yadda :)
PS Really looking forward to this, I’ve not had time to read most of the reviews yet !