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 From the Farther Trees: A Magazine of Fantasy is a bimonthly 'zine of all-new fantasy fiction. My partner and I just edited and published the first issue. What's a zine? I'd loosely define a zine as a self-published or small-press magazine, often with an alternative or DIY aesthetic. I associate them with genre fiction, fandom, and poor quality photocopies, but lots of people nowadays turn them into serious art pieces, printed in professional quality on glossy paper. There are also lots of online zines, or e-zines, which can run the gamut from professionally-paying fiction markets to blogs that will print literally anything, so long as you don't expect to get paid for it. You can find some quality fiction and poetry in e-zines, but it all depends on the editorial staff and their standards. One of my personal favorites is Prismatica Magazine. (I'm not affiliated with them or receiving anything from them -- I just really like them.) I've been writing and publishing zines for almost twenty years, off and on. My first zine was pure old school: hand-written and hand-drawn, filled with diatribes against Dubya Bush and the military industrial complex, photocopied at a Staples back when Staples let you print things on the honor system. That was a great way to print twenty copies and only pay for one, but they don't let you do that anymore. I traded various issues of that zine with people in a zine community on LiveJournal, and left a handful at a coffee shop in North Carolina. Those were the days. My next zine was exclusively online, filled with speculative fiction from amateur writers. I published some great stories from authors all around the world, some of whom went on to be pros, and I commissioned some amazing cover art. Uploading pdfs, though, isn't nearly as satisfying as physical zine-making. The fact that I didn't charge anything for the pdfs also made that project short-lived. This new zine draws together my favorite elements from both approaches: I did the cover myself, with papercraft and paint; my partner did some sketches for the interior; we're publishing seven all-new stories from legit fantasy writers; and the zine is a physical, tangible item, not just some internet ephemera that will disappear in a year. We're thinking about calling up local alternative bookshops to see if they're interested in selling some. For now, you can buy it through our Etsy shop! Who else here makes or reads zines? I've begun collecting any old-school zines I find in comic book shops and used bookstores, but I'm out of touch with the present day zine-making community and don't know a lot beyond my own experiences. Let's trade zines! Time Cowboy fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Aug 6, 2020 |
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Aug 6, 2020 16:39
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 09:34 |
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Thank you! That sounds like an adorable zine of sorts to me. Do you remember anything about the stories, articles, and pictures you created?
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Aug 7, 2020 20:13
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BleedingPhoenix posted:I'd never really thought about it for a while, and this thread reminded me. I think I'd have much better luck nowadays than back then, probably because of age and technology making everything easier to print. Printers don't seem to have improved much in the last seventeen years, at least not in my price range. Originally I had wanted to print From the Farther Trees statement-sized (5.5" x 8.5"), but our printer did some wild things with paper that size, so I had to reformat the entire first issue to make it letter-sized. In the future I want to figure out how to solve this problem. A statement-sized 'zine just feels more polished.
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Aug 8, 2020 15:15
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It’s fancy paper from an art supply store, which we cut and mod-podged to the spine to hide the staples and firm up the binding. I’ve never used InDesign—didn’t know it existed, actually. I still use Word to lay out the text and interior illustrations, despite the limitations of Word.
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Sep 11, 2020 15:20
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Our second issue just came out! Seven all-new stories and poems from an international cast of authors (many of them have won awards!), plus original fantasy art! Please buy a copy so we can keep paying our authors!
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Sep 22, 2020 15:13
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A bit late, but the December issue is now out, for anyone who enjoyed the first two (or wants to hop on and support small press publishing)! https://www.etsy.com/listing/922004911/from-the-farther-trees-issue-3-december
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Dec 13, 2020 16:49
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| # ¿ May 12, 2024 09:34 |
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The February issue is here, with 12 new fantasy stories and poems from an international roster of authors! https://www.etsy.com/listing/955094473/from-the-farther-trees-issue-4-february
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Feb 2, 2021 21:34
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