2021-12-14 Zines

I’m in the home office, after work. That is, I have done the work, booked the hours, signed off for all intents and purposes, but I’m still sitting at the company laptop, in front of the company monitor. My keyboard (mine!) and my headphones (mine!) are in front of me, and next to the monitor is my microphone (mine!) with the red light at the top, reminding me of HAL. “I can’t do that, Dave.”

Something strange is happening. I ignored the zines that showed up all over the place when Kickstarter did something to encourage them. I don’t know what they did, but I know a lot of people started doing zines. I thought to myself that zines were blog posts, printed, photocopied, and sent by post, with more work to be done for less reach in both the number of people reached and the number of years they’d be available.

But these days I’ve been reading the smolZINE for Gemini, and the super small format does something for me. Weird!

If you have any feedback or just want to discuss anything related to gemini or smolZINE hit me up at the above email or ping me on the fediverse at kelbot@retro.social and/or use the #smolZINE tag. – smolZINE - Issue 15

smolZINE - Issue 15

And just now I read a story by Celine Nguyen in COMPOST, “a magazine about the digital commons.” I like the idea, and I liked the story!

A gentle choose-your-own-adventure story about mushroom foraging, coming to terms with Indigenous displacement, and sustaining online community. What happens when the internet brings you closer to nature? – Logging Off

Logging Off

I’ve been wondering about the subtle pressure to publish in a blog-like fashion because that’s how I register activity, subscribe to people and sites. It’s all about the feed. But a magazine doesn’t work that way. Volumes get published one after another, of course. But it’s not that constant stream of news that a blog promises. I’m interested in that.

​#Publishing ​#smolZINE ​#Gemini ​#COMPOST