Inspiration:
It's now time to actually start digging into the world of the Zine.
After certain reccomendations made by the course leaders, a "Zine Library" at the Nexus art cafe on Dale street in Manchester, was suggested for inspiration, since it currently houses hundreds of interesting Zines, on a rather wide variety of topics.
Here is a collection of some of the best they had to offer, the ones which particularly stood out from the crowd:
Qi inspired Zine:
This was most defiantly a big favourite out of the collection. Pages of hand drawn and hand written genuine and original quotes from Alan Davis and Stephen Fry, in "honour" of the show. Good for a laugh and well designed.
The simplicity and general humour to the design, with the added varnish covers give a very attractive look to the publication.
"Peaple Magazine" Zine (Possibly the worlds smallest Zine):
This unique work of art was the most simplistic Zine of the lot, but contained it's own miniature humour, and was hand crafted. Overall it's genuine theme and aims at laughter are what made it unique all by itself, which is defiantly a good aspect of any zine publication!
"Soundwave" a zine about a drunken night out:
A very well illustrated publication, based simply on one girl's drunken experience of thinking she was a sound wave. A fully illustrated, almost dance-like book of images, which is almost like reading the stills of an animation. Consisting of just pictorial content, (spare from the front and back cover), this zine is a great example of how the illustration world impacts zines, and visa versa, in terms of the zine culture.
Milk Two Sugars Pocket Edition:
This particular zine simply encodes various illustrations, some with text, other without. Falling under the banner of the promoting of various illustrators, this particular publication by Bob Milner and Tom Senior is a monthly A5 publication, and has been going since 2006. Some very interesting puns, and illustrative ideas in this particular zine. Almost like a playground, where artists are allowed free entry to do whatever they like. It's interesting to see the results, especially on an inspirational level.
Other Publications and interesting items:
Overall, I feel that after browsing a great many zines, (some of which that were not all featured, I have a good idea of what the current modern day zine culture is about, and how illustrators, groups, clubs and more get their work across using this particular format.
Many ideas spring to mind concerning the brief, and overall, I believe that the zine could be a new found favourite format of mine, next to the graphic novel and comic book.
I do wonder if combining the two would be a good idea? hmm...
