How did you get into zines?

I’ve always been an over-sharer. I had a public diary (I think people call those blogs now?) on my Angelfire website when I was 12-17. So I guess making zines made sense as a natural outlet as I got older. I got my first zine when I was 14 when I went to a small ska show in Kalamazoo for the band Catch-22. The guy on the road with them was selling his zine for a dollar or two. At the time I didn’t know what a zine was, but he told me if I bought it it would help him buy a Pepsi, so I did. The zine was called Worthless and it was a photo essay about a homeless single mother in the punk scene in New Jersey. A few years later I read the book Hard Love by Ellen Wittlinger which featured an arc about zines. That’s when I made the connection that the photo essay was, in fact, a zine. My freshman year of college, during the first week, I met my best friend who wrote a zine all throughout high school. He showed them to me and showed me other zines he had in his collection and I was hooked. I started making my first zine a few months later.

What zines have inspired you or have you really connected with? and why?

Mostly diary comics. As someone who was formally trained in fine art, I could draw anything from observation without a problem. However, I couldn’t make stuff up for the life of me. I definitely couldn’t draw cartoons. Seeing some early scratchy drawings by Jeffrey Brown, Nicole Georges, and Snakepit showed me that I didn’t have to be a polished illustrator to make cartoons that were still legitimate. My zine was originally a cut and paste, collage-y zine before I started looking at comic zines. I started illustrating my own zine at issue #6, a split zine with the previously mentioned best friend, Daniel. We both drew comics for our halves of the zine and from there there was no turning back. I started looking at more and more illustrators like Clutch, John Porcellino and Allison Cole and they all helped me refine my style and get ideas for how I was trying to draw.

When did you start List? Did you make any zines before List?

I started making List in 2004, in the second semester of my freshman year at art school. Almost 7 years ago! It’s my first zine I ever made. I’m sort of baffled that I just chose an idea and have stuck with it for so long. I’ve made a few other one-shot zines on the side, but List is definitely the main thing I work on.

When you went to the Maryland Institute College of Art, were they supportive of zines?

I think so. For my foundation drawing class, Daniel and I collaborated on a zine and turned it in for an assignment. I made a few other zine and book-like things in my first year or two. When I became an animation major, it was really natural to make zines for various projects, especially when story boarding and working on personal narratives that could later be turned into short films. I also had a printmaking class my Junior year called Zine! It was a letter press class but the focus was to make a zine each week. It was so much work! A lot of people ended up making things that were more like artist books but several of us ended up with more ‘zine-y’ kind of results. This is where I made List #10. It was my final for the class, and the reason you can’t find it anymore. It was a hand-silk screened edition of 50 printed on childrens’ flashcards. Artsy fartsy.

Word on the street (or Twitter) is that you recently finished List #14. What is this issue about and how is it different from past issues?

Each issue of my zine is just autobiographical so it reflects on whatever is going on in my life at the time. For the past 4 or 5 issues, my zine has hit right during a big transition period in my life, studying abroad, finishing school, moving, ending a long-term relationship, etc. This one is a little different in that it’s sort of about routine and feeling a little lost as a result of nothing big happening in the last year. It’s slightly melancholic and directionless, but also served as a way to help me reflect on myself and make decisions about what I want to be doing and where I want to be. So I guess it’s slightly less thematic than previous issues. I also don’t have a section for submissions this time. My zine used to come in three sections, my lists, found lists, and guest lists, and since it’s evolved to be more autobiographical and less abstract, having these sections has started to make less and less sense. It was a hard decision not to include a submissions section because I really enjoy seeing what people write and draw.

You have lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Baltimore, and Chicago.  How zine friendly is each city you’ve lived in?
I don’t know how zine-friendly Kalamazoo is since I didn’t really get in to zines so much until after I moved away. I did make a zine library at a local coffeeshop there several years ago. I collected donations and set it up. The coffeeshop has since closed and I’m actually not sure what happened to the library!

Baltimore and Chicago are both wonderful cities for independent art and literature. Baltimore has Atomic Books and Chicago has Quimby’s, so finding zines and also selling my own has always been easy for me. Both cities have various other bookstores that also sell zines, as well as zine-related events like diy fairs or readings. Great places to be a zinester!

You recently helped organize the first Chicago Zine Fest.  How was you experiences with that? What did you learn that will change the way you handle next years event?

I will honestly say it was more work than any of us ever expected. it was really rewarding and I learned so much about planning a large event. In the beginning, we actually all thought ‘what’s so hard or takes so long about planning a zine fest? We really just need to find a space and invite people.” pssssh.

As for next year, the main difference is that it’ll be nice to have a few more months this year to get it planned. Hopefully we can get a little more space since table space sold out last year pretty quickly. We’re also trying to raise a little more money beforehand this time. We didn’t plan for much of a budget last year and all sorts of little unexpected costs came up so we were scrambling to do last minute fund-raising up until the week of the fest.

Is there anything you’d like to see? We’d love suggestions.

Do you have any advice for people new to creating comics/zines?

Just dive in. Like most things, hands-on experience is what you’ll learn from most. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t sell a ton of zines. Just make sure your zine has good content that makes it worth reading and try to get it into peoples hands. With each passing issue, more and more people will probably read it and your zine will start to gain it’s own reputation. This is when zine-making starts to get really fun. You just have to put in the time and effort in the beginning to get results in the long-run. Also, submit to other people’s zines if you can/have time. It’s a great way to become part of the zine community and connect with other zinesters.

Any last comments?

Try hard. It’s more interesting.

**Be sure to check out Ramsey’s beautiful website, everydaypants.com, for info on how to order her zines.