Reproductive technology!

[Lee Osborne]

Not the human kind, the paper-based kind!

I'm wondering how you put your zines together. I like using as little technology as possible - my first zine was done using almost entirely analogue methods, reproduced using a photocopier, but it turned out to be hideously expensive. I did some calculations and worked out that it's much cheaper to print them at home using a mono laser printer, so what I do now is make my pages using typewriter, glue, pens etc., scan them into a PDF, and print using the laser. I've "digitally remastered" my first zine using this method and it looks more or less the same while costing less to print. Obviously a mono laser looks similar to a photocopier anyway.

What I'd really like to do is make a zine using the lowest tech method possible, and I'd love to do one using a spirit duplicator or similar ancient machine. Problem is where to find one, and the supplies to make it work - any ideas, anyone? What simple machinery do you use, if any, in your zine making?

[Vicky Stevenson]

Wouldn't old printmaking techniques be the most low tech? Lino being the cheapest, but probably one of the most time consuming and restricting. If anyone letterpressed a whole zine, they'd be my hero.

[Lee Osborne]

Vicky Stevenson said:

Wouldn't old printmaking techniques be the most low tech? Lino being the cheapest, but probably one of the most time consuming and restricting. If anyone letterpressed a whole zine, they'd be my hero.

I'd love to do something like that! I've got some printing kit knocking about that I'd love to add to, but I think it would have to be for a very small zine.

[Blake]

Hey Vicky, do a search for Artnoose's Ker-Bloom zine. I believe these are 100% letterpress. Then there is Tim Fay's Wapsipinicon Almanac that comes out once a year, set by Linotype.

Vicky Stevenson said:

Wouldn't old printmaking techniques be the most low tech? Lino being the cheapest, but probably one of the most time consuming and restricting. If anyone letterpressed a whole zine, they'd be my hero.

[Emma Jane Falconer]

I've got a letterpress zine- Kerbloom. It's great. I can spend all day looking at the type. Alex W gave it to me as a present, and a great present it was.

[Emma Jane Falconer]

John Bull printing kit maybe? Now *that's* some effort to put in ...

[apartmentcat]

carve each page out of a wood block like in the days before the Gutenberg press?
I'd love to do a lino cut art zine one day.
*sighs*