Day 5 was the day for teaching yourself a new skill to be used for and/or in your zines. Stepping out of your comfort zone and learning how to draw a comic when you typically write prose or poetry or learning how to sew binding when typically staple are fun ways to reboot and refresh your zine-atude.
Mara, one of the Richmond Zine Fest organizers and the designer of this year’s main RZF poster, decided to screenprint a zine for the first time.
If you’re interested in learning how to screenprint, the following website has a really simple DIY tutorial: Instructables. Another way of not only discovering new techniques but also supporting local art resources is to investigate what art studios near you offer courses and access to tools of the print trade. Here in Richmond we’re lucky to have spaces like Studio Two Three. Coming up July 16th, they’re offering a class on Screenprinting Halftones, 6-9pm for only $35!
Day 6 was the day for contributing to an incredibly important resource for zine folks, librarians, and the zine curious/nostalgic. Zinewiki.com is the zine encyclopedia that anyone can edit. No matter how random or obscure your zine may be, you can add it to the zine wiki, which also includes entries for distros and zine fests. We discovered that our page was woefully out of date, and we’ve fixed that!
Richmond Zine Fest 