Reports of the revival of print media get louder by the day. Soon we’ll have a trend piece in the_New York Times_and that’s how we’ll know it’s over and we can all go back to our phones. Until then, I thought I would share some notable developments from the artists and writers I follow:
- Sarah McColl’s beloved email newsletter, Lost Art, is folding up shop and being reborn as Paper Choir, a 4x / year mailing “of various risograph ephemera (zines, recipes, notecards, illustrated diaries, stickers, collaborative texts, posters, postcards, broadsides, etc.)” Can’t wait to get the first mailing in March!
- The poet Annelyse Gelman just sent out a call to her mailing list: “Are you sick of email? Me too. I am doing SNAIL MAIL instead and have written a zine, ART SCHOOL REPORT #1, which I would be happy to send to you for free. It’s about Clown, Internal Family Systems, & other stuff.” (By the way, Annelyse’s website is sooooo good, strong multiverse.plus vibes.)
- I just received my first copy of the relatively new and extremely gay poetry magazine & Change. I subscribed after reading Xander Beattie’s interview with publisher Kevin Bertolero. The subscription is just $3 per issue. As Kevin explains,
“That fee covers the cost of printing each issue (usually somewhere around $1.50 per copy), and then $0.10 for the envelope, and $1.36 for the stamp. The format of the issue is actually the way it is (including choice of paper stock) so that each issue will weigh under 3 oz, which means it can be mailed through USPS as a letter.”
- Robin Sloan sent three zines through the mail last year. I loved receiving them, these beautiful two-tone risoprints on A3 paper, tri-folded so that they fit in a 6x9” booklet envelope. In December he sent out an issue of his newsletter with links to six new, Bay Area-based print outlets, and explained, “… you have to understand, Bay Area media has felt, at times, shockingly thin. This is an embarrassment of riches.”
- The tech journalism website The Verge even published a zine, Content Goblins. I had sticker shock for the shipping ($10.74 on a $20 zine), but went ahead and ordered it. The design is excellent, but the content is more magazine than zine—the articles are simply high-quality The Verge articles. I don’t think I’d buy a second edition.
I have been plotting my own entry into this space, ever since I got a new printer for my birthday back in 2024. Among many experiments over the last 18 months, I made a zine for this year’sholiday card. More to come soon—from me, and apparently from everyone else, too. I say, the more the merrier! |
