One of my goals this 2023 is to make a fanbook/zine. In order to make it a reality, I’ve been reading articles about how to make one. It’s one of my art goals to make a fanbook and sell it. Because of my desire to make more finished pieces, I actually tried to join fanzines at the end of last year.
Fanzines are the equivalent of doujinshi. I don’t really understand how they choose participants especially if it’s for profit. Art is after all subjective. And these for-profit fanzines, even probably those for charity which are actually pretty expensive, require the contributors to be professional level so most contributors are already established in the community, have a lot of followers, or are already really good. On top of that, the fanzine community always has drama nowadays. From issues like not being able to qualify as a participant not because of your skill as a creative but due to other reasons like you’re not a friend of a particular group of people to full-on scamming people. The process of publishing a book is in itself stressful. I think those issues mentioned above only add more stress especially if you are a contributor. That’s why I decided that maybe I should just make my own fanzine.
My research informed me that fanzines should not be artbook level. Fanzines started as passion projects and do not necessarily have superb art. It’s all about expression. I think this version of fanzines is relevant to my goal. My experience in making short comics made me realize that if you aim to make comics, you must hone your skill as a storyteller and as an artist. Both skills must complement each other that’s why I really admire the doujinshi culture of the Japanese. Most of the popular mangaka started making doujinshi.
In Japan, doujinshi includes either fanwork or original art. Some mangakas even publish doujinshi of their serialized works. It’s awesome!
I know my art is not professional level yet but I’ll continue doing my best to get there. I hope this fanzine project will push through!
Wish me luck!
Psyche's Art Blog 
Zines are so great, there’s so much freedom. I only learned about fandom zines in the last 2 years, and was surprised people didn’t know about its roots in being super accessible and radical. Good luck!! FIGHTO!! ٩(◕‿◕｡)۶
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Thank you very much! Im in the process of doing it and I’ve even reached page 13 already. 😆
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