Zines can be about many things and can be expressed in different ways. A zine could be a series of drawings about your day. A zine could be a collection of poems about your anxieties. A zine could just be full of distorted images meant to create a subversive agenda. Zines are an independent artist’s way of expressing themselves and sharing their ideals onto the world. One may wonder though, “how can I make a zine for myself?” Well, Nathalie Lawhead is coming out with just the thing for you.

(A quick warning in advance – all the links except for the Twitter one may be nauseating.)

Electric Zine Maker is being made by Nathalie Lawhead, a game developer that has embraced trashy dreamlike zine aesthetics for much of her work. This is especially evident in EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY, an interactive zine released in 2017 that is an absurdist response to trauma and suffering in our society.  Now, she’s putting out this tool to let people create their own zines and express themselves in an easy, fun way.

The tool aims to help you make a standard zine, which is a sheet of eight panels printed out on a single piece of paper that can be folded up and cut a bit to create a small booklet. Through a colorful, playful interface reminiscent of stuff like Kid Pix, you can click on one of the eight panels to get right to editing. Import some pictures, or your own fonts to lend a personal touch to your zine. Maybe get wacky and use images in your sprays to create a stream of faces. When you’re done, you can export it as an easily printable image, with a little tutorial on the side to tell you how to fold things properly.

Electric Zine Maker has launched into Public Beta! Check out Lawhead’s itch.io or Twitter to give it a go!

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