Couve Zine Swap

Building zine culture in Clark County, WA!

✳

Resources

compiled & maintained by Fae & yr shoulder devil
last update 2025.05.15

An 8-page mini zine, as shown below, is a great place to start for beginners! All you need is A piece of printer paper, this template, a pair of scissors, and your imagination.

Have an idea but don’t know where to start? Need some inspiration? Review the resources below!

There are so many resources for zinesters and makers out there! This page will be a living document of any and everything a zine maker or enthusiast might find useful.

Find a broken link? Let us know!
Have something you’d like to add? Contact your Friendly Neighborhood Shoulder Devil!

In-House Resources

two assembled copies of 1/4 size "The Meta Zine: A Zine About Making Zines"

“The Meta Zine: A Zine About Making Zines” was made by a friend of the CZS who gave us permission to link directly to the zipped folder of all the files you’ll need to print your very own! A quarter-size crash course in zine sizes; making originals, master flats, and print run copies; and navigating the printers at the local library, “The Meta Zine” is a reference document written with humor.

The Meta Zine will always be free! Make copies for your friends today!

The hand-written cover of the 1/8 mini zine "The 'Couve Zine Swap Directory". It is in vibrant colors with little hearts, sparkles, and stars around the words.

“The ‘Couve Zine Swap Directory,” 1st ed. (05.11.25) is a 1/8th mini-zine that reproduces the current CZS Little Free Distro Bins map, along with the names, addresses, and hours of all the participating locations. You may find copies of the Directory in the bins, but if you’d like to print your own copy, you may!

Your Shoulder Devil’s Patterns and Files Hoard

Want to make a full-size magazine holder out of cardboard? How about a bitty one for 1/8th size mini zines? How about templates for turning extra paper into self-mailing stationary? Maybe a stock box (coming soon)? Check out the folder and grab what you’re interested in!

Local Resource of Note

a hand holds a copy of the book "stolen sharpie revolution: a D.I.Y. resource for zines and zine culture"

Stolen Sharpie Revolution by Alex Wrekk is lauded as one of the quintessential texts on zinemaking. Featuring sections by other zinesters, Stolen Sharpie has the feel of a compzine and is jam packed with information. You can buy your own copy most places books are sold, but you can go directly through Wrekk’s website of the same name.

stolensharpierevolution.org is similarly jam packed with resources, including an events calendar, listings for local distros, and more!

Additional RESOURCES

Organized by general function and then alphabetical by name.

Clip Art, Images, & Collage Fodder

Contests & Submissions

(organized by date)

WE NEED ZINES Transmission Prison Project sends free books and zines to queer incarcerated folks. We would love help sourcing digial copies of zines for us to print and mail out that are informative about topics we frequently get requests for (next slides). SHARE WITH: TRANZMISSIONPRISONPROJECT@GMAIL.COM FREQUENTLY REQUESTED TOPICS INCARCERATED RESOURCES resources specifically for incarcerated people, including reentry resources, and especially information on being queer and trans in prison. QUEER TOPICS information about sexuality and gender spectrums, identities, resources, and erotica. We are looking for informational zines about: HEALTH AND WELLNESS yoga, equipment-free exercises, meditation, mindfulness, grief and grieving CREATIVE PRACTICES crochet patterns, how-to drawing, cartooning and manga, lettering and calligraphy, origami, coloring page zines
  • The Washington State Zine Contest via Washington Center for the Book
    2025 Deadline: PASSED (March 28, 2025)
    2025 Winners: TBA
    2025 marks the 10th year of the annual WA State All-Ages Zine Contest. Watch this page for winners to be announced sometime in May!

Communities

Distros, Presses, & Zinesters We Adore

  • Rena Yehuda Newman via Gumroad
    “Feisty, kind, queer Jewish art and zines for you, my friend. They/Them.”
    Newman offers a variety of digital and print zines and art via their Gumroad. Listings utilize the “name a fair price” model with minimums, including offering zines for free that they regard as belonging to the community; one of these is the “The Testosterone Survey Zine,” compiling data surveyed from transmasculine folx.
  • Sean Tejaratchi’s Crap Hound via buyolympia.com
    The iconic clipart zine series, Tejaratchi describes Crap Hound as a combination of “…social commentary and somewhat overindulgent graphic design.” The first issue was originally published in 1994, when Tejaratchi was living in Portland, Oregon.

    Of The Crap Hound Big Book of Unhappiness, Tejarachi writes:
    Crap Hound‘s particular subject could be roughly described as “commercial and advertising imagery, 1920-1980.” … “By the mid-’90s, smarmy, retro-style kitsch was steadily creeping into pop culture and advertising. You couldn’t crack a weekly paper without seeing generic artwork of ’50s moms and dads winking over cups of coffee, offering pies and wisecracks. Small businesses (or those who designed their ads, at least) took full advantage of this well-drawn, low-cost line art that reassured readers it was all in ironic fun. The inoffensive style let them mock the hollow positivity of an earlier era while staying every bit as hollow and positive in practice. … I decided to address and possibly soothe my growing irritation by pushing back a bit. … I explained a collection of Unhappiness would “compensate for cloying and pervasive Fifties Irony.”

    tl;dr, I just think they’re neat!
  • sheer spite press
    NOTICE: All orders are digital only while Lee is traveling internationally. -2025.05.12
    Run by Lee Arden, sheer spite was “founded in 2024 in Tiohtià:ke / Montreal to publish and distribute useful, generous, personal, political, funny, heart-filled works.” Lee is interested in “…[living and working] in solidarity with those who are…impacted…by…intersecting forms of structural violence.”
    I am particularly fond of the sliding scale pricing sheer spite utilizes, purposefully working to reduce barriers to access to their offerings.

Events & Fests

(organized by date)

Information, Libraries, & Archives