Zines

I have been making zines since my university days. This is a chronological gallery, from newest to oldest, of most the zines I have made; most are out of print unless otherwise stated and some have disappeared into the ether, as they should.

virgo season (2018)

A zine I made about my mania about turning 33. 33 copies of individually handsewn and inked drawings on paper in a fold-out zine. I also left a different secret in each one. Created for a zine group show at Studio Soup Zine Library.

sketch zine (2017-2018)

Sketch zine mostly comprised of entries when I was living and studying overseas. During this period I had much more free time than I had anticipated, despite studying full time and working part time. It was the first time in my life that I had a saturation of isolation, so there basically was a lot of time to think.

SEND NOODS (2017)

A tiny little foldout zine. A tribute to my favorite food. I wanted to hand draw something where the composition would fall perfectly into the layout of the zine so it was both a single drawing and when folded, a complete zine.

new art creates new ppl (2017)

This zine was my first foray into risography and I made it at a riso workshop when I was living and studying in Singapore in 2017, with a studio called Knuckles and Notch. The pink, hand drawn version is the first version; I later made a version using PS that was reproduced just through digital print, in red and blue. I would really like to reproduce it again in riso someday.

NEW ART CREATES NEW PPL was about me imagining a sort of "data science" to explain my thoughts about drawing, art, printmaking, and markmaking in general.

I'm tired (2016)

Short single-page story, very tiny fold-out zine.

rupaul's drag zine (2016)

A zine I made in 2016 around All Stars Season 2. As a superfan of RPDR, around that time the local fandom hadn't picked up just yet and I was pretty much the only one I knew drawing fanart of drag queens. Fun fact: Rupaul reposted the picture of him in suits I drew for the centerfold on his IG--without crediting me, of course.

Closet regime (2005)

Even though I barely considered myself a writer, I wrote ALL THE TIME, especially in collaboration with other people. I was heavily into prose RP for various RP and sometimes that would spin off into (what I thought) was really good writing. Closet Regime was really therapy for the era and I think about this zine often. I think about the inception of it, how I typed it out, did all the drawings, pasted it together, photocopied it clandestinely in my dad's office at the time--he even helped me get away with it, made stickers to tag the streets with. All in all, the making of Closet Regime really encompassed the full spirit of zine-making that I constantly crave.

san'to? (2004)

My first zine ever and the first and last issue. I made this in university, having learned about zines while digging through the history of activism and fandom, already feeling alienated by mainstream publications as an early era emo punk kid. I think, looking back, it was a response from my submissions being openly rejected from literary pubs at school, despite being from the Lit Department which was already a notoriously small cohort. Anyway, as I was neither legit poet nor prosaist, zinester was the clear path.

This zine is also important to me, aside from being my first baby, because it features an interview with Gerry Alanguilan, a beloved comic book artist and archivist who passed away late 2019. I am a big fan of his work and I was stunned that he replied to my email asking to interview him for some no name zine but that's just how he was, a mighty, generous person.