Aggravated Doughnuts

This zine is made by a zinester I met at Canzine this year. I have read this zine multiple times and still it makes me chuckle. Aggravated Doughnuts is a comic explaining, in great detail, how they like to enjoy their favourite doughnut. And enjoy it they do. The artwork is great and I love the idea behind it. It’s a fun zine that you can keep coming back to or share with your friends. 

It is made by Jacqueline Huskisson, you can check out their Instagram here or head on over to their website.

Bill's Benevolent Association

So these cool cats are brothers (Evan & Josh) and I met them at this years CanZine Fest, I shared a table with them. They are both artists with their own unique styles.

Yes is an art & poetry zine made by Josh. This zine is packed with wood, plant & human bolb themed art that are accompanied by short poems. It is a very interesting zine. I’m left wondering about the inspiration behind each piece, and yet it’s a light and fun zine. I think this may be my favourite page.

Moving Parts & Local Traffic Only are zines made by Evan. Moving Parts is an interactive zine with pull tabs. It’s about the less than glorious jobs we have to deal with as adults and goofing off in those jobs. The zine features photography as well as art. Click here for an example of one of the pages and how it moves. Local Traffic Only is a photography zine with construction related drawings on top of the photo. It comes with a card featuring a poem for each of the photos. And the whole zine unfolds into a poster. 

Loved the zines from these two. Together they are Bill’s Benevolent Association and you can check out their Instagram page here.

Human Sightings

I discovered Evie from Dogs Not Diets, they are friends and made some collab zines together. Luckily they did because I absolutely love Evie’s art and zines.

The collab zine they made together currently has two volumes and is called Thanks... But No Thanks. It is filled with completely unhelpful advice they have received from people in regards to their mental health. Such as, “But think of all the people who have it so much worse.” Sigh. These zines are too real for anyone who has a mental illness.

The Guide To Self-Care features a few tips that have personally helped Evie. This is a thoughtful mini zines and it compliments the Thanks... But No Thanks zine very well.

Evie also draws a lot of comics called Humans which feature aliens experiencing similar problems to us silly humans. Sometimes in similar situations that we can go through, like trying not to be late to a party. Other times it is about experiencing and coping with a mental illness. I don’t know how else to describe it except by calling it awesome and telling you that you need these zines in your life. Her sense of humour displayed in the zines and her art is fantastic. Always puts a smile on my face. 

I also love Evie’s space and astronaut themed cards and badges. Featuring positive affirmations such as, “You deserve to take up space” and “You are not alone.”

Go to the Human Sightings Etsy page to check out all the cool items you can buy.

Follow Evie on Instagram or Facebook. You can also check out the website at http://www.evelynbasch.co.uk/ 

Hattie Porter - Dogs Not Diets

Hattie is the first person I decided to get zines from on Etsy. I was struggling with my mental health and found these zines extremely helpful. Thank you for making them, Hattie! 

She creates mental health themed zines, which are printed on pastel coloured paper (which you can choose which colour you would like) and stitched on the spine. Each zine is mostly typed with some handwritten notes throughout. She also emphasizes certain sentences or key points by hand-drawing underlines or boxes around the words. These zines are filled with facts surrounding the topic (anxiety, panic attacks, depression, etc) to inform you about what is happening to you [Knowledge is power] and adds self-care tips & coping strategies.

There are zines for certain topics and also a bigger book A Small Part Of Everything which is a summary of all the zines up to that point. Which has its own design that is different from the zines. It isn’t just a photocopy of what was already made, it’s a new version just for the book.

If you are interested in grabbing a copy for yourself then head over to Hattie’s Etsy page.

You can also follow Hattie on Instagram.

Old Aches

I found this zinester on Reddit when I was first getting into zines earlier this year. 

Old Aches is a 16-page black and white perzine. It features poetry they had written and photos they had taken while in high school that they found years later. It seems to be summer themed, almost in a nostalgic sense. A lot of the poetry in this zine is about being a lesbian, but feeling terrified because they don’t feel worthy of reciprocated love. 

If you would like to get in contact with this zinester you can email them at bsebllgrl@gmail.com