My zine, "A Fanzine for Earth," ultimately stemmed from a desire to recreate one of my first introductions to zines- the fanzine. I've always been deeply integrated in internet forums that discuss media that I love, and I found fanzines a wonderful look back into similar subcultures before the age of the internet. I love their amateurish look, from their black-and-white colors to their literally cut-and-paste design. I ran into a big problem, however, when I learned that their wasn't supposed to be a lot of text- fanzines are usually filled with fan-fiction. I realized that a lack of text would make sense for a being that doesn't have a firm grasp on English. Inspired by a love of social satire (and perhaps an unconscious inspiration from Futurama) I conceived of a zine created from the perspective of an alien obsessed with television from the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. I used this framing device to satirize American Culture as filtered through a cathode ray tube- from obsession with criminals to our taboo against any depictions of sex. A consistent font helped tie text together, and I used halftone filters on color images to both preserve the retro feel of the whole zine and to also evoke the muted color palette of television. To literally wrap it all up, I took inspiration from this real government classified file to add a layer of storytelling to the zine, with the "Groom Lake Base" making direct reference to the proper name of the famous "Area 51." I also think that people just deeply love the feeling of accessing forbidden knowledge, and nothing evokes that feeling better than top-secret FBI files on aliens. I hope people enjoy unwrapping the story told by the zine as much as I enjoyed crafting it.
Comentários