LB's favorite zines!
Feb. 28th, 2026 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeMori: witchpoetdreamer asked us about a list of our favorite zines. FOOLISH FOOL HAS ACTIVATED MY TRAP!
For this post, we are using "zine" here to mean "a floppy booklet (lacking a spine) that is either self- or small-published, and also NOT from an academic journal NOR just a comic." It can have comics IN it, or mash-up image and text in other, more experimental ways (such as the classic cut-and-paste style of zine), but it can't be primarily comics or we will be here for all eternity.
HERE WE GO! ALL ABOARD THE ZINE MACHINE, Y'ALL!
witchpoetdreamer asked us about a list of our favorite zines. FOOLISH FOOL HAS ACTIVATED MY TRAP!For this post, we are using "zine" here to mean "a floppy booklet (lacking a spine) that is either self- or small-published, and also NOT from an academic journal NOR just a comic." It can have comics IN it, or mash-up image and text in other, more experimental ways (such as the classic cut-and-paste style of zine), but it can't be primarily comics or we will be here for all eternity.
HERE WE GO! ALL ABOARD THE ZINE MACHINE, Y'ALL!
Zines By Others (with the big life-changers up at the top)
Fucking Trans Women, by Mira Bellwether (RIP): ($10 ebook, 2010). Bellwether died tragically early but her classic trans women sex ed. zine is still for sale as an ebook to support her survivors. It is also one the most powerful, mind-opening zines we've ever had--it's changed the lives of at LEAST three of us, and Rogan's neither female nor ever likely to bone one! It's that fucking good! It talks about bodies, our expectations of them, and nerves in ways that just have never been duplicated. If you liked our work Multi, Orgasmic, thank Mira Bellwether! We bought a paper copy of this on Amazon right before Bellwether died, and we feel extremely lucky we got to; it now appears to be completely unobtainable.
Survival Without Rent, by Anonymous, both the 1989 edition and 2020 edition: (free) This zine not only made homelessness less scary to us, it taught us skills that allowed us to find out what happened when a friend terrifyingly disappeared in 2021! How many zines can say that? A classic zine on squatting in New York City and how to make it work. We found a much-loved 1989 edition at a occult bookstore/record shop in Portland Maine before it closed, and were so excited to find it after so many years. The 2020 version updates for the Internet.
Lessons in Autonomancy, by Ian Night of the Desired Constellation: (free, 2017) Zine by a multi we know on using the personal study of symbols to create one's own idiosyncratic magic system! Okay, this one's kinda a cheat, because we ourself compiled this from their 2017 tumblr posts and the tarot deck guide that came with the deck we bought off them (and gave towho_is_page). But hey, these lessons no-shitting were the seed that helped me start figuring out the weird mythic crap our brain had been vomiting up for years, and it led to us making Madgic!
Be Gay Do Crime! by the Mary Nardini Gang: (free, 2018) Another zine that got me off my ass and making Madgic as I figured our religious crap out. Punk queer anarchists dancing at the end of the world, a mystical manifesto dedicated to members who committed suicide or died in preventable warehouse fires. We wrote a whole long blog post about this zine, its influences, and its history.
Knocking from the Inside: Breaking Free from Mental Imperialism, by Jimmy Dunson: ($2 on paper, free ebook bootleg) Zine manifesto about mad pride, anarchism, religion, and treating your madness and selves well. We only found out about this zine because Dunson pirated some of our one-pagers and we did a big zine trade with him. Cool guy!
Why I Left the PSL... or the DSA or Socialist Alternative or whatever by A Filler Kid (free; we bought the 2021 version, but the 2019 original from pg. 31-35 is also worth reading): a brief discussion of an anonymous person burning out on The Leftist Cause and choosing to do it their own way, and how much better it’s been for them. Rogan was already kinda coming out of his little tin leftist meltdown, but this little zine helped!
the Burning Lies: Witches, Radical Feminists, and Nazis, by R.J. Gillis: ($7 paper, no ebook, 2023) This is one of those zines that is just so good at what it does. It's a short, simple, well-researched investigation into where that "millions of women were burned as witches in Europe" factoid came from, how it's been used politically, and what the numbers may have more likely been.
We Are Magic: Sigils for Trans Power, by Ezra Rose: (free, 2017) One-pager, exactly what it says on the tin. Every time I look at it, it gives me a boost.
BE NOT AFRAID, by LSJM: (free bootleg, 2025?) A one-page zine that screams in red and black riso that feels like a martyred angel exhorting you from beyond the grave to fight for better things. We transcribed it.
Brachot for the Endtimes, by Riot Bayit(?): (free bootleg, 2022?) Collage zines of Jewish blessings for things like: taking anti-depressants, being queer, and fighting climate change. We transcribed it.
Somerville Solargraphs, by Kerrie Kemperman: (unobtainable, 2022?) a one-page zine of pinhole cameras that take months-long exposures of the sky, which transforms the sun from a glowing ball into luminescent bands. We found this in a free box, and every time I look at it, I think about information design, and how this zine makes you really think how time can be converted into a two-dimensional graphic representation that tells you things like: how much the sun changes its position by season, whether a given time was sunny or cloudy, what path the sun takes across the sky. It stretches my brain a little every time I look at them. The zine no longer seems obtainable (if it ever was by conventional means, and not some art gallery giveaway or something), but the solargraphs themselves are on her website, where I linked them!
my heart beats in seismic waves, by Sara Makiya and Sara Paige: (unobtainable except by free bootleg, 2018) Illustrated poetry zine about self and fluidity that we bought off someone's stoop. It's grown on us over the years, and the hand-added accents of silver gel pen and the binding with hole-punch and string gives it an Etsy charm.
A Body of Our Own, by Des Bennett: (unobtainable? 2024) Instagram is inaccessible to me so I don't know if you can read the whole thing at the link or not. A poetry zine about gender, blackness, and reclaiming bodies, joy, and pain.
Two Spirit Traditions: Gender Animism + Turtle Island's Untold Intertribal Arts, by Enx Eeden: ($25 paper book, ebook on Patreon, 2023) Exactly what it says on the tin. Talks about history of two spirit folks, indigiqueer ways of seeing gender, cool stuff like that! Got to table with Eeden at a zine fair once, which is the only reason I got to know this lovely zine's existence.
Mixed, by Sam Medlock: (uobtainable???, 2021) Ostensibly a comic, but so experimental that it makes the list anyway. It's Medlock's family journey through indigeneity, printed on recycled paper (so there are weird ghost images. colors, and letters underneath the art) with multiple fold-outs that would make it extremely difficult to digitize. Possibly Janusz did digitize it, like a hero, but if he did, I have lost the copy. Sorry! I guess I could digitize my own copy, if folks really ache for it?
Free Zines We Done Made
Genderful: (2025) a one-sheet comic with pictures of various genderful people over the world and their own words about it. 2025.
I.W.M.C.: (2025) Mori's eight-page madgic perzine, made using strap-ons and queer sex to ward our city. Warning: explicit nudity and sex.
Embry, Olly, and Ziggy: my abortion story: (2024) What it says on the tin. This zine contains explicit violence, rape, incest, miscarriage, abortion and arguments thereof, teen pregnancy, disownment, hanging, a suicide attempt, and consensual queer teenage sex. Reader discretion is advised. 16 pages.
Too F'ed to Live, Too Punk to Die: (2023) Mori's plural story about living incompetently, dying incompetently, and resurrecting incompetently, intentionally formatted to look like every page is screaming at you.
Boy Meets Girl: (2021) Miranda's zine about an abusive relationship, told overwhelmingly through collaged documents of the time: love letters, poetry, creative writing, photos, art, doctor's notes, etc. As part of the process of making this zine, the originals were burned to create the final few pages.
FTMPD: (2010) Rogan's "alter boy" zine about being trans and multiple.
Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here: (2008) the first zine we ever made, a bunch of writings by various multiples. These days, only the archived text-only version remains.
Fucking Trans Women, by Mira Bellwether (RIP): ($10 ebook, 2010). Bellwether died tragically early but her classic trans women sex ed. zine is still for sale as an ebook to support her survivors. It is also one the most powerful, mind-opening zines we've ever had--it's changed the lives of at LEAST three of us, and Rogan's neither female nor ever likely to bone one! It's that fucking good! It talks about bodies, our expectations of them, and nerves in ways that just have never been duplicated. If you liked our work Multi, Orgasmic, thank Mira Bellwether! We bought a paper copy of this on Amazon right before Bellwether died, and we feel extremely lucky we got to; it now appears to be completely unobtainable.
Survival Without Rent, by Anonymous, both the 1989 edition and 2020 edition: (free) This zine not only made homelessness less scary to us, it taught us skills that allowed us to find out what happened when a friend terrifyingly disappeared in 2021! How many zines can say that? A classic zine on squatting in New York City and how to make it work. We found a much-loved 1989 edition at a occult bookstore/record shop in Portland Maine before it closed, and were so excited to find it after so many years. The 2020 version updates for the Internet.
Lessons in Autonomancy, by Ian Night of the Desired Constellation: (free, 2017) Zine by a multi we know on using the personal study of symbols to create one's own idiosyncratic magic system! Okay, this one's kinda a cheat, because we ourself compiled this from their 2017 tumblr posts and the tarot deck guide that came with the deck we bought off them (and gave to
who_is_page). But hey, these lessons no-shitting were the seed that helped me start figuring out the weird mythic crap our brain had been vomiting up for years, and it led to us making Madgic!Be Gay Do Crime! by the Mary Nardini Gang: (free, 2018) Another zine that got me off my ass and making Madgic as I figured our religious crap out. Punk queer anarchists dancing at the end of the world, a mystical manifesto dedicated to members who committed suicide or died in preventable warehouse fires. We wrote a whole long blog post about this zine, its influences, and its history.
Knocking from the Inside: Breaking Free from Mental Imperialism, by Jimmy Dunson: ($2 on paper, free ebook bootleg) Zine manifesto about mad pride, anarchism, religion, and treating your madness and selves well. We only found out about this zine because Dunson pirated some of our one-pagers and we did a big zine trade with him. Cool guy!
Why I Left the PSL... or the DSA or Socialist Alternative or whatever by A Filler Kid (free; we bought the 2021 version, but the 2019 original from pg. 31-35 is also worth reading): a brief discussion of an anonymous person burning out on The Leftist Cause and choosing to do it their own way, and how much better it’s been for them. Rogan was already kinda coming out of his little tin leftist meltdown, but this little zine helped!
the Burning Lies: Witches, Radical Feminists, and Nazis, by R.J. Gillis: ($7 paper, no ebook, 2023) This is one of those zines that is just so good at what it does. It's a short, simple, well-researched investigation into where that "millions of women were burned as witches in Europe" factoid came from, how it's been used politically, and what the numbers may have more likely been.
We Are Magic: Sigils for Trans Power, by Ezra Rose: (free, 2017) One-pager, exactly what it says on the tin. Every time I look at it, it gives me a boost.
BE NOT AFRAID, by LSJM: (free bootleg, 2025?) A one-page zine that screams in red and black riso that feels like a martyred angel exhorting you from beyond the grave to fight for better things. We transcribed it.
Brachot for the Endtimes, by Riot Bayit(?): (free bootleg, 2022?) Collage zines of Jewish blessings for things like: taking anti-depressants, being queer, and fighting climate change. We transcribed it.
Somerville Solargraphs, by Kerrie Kemperman: (unobtainable, 2022?) a one-page zine of pinhole cameras that take months-long exposures of the sky, which transforms the sun from a glowing ball into luminescent bands. We found this in a free box, and every time I look at it, I think about information design, and how this zine makes you really think how time can be converted into a two-dimensional graphic representation that tells you things like: how much the sun changes its position by season, whether a given time was sunny or cloudy, what path the sun takes across the sky. It stretches my brain a little every time I look at them. The zine no longer seems obtainable (if it ever was by conventional means, and not some art gallery giveaway or something), but the solargraphs themselves are on her website, where I linked them!
my heart beats in seismic waves, by Sara Makiya and Sara Paige: (unobtainable except by free bootleg, 2018) Illustrated poetry zine about self and fluidity that we bought off someone's stoop. It's grown on us over the years, and the hand-added accents of silver gel pen and the binding with hole-punch and string gives it an Etsy charm.
A Body of Our Own, by Des Bennett: (unobtainable? 2024) Instagram is inaccessible to me so I don't know if you can read the whole thing at the link or not. A poetry zine about gender, blackness, and reclaiming bodies, joy, and pain.
Two Spirit Traditions: Gender Animism + Turtle Island's Untold Intertribal Arts, by Enx Eeden: ($25 paper book, ebook on Patreon, 2023) Exactly what it says on the tin. Talks about history of two spirit folks, indigiqueer ways of seeing gender, cool stuff like that! Got to table with Eeden at a zine fair once, which is the only reason I got to know this lovely zine's existence.
Mixed, by Sam Medlock: (uobtainable???, 2021) Ostensibly a comic, but so experimental that it makes the list anyway. It's Medlock's family journey through indigeneity, printed on recycled paper (so there are weird ghost images. colors, and letters underneath the art) with multiple fold-outs that would make it extremely difficult to digitize. Possibly Janusz did digitize it, like a hero, but if he did, I have lost the copy. Sorry! I guess I could digitize my own copy, if folks really ache for it?
Free Zines We Done Made
Genderful: (2025) a one-sheet comic with pictures of various genderful people over the world and their own words about it. 2025.
I.W.M.C.: (2025) Mori's eight-page madgic perzine, made using strap-ons and queer sex to ward our city. Warning: explicit nudity and sex.
Embry, Olly, and Ziggy: my abortion story: (2024) What it says on the tin. This zine contains explicit violence, rape, incest, miscarriage, abortion and arguments thereof, teen pregnancy, disownment, hanging, a suicide attempt, and consensual queer teenage sex. Reader discretion is advised. 16 pages.
Too F'ed to Live, Too Punk to Die: (2023) Mori's plural story about living incompetently, dying incompetently, and resurrecting incompetently, intentionally formatted to look like every page is screaming at you.
Boy Meets Girl: (2021) Miranda's zine about an abusive relationship, told overwhelmingly through collaged documents of the time: love letters, poetry, creative writing, photos, art, doctor's notes, etc. As part of the process of making this zine, the originals were burned to create the final few pages.
FTMPD: (2010) Rogan's "alter boy" zine about being trans and multiple.
Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here: (2008) the first zine we ever made, a bunch of writings by various multiples. These days, only the archived text-only version remains.
