This is the two hundred fourteenth entry in the Scratching That Itch series, wherein I randomly select and write about one of the 1741 games and game-related things included in the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality. The Bundle raised $8,149,829.66 split evenly between the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and Community Bail Fund, but don’t worry if you missed it. There are plenty of ways you can help support the vital cause of racial justice; try here for a start. Lastly, as always, you may click on images to view larger versions.

Our two hundred fourteenth random selection from the itch.io Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality is helping us to make our own zines. It’s Electric Zine Maker (a work in progress, be gentle, hug it often) by alienmelon, by alienmelon, and its tagline in the bundle reads:

The Electric Zine Maker (⚡️✂️) is a printshop and art tool for making zin…

Pretty sure that was going to say “zines”.

I’ve mentioned zines on this blog before, notably when Layabouts and Degens popped up as the thiry-fourth entry in the Scratching That Itch series. But seeing as they’re pretty central to what Electric Zine Maker is about, I’ll give a brief primer here. Zines (derived from “magazine”) are small-circulation self-published booklets consisting of words and images, usually photocopied for physical distribution in small runs, often just 100 copies or less. They’re strongly associated with communities: fans of a specific thing, marginalized groups, or socially isolated people might share zines to express themselves and expound upon topics relevant to their community. The DIY ethos of zines is a perfect match for itch.io, which similarly encourages creators to share any and all games and digital art, no matter how small, messy, or personal they are. So it should be no surprise to find a piece of software for making zines in the bundle.

What I didn’t realize at first is that alienmelon is Nathalie Lawhead, who is fairly well known in the indie games/art space. Their 2017 work Everything is Going to Be OK won a bunch of conference awards and was shown at the Museum of Modern Art, and Lawhead has described it as an interactive zine. Who better, then, to help us make our own zines?

Specifically, Electric Zine Maker helps users make a zine by folding a single printed sheet of paper. There are no less than 12 types of folded zines one can make, from simple 8-page folded zines to accordion zines to the mysterious “tetraflexagon”. Select one of these options, and be greeted with a sheet of paper showing where each page of the final zine (including the front and back covers) will be. Then all one must do is click on a page to start drawing. This is reminiscent of simple image creation tools like Microsoft Paint, with familiar functions like the pen tool, color fill tool, and smudge tool. But there are some cool details, like the pattern spray which lets users draw a pattern and then spraypaint it onto the page. Importing images to make classic zine collages is a snap, and it’s just as easy to switch to greyscale for that authentic photocopier look.

In fact, there are a ton of effects available in the “authenticity tool” to mimic the limitations of printers and photocopiers. Change color modes, add pixelation, recreate the bad halftones from a poor quality printshop. There are even categories of options labelled “Punk Aesthetic” and “Netscape Navigator“. Electric Zine Maker also makes it a snap to save, print, or export zines as PDF or image files. There are even helpful folding guides for each type of zine, and the option to include dotted fold lines on one’s printed zine. I was impressed with how easy it is to throw a zine together.

I also love the interface. Buttons and arrows wiggle or bob around, or use a form of squigglevision to add dynamism. When working on a zine page, the interface resembles a zine itself: colorful buttons, arrayed almost haphazardly, represent the various tools, each featuring halftones that recall old color printers. The core interface is a fixed size since it uses 2D elements, but rather than running windowed as many programs would, Electric Zine Maker uses the full screen, filling the rest with a lovely underwater backdrop complete with pixelated fish swimming by. Never fear, though, a handy button hides the top and bottom of the program so users can access their desktop, and another button fully minimizes it. There’s a helpful potato in the bottom right corner that offers tooltips for different buttons, and a “night mode” button which swaps the underwater backdrop for a sea of stars.

I only have a few minor complaints: editing pages brings up a pop-up window, which means the handy minimize buttons are no longer accessible (and it confused my screenshot software, until I spotted it). And loading a saved zine is not as simple as selecting it from a list; users must find the folder it’s saved in (which is on the desktop by default) and drag it into Electric Zine Maker to populate the zine pages. But these are hardly worth whining about, and — as the full title says — it’s a work in progress.

This one is a must-try for any artistically inclined persons. It really is a breeze to use, and there’s no need to worry if you missed in the bundle, because it’s offered for any price you wish to pay, including free. You probably could have made a zine in the time it took to read this post!

That’s 214 down, and only 1527 to go!