DOGS zine retrospective
DOGS is finally, fully complete. we were able to raise a total of 1100 NZD (664 USD) for blind low vision nz. it was a really impressive turnout for a simple 5 digital zine, especially considering the niche topic and unusual format! thank you so much to all of the artists and buyers who were able to make this zine as successful as it was. of course, thank you to everyone who bought the zine itself, and most of all, the artists who made everything possible!!! i wrote a lot about my own issues with myself, but in the end i am really so happy with how the zine turned out. it's honestly perfect to me and so so sooo fucking adorable... man. thank you guys so much!!!!!!!!!!
as with my TGAA collab retrospective, i'm writing about the thoughts i had throughout running DOGS. this also covers some thoughts on physical and digital zines in general, as DOGS was meant to be a book that crossed into the boundary of both. please don't repost or quote any part of this. please also understand that i'm someone who is upfront about my feelings and will joke about my disappointments, but i'm not looking for pity— that's just my sense of humor and how i speak. i'm a guy who's constantly playing mind games and 5D chess with myself and losing.
i also wrote the majority of this a month ago, and i don't really care about it at this point. i just like yapping.
to sum it up, DOGS was intended to be a digital zine that has a physical zine experience. i basically wanted to make a physical zine that could be easily printed from home for the primary reasons of affordability, accessibility, 'ecology', and purpose. my own dojinshi are usually self-printed in B/W only and bound at home with a stapler, so it was pretty surprising to me that no one had made a digital zine in this format before. i feel like a dumbass in retrospect, but i thought i was kinda a genius at the time.
affordability
last year, i basically realized last year that americans simply have a lot of money that they are willing to spend on things. this shit feels ridiculous to say because i live in fucking new zealand, lol. but most of the NZ artist alley would agree with me that 10 sticker sheets and 25 acrylic charms are wild. i don't mean this in a negative way, it's just a difference of the average salary. which is crazy because again, i live in new zealand, which is a very high-income country. if i find stuff the average fandomshit expensive, it's downright inaccessible to others.
therefore, one of my main goals was to make an affordable physical zine with merch that anyone in the world could obtain. i'll expand on this more in the next section, but honestly, i'm not happy with myself for charging so high for the base PDF because i think it negated my goal. the only reason i did so was because i had already confirmed it as a charity zine by that point and i didn't want to be like "hey we raised 10" if i left it as a fully PWYW zine. furthermore, a part of why i established the limited period of release to be able to give myself a set time to promote and push the zine to begin with... which i think ended up being useless and unnecessary for reasons i'll go into later. all that being said, we were able to raise a lot for BLVNZ, more than i ever expected— so i feel really proud of that.
i'm frustrated that i ended up making the zine unaffordable to people who would like, benefit from this format the most. due to my own values regarding value, i don't want to just share the zine in full so soon either— i'd have to wait at least a year to post the printable PDF again.
accessibility
i live on a remote island country. shipping is expensive for most people who are interested in anime merch but don't live in america or japan. so, i thought it'd be nice to make a professional-looking zine that would be really accessible for anyone to print, no matter where in the world they lived.
a lot of digital zines do include a 'printable PDF', but they're never actually made for printing in mind or with regards to how a buyer might assemble it. like no one is printing out a 300 page full-color zine at home please be serious now. in order to achieve a zine that would have a professional look at an affordable price, i limited the zine to B/W only and imposed a template that took both A5 and letter-sized paper into mind. this way, it could be printed by americans and non-americans alike at home, at school, at the library, copycenter, etc. etc. for cheap. where i am, at least, the cost for the A5 zine was about 2.7 USD at a copycenter. it was also important for me to provide pre-formatted files suitable for grab-n-go printing to make it as easy for the buyer as possible.
as mentioned before, this is how i format and print my own dojinshi (outside of the covers), so i felt kinda smart as fuck when i realized i could use that same format for a 'collaborative zine'! well, i actually realized it because of awsketchblog, who posted a downloadable of their own SK8 zine formatted for printing lol. i was also inspired by the way japanese fanartists take advantage of convenience store printing to share fanmerch. they'll share codes which you can just punch into a konbini printer and their designs are printed out without needing to load the file onto your own decide. it's such a cool way to distribute paper merch to other fans nationwide.
ecology
it's no secret that i collect a lot of anime merch, and i have nothing against collection in general when it's items that you know you want. however, i cannot stand the excess production of merchandise that comes with most physical zines. from a contributor perspective, i usually have the opportunity to only take the exact items i want, but that isn't an option for buyers since bundling is the norm. believe me, i get it, as someone who has been involved with moderating a physical zine. it makes things way easier on finances and shipping and it's necessary in the case of items with high MOQs.
still, i think it leads to the excess production of merchandise that people wouldn't ordinarily buy on its own. which is like, whatever when it's stickers but there are so many excess acrylic charms and enamel pins and whatnot of characters no one really cares about being produced because they're in the same bundle as character merch that people actually want (for example). it feels frustrating because the whole point of preorders is that it should be possible to only produce the exact amount that people want, but forced bundling means that excess is brought into the world anyway. again, i really do understand the benefits of it, so i'm not saying you're bad if you do it. it's just an irritating point for me to deal with.
when i was participating in a zine last year, i felt disappointed that it was converted to digital and that the acrylic merch i designed for it could no longer be produced. i ended up making it anyway, but now i'm really glad that my merch wasn't produced in excess for people who didn't want it to begin with!
all that being said, i still intend to participate in conventional zines. i think shipping items together also has its own ecological benefits, even if i don't agree with forced bundling. and i know that overall, talking about this topic sounds dumb as fuck from someone like me who does collect so much merch. it's so so so irritating for me too. just trust me when i say my friends know how much i complain about how sick i feel about it. i feel really grateful that they at least can understand how i feel this way despite my own drive for consumption.
purpose
alright, it's a fucking anime fanart book about cute puppies— so i don't mean 'purpose' in the grand scheme of things, just 'purposeful' to myself as an artist. you can read my thoughts on digital zines in general in my previous retrospective post about TGAA collab. my opinions are essentially unchanged aside from that i do now see merit in 'set format' digital zines for other artists; just not for me. that's fine. i still largely believe in the idea of "artists wanting permanence", though due to my own irl issues it's something i've been avoiding lately (tl;dr my coworkers know my website which is why i have been freaking out about existing).
a thing that bothers me a lot with digital zine stuff is the 'production' of items that no one ever makes use of; things that are just there to fill up space and make bundles seem more appealing. icons, wallpapers, coloring pages, etc. i'm saying this because as a zine moderator myself, i know we do this shit! i've drawn extra crap that i know no one is gonna use just because it makes digital bundles look more appealing. it's absurd. why are we playing games like this. the buyers and the zine moderators both know no one's gonna color in the coloring pages or use the desktop wallpaper 99.9% of the time.
it's absolutely fine if the artist themselves really wanted to draw that extra stuff and enjoyed it. i've spent hours designing papercrafts that i know no one else would print out lol. but i dislike the feeling of artists producing niche digital merch that never actually gets used by other people even though they hope it would. so as the organizer, i wanted to really showcase the printable digital merch in use— let people see that printing your own merch can be a good alternative to buying and shipping it over. you can get professional looking anime merch, just from a local photo store!
however
i'm the type of guy who misses the forest for the trees, and i forgot that in the year 2024, no one has a printer. for all the effort i went into emphasizing that you can print it easily elsewhere too (as someone who used to print my dojinshi at university), um, like, no one moved. really, i'm frustrated with myself for not realizing this sooner. i don't know why i thought DOGS would be the exception to people never using digital merch LOL.
i am also really frustrated because, like, the zine itself is so good. it's everything i wanted to be and all of the contribs truly went above and beyond. the zine also sold super well for such a niche topic. it just didn't achieve my personal goal of having a single person print it out.
well, around the same time that the DOGS orders opened, there was a free printable art collab project (not a zine or booklet of any kind) that got around 1.5k likes, so i know it reached many people. but even so, i think only like, 4 people posted their printed photos from it TBH. we just live in 2024 is the thing.
even though i'm happy with the zine itself, i wouldn't do this format again outside of with friends, because there's no point if no one does print it out. it's not a bad thing to prove that that's the case, but i hate that it makes it feel like these past six months were an experiment that didn't work out. if you have to beg someone to print it out, that also negates the point, because to begin with i don't want to produce excess merch. so if no one wants to own a physical copy, i suppose that's just how it is. i'm irritated that making this zine that tried to lower excess consumption just made me realize that i'm the worst when it comes to consumption after all!
still, i think it would've done just as well if i offered it as a 10 physical zine, so like, i guess it's just a matter of effort.
that's what i determined after forcing IRL oomf to listen to me rant about this for an hour. i finally felt normal. i've dealt with disappointment plenty of times before, so i don't care about people not printing it out so much as the other can of worms it opened.
timing
as mentioned before, part of paywalling the zine was so that i could let the project essentially live beyond a single day. i wanted to give myself more time to be able to push the zine because i felt like the format was pretty cool but would need more than a day to show its potential. but since no one actually printed or posted it, that didn't happen so like, i gave myself a lot of stress over moneylocking it for no reason.
i really do not enjoy doing this sort of thing. i struggled with promo because i'm someone who hates being noisy and i was too burned out and i didn't feel comfortable asking other people to do extra work. for various reasons, i also ended up cutting the order period shorter than i intended to as well, which meant i couldn't get in all of the promo tweets i had planned. TBH i don't think it would've mattered anyway. i'm still impressed that the zine sold 100 copies.
restriction
when i go into something, i have a very strong vision of what i want. previously, my mindset has been that if the framing is set up well, then the actual content will fit regardless of what it is. but i think this time, i was too restrictive.
again, i love how the zine turned out. i'm immensely grateful towards the artists who all produced such amazing artwork and stuck to my specific requests so well. i gave people a lot of free reign with what to draw since I felt bad the template and colors were so limited. everyone still choose to produce such incredible high quality, regular zine-level artwork! i had to rush myself to draw something on the same standard in the end hahaha.
but while the actual 'product' turned out so good, i'm irritated at myself, realizing in retrospect how unnecessary it all was. i had a vision that wasn't actualized by anyone so it feels like i've just selfishly wasted everyone's time drawing in this troublesome format with long-winded yet hidden thoughts behind it. (i did actually post about those thoughts on my side account and instagram so a couple people knew, but this is the first time i've gone into it heavily).
i picked dogs for the theme since it was a concept i really wanted to see as a physical zine but wasn't attached to enough to make it into a legitimate physical product. however, i didn't realize that there'd be a lot of people interested in drawing in it because most zines don't accept furry art. so i feel bad for the furry artists because their only zine had this weirdass template with monochrome restriction, run by a guy who doesn't even know how to draw dogs. i really hope all of the artists get to participate in a proper full-color furry AA zine someday!
value
this section is to do with the webzine which does exist but which i didn't advertise anywhere because i couldn't get it to fucking work on ipad for some reason. anyway, it only exists because i like coding. i'll do literally anything to avoid drawing. also the idea of digital permanence, etc. etc. read my TGAA collab retrospective again. i also wanted to 'prove' the webzine format to someone and also get the excuse to finally fuck around with next.js (specifically inspired by this dude who was coding a bunch of zines for his partner (?). looking at it now, using a new framework just for a simple webzine is overkill but i don't know how actual software developers think. i'm from the neopets school of web design).
the original plan was to release the webzine as, well, a webzine and not a gallery. since the artists would be posting their works in full on twitter/tumblr anyway, i decided that i may as well have an archive on my site as well. because the value of the paid zine was partially meant to be in its printability as a physcial zine, i didn't think there'd be any issue.
however, that 'value' was unrealized by everyone, so the 'value' instead solely became the artwork itself. therefore, i could no longer produce a webzine a month later without it being kinda... um... anyway, the gallery of 150px images was an OK alternative. big enough to know it exists, not big enough to see anything clearly. though i'm really not happy with how messy the code is so i don't even want to think about it.
the fuck am i even talking about?
communication
i'm still running sideM zine, but i feel very burnt out by hosting my own projects. i don't think i'll solo moderate again, even though i have a lot of pride about wanting to do everything myself. i'm terribly self-conscious about everything being too centered on my own interests and it's too dangerous for me to be able to change stuff up on a whim! but TBH, the most tiring thing of all is communicating. i just really hate talking to people in general, so putting myself in a position of having to talk to 30+ people i don't know directly is truly awful for me. i'm so embarrassed just existing.
i also am the sort to take long breaks from discord at a time, and i haven't been able to do that due to solo running a zine, which is just more stress for me. i need to get out!!! i want to die talking to strangers cuz i'm so bad with speaking and i hate not being able to use my regular rougher tone. it's also really difficult talking in sideM zine server, but at least i have my friends to back me up when i act awkwardly.
thanks
one of the most stressful things about moderating alone was that i basically kept all of my worries to my own head. and there were a lot of worries this time— even more than what i wrote above, mostly for reasons outside of my own control. i swear i'm usually not like this when i run events, solo or in groups, and other people can vouch for that! but this time, it was really stupidly stressful for a 5 digital zine.
i'd still rant out on my private account, but none of my friends were into DGS or the more 'fanzine' sphere of fandoms. no one had any vested interest in this aside from me, so i felt bad to complain to people directly.
however, i really want to thank black, so i ended up venting to nearly every day by the end LOL. i'm sure i lost all of the respect they had remaining for me, but i felt so much better being able to complain to someone who could understand it. they also drew an extra piece which we 'collaborated' on... well, more like i told them "i can do the coloring if you don't have the time" so they just let me haha. it's pretty unbelievable to me, so i'm immensely grateful for the opportunity.
i also want to thank abi and calamari-san, who helped with providing advice and comforting me hahaha. plus my friends at klavier gavin nation, especially seven, who also let me complain quite a bit. nate, izzy, and macklemore, who all accepted my silly request for help... and my many mutuals from iM@S fandom for supporting me with this even though they weren't into DGS.
conclusion
it's been six long months since i first announced DOGS publicly, but i've had everything planned out even longer— since april 2023. i guess i feel more bleh because it’s been brewing in my head for so long. but even then, six months is absolutely too long and i can’t spend so much time on a digital-only project ever again lol. it’s not like i spent every moment just working on this, but i still want to feel like i had more than just a single fanart project to my name in that time (actually i guess i am literally working on sideM zine too at the moment. that opens preorders in a week so please buy it).
i was considering doing either a bottombaro or 10 years ago comic anthology as my final DGS ‘art project’, but i don’t want host alone again, so it’s up to whether or not oomf cares about DGS anymore. however, in general, i’d like to stop doing so much with zine-esque projects and put my focus on personal illustration and 3D modelling. it’s hard when there’s so much creative stuff i want to do but i’m an adult with a full time job.
even though i had lofty goals, i didn’t share most of this stuff publicly before because i just didn’t want to make a big deal of it or make anyone feel bad for me. i mean it’s a fucking digital dogboy fanart book, it’s not that deep. but maybe this will provide more context on my intentions lol.
again, i wrote all of this a month ago from the time that i'm posting it. and now my thoughts have mellowed out a lot. i'm sharing it anyway but i don't really care about any of this anymore because i got a new computer and am playing video games and drawing for fun. let's just sum it up like this:
feel free to comment below if you have anything to say. thanks for supporting DOGS!
appendix i. miscellaneous
random shit that doesn't fit elsewhere or would've detracted from the point:
appendix ii. mine
these are the three pieces i drew alone, as well as black's piece which i 'colored'. the way they draw girls is too pretty!
here are my giveaway drawings as well. there's a third one (jezaille brett) but i left the scan on my old computer. of course, there's also the promo artwork i drew... when i look at all of these asogi dog drawings now, i have no clue what i'm doing with his hair. i also made ryunosuke and barok papercrafts! read my post about designing them!!!
