"Dear Self" Zine - ThoughtBubble

 Over summer we were set the brief of drawing everyday so that when we came back, we would have enough material together to collate, organise and print a zine to sell at the LCA stall at 2015 Thought Bubble. Throughout the summer months, this was a task I truly relished and enjoyed, then openness of the brief allowed me to explore my own visual language and the sorts of work I want to make. It allowed me to be open in myself and my image making, resulting in a body of work I felt proud of.

When we first got back after the summer break, I was overwhelmed with how much people liked the material I'd put together, especially the juxtaposition of writing and images within my sketchbooks, though I hadn't really thought about a specific theme while drawing over summer, the pieces tended to have an overarching personal element to them. I chose to call the zine "Dear Self". 

The actual production of the zine was a process I really enjoyed. Getting DIY with the photocopier to make artwork wasn't something I'd done before, and the results I got were something I was really happy with. I hadn't really explored the notion of putting my work into underground zine culture, but it was somewhere I found that it sat rather well.

This may however have been a drawback when our zines were taken to Thought Bubble. Perhaps my work didn't resonate with the seemingly large narrative // comic book work that populated a lot of the stalls this year. Compared with previous years, I felt a lot of the Thought Bubble content this year was very 'fan art'. Though this is in no way a disrespect to that form of illustration, its not somewhere I see my own work sitting. I sold one zine at Thought Bubble, which of course went to fund our show at Colours May Vary later in the year, however I do feel that the marketing and promotion of our zines was a little on the poor side. Not much hype was created around our works being sold there, and it was actually something I feel I could have marketed better myself.

Before selling at Thought Bubble, I had already decided due to high demand and positive feedback both from friends, peers and online, through my instagram, that I would sell the zine on my own after the festival. Using my blog and instagram together I managed to draw up enough hype around the release of my own zine that I had a number of people interested in buying it online; I chose to do this through the online retailer Etsy.