[HN Gopher] An interactive browser-based zine creator
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       An interactive browser-based zine creator
        
       Author : memorable
       Score  : 37 points
       Date   : 2022-05-25 09:54 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (unicornycopia.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (unicornycopia.com)
        
       | bmacho wrote:
       | Funny website, I like its aesthetics! Where to click, tho?
        
       | teddyh wrote:
       | Something is worth reading because it was presumably hard to
       | create, and mostly only people who really have something worth
       | saying will do the work. If things are easy to make, there will
       | be no proof-of-work, so to speak, and the market will be flooded
       | with people wanting to have readers who still believe most of
       | these kind of things are worth reading. Once people in general
       | learn that these things are now mostly utter crap, people will
       | stop giving even the rare worthy ones the time of day.
       | 
       | This can be applied to zines, books, computer games, web sites,
       | etc. With ease of creation comes a cost.
        
         | naet wrote:
         | What I love about zines specifically is that they are easy to
         | make. Anyone can easily print one via copy machine on a very
         | low budget, allowing a broader audience of people to author
         | something unique compared to other publishing media. The
         | barrier is incredibly low, but also just high enough that most
         | people don't end up doing it unless they have some content they
         | are passionate about printing.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | When zines were popular, they were difficult to make and
           | individually mailed to people, and there wasn't a ubiquitous
           | web or a facebook/blogger/whatever. I guess "difficult to
           | make" is relative, but back then it was relative to
           | publishing a newsstand magazine, not relative to a few clicks
           | on wordpress dot org. "Zines" these days are hipster retro
           | kitch, down to fake artfully misaligned/kerned typewriter
           | fonts (or comic book font for a faux-cometbus look.)
           | 
           | That being said, this site is attractive and fun.
        
             | Finnucane wrote:
             | Zines were not difficult. All you needed was an x-acto
             | knife and a glue stick, and a 24-hr Kinko's.
        
               | wincy wrote:
               | Zines are one of these words that just was never in my
               | vocabulary until maybe six months ago. I had to Google
               | what people were talking about. They're just cheap
               | magazines right?
        
               | trynewideas wrote:
               | self-published print works, one or more copies handmade,
               | the rest duplicated cheaply. arguably a modern successor
               | of 18th-century pamphleting. usually folded and staple-
               | bound, if bound at all. low barrier to entry made them
               | popular with marginalized groups; easily mailed, they
               | were also the nexus of some early fan communities,
               | especially for Star Trek, comics, music, and film.
               | 
               | some early web publishing was heavily zine inspired;
               | boingboing was a zine for almost a decade before becoming
               | a blog
               | 
               | maybe a more digestible history of zines in the internet
               | era: https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/postscript/alt-zines-
               | and-memo...
        
           | teddyh wrote:
           | Easy enough to be possible without being just a click of a
           | button away, yes, at a time when people mostly associated any
           | printed material as having taken a large effort to produce.
        
         | Finnucane wrote:
         | The whole point of zine culture was that anybody could put out
         | anything and trade it with all the other people putting out
         | their anythings.
        
           | teddyh wrote:
           | Yes, just like the other things I listed, it was good in the
           | beginning. And, like the others, once the bar of required
           | effort became low enough, the market flodded with low-to-no-
           | effort stuff.
        
             | Finnucane wrote:
             | I love the smell of mimeo in the morning.
        
       | kixiQu wrote:
       | It isn't browser-based -- it's cool as hell and worth every speck
       | of attention it can get, but it's not browser-based. Title needs
       | correction. The creator, Nathalie Lawhead, has blogged about a
       | lot of aspects of it and it's really cool to learn how much
       | thought underlies all the wacky details.
        
       | bacchusracine wrote:
       | No Linux version?
       | 
       | I guess I'll see if I can run the Windows version in Wine...
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-25 23:01 UTC)