My new zine got called 'too clean' by a guy at the copy shop

I was at Kinko's yesterday getting 50 copies of my latest mini-zine, which is all about weird dreams. The guy at the counter looked at it and said, 'You know, real zines are supposed to look messy.' He pointed at my straight cut lines and said the staples were too neat. I just used my regular paper cutter! It made me laugh because I thought the point was the story inside. Has anyone else had someone try to 'correct' how your zine should look?

2 comments

2 Comments

cole_mitchell81mo ago

That's such a weird thing for a copy shop guy to get hung up on. I mean, the whole point is just to make the thing, right? Maybe it's just me but that gatekeeping feels pretty silly.

kevin_roberts411mo ago

Oh man, that's classic. My first zine looked like it was assembled by a raccoon, so maybe I set the bar too low. The copy shop guy probably just misses the old glue-stick-and-scissors vibe. Honestly, if the words are good, who cares how straight the staples are?