A colorable “T-Swizzle” (Taylor Swift), a “create your own censor” for a naked Tupac and the chance to cut and paste unusual outfits onto Joe Biden: this is not just a random assortment of creative activities. Rather, it is an assortment of creative activities found in an issue of the local zine, The Paper Plane.
The three-month-old zine released its latest issue last Saturday. The Paper Plane staff also hosted a “live zine show” on Saturday at 8 p.m. at Lawn Gnome Publishing on Fifth Street south of Roosevelt Street to celebrate the launch of their Phoenix issue.
There is a new theme with each month’s issue, and this month the staff chose Phoenix as their topic. The zine will feature art, poetry and other creative pieces geared toward a personal, insider’s view of the city.
The last issue, “F****** Awesome,” focused on self-appreciation through comical illustrations and a coloring book in the center of the zine. Apart from the humorous contributions, the zine also referenced social justice issues such as Malala Yousafzai’s fight for women’s education.
Co-creators Grace Bolyard and Victoria Jane Roseburgh are friends and roommates who decided to begin publishing a zine on a whim. Bolyard works as a graphic designer but felt the need to pick up a new hobby.
“I felt like I wasn’t working towards my creative goals even though I’m successful with my career goals,” Bolyard said.
After a stressful day of work, Bolyard came home and decided she needed to either create a collaborative art zine or take up archery. Ultimately, Bolyard chose to start the zine because of her many artistically talented friends and her desire to enter the publishing world.
“My career goal when I started college was that I wanted to go into publishing, and then I got kind of sidetracked,” Bolyard said.
Bolyard and Roseburgh said they found a local publisher that offered to print The Paper Plane for a reasonable price. However, the first issue was completely funded by the staff for about $30-40 per person.
“We want(ed) to put money into this one time and then from there be able to market it enough to be able to fund each zine,” Roseburgh said.
After the first issue, the zine did begin to pay for itself. All of the proceeds from an issue transfer into the funds for the next, but Bolyard and Roseburgh hope to be able to make a profit off the zine one day.
“I hope that the zine money can become beyond sustainable so that we can take that interactivity to a new level,” Bolyard said. “We try to give goodies out with each issue, and it would be cool to give out really cool stuff.”
Both Bolyard and Roseburgh said they wanted to make the zine something fun and engaging that everyone could enjoy.
The Paper Plane is now publishing a combination of their friends’ work and submitted items, Bolyard said.
“We’re working on our fourth issue, and we have more submissions from people that we don’t know than ever before,” Roseburgh said.
Christina Cole, an illustrator for The Paper Plane, said Bolyard, a longtime friend, approached her to become part of the zine’s staff.
“It’s given me projects outside of what I normally do,” Cole said.
Cole said she enjoys the creative freedom the zine gives her and the collaborative atmosphere everyone on the staff participates in.
“We all get together and come up with these crazy ideas,” Cole said.
The staff sits down once a week and brainstorms. With the help of a whiteboard and lots of laughs, Bolyard said the themes for the issues have been picking themselves. They already have the theme for their fourth issue: Space.
Contact the reporter at syaghsez@asu.edu
