Is riso ruining zines?

that's a clickbait title, sorry

First, a few things coming up:

• Sculptural Book Lab - in-person workshop in Minneapolis. People made amazing book/sculptures in this class last year and installed them in MCBA’s library; it blew me away! My dream is for someone to create a weird bookeating performance for this class, will it be you? This year the class meetings are spaced out so that there’s more work time between sessions. Let’s make fabric books, altered books, glass books, books that are growing moss, ice books that melt, books that encourage non-reading.

• Book launch in Detroit for Nightmares & Dreams on Progesterone: Action Art Scores for Trans Becoming. It was a pleasure to typeset this book, inspired by Yoko Ono’s Grapefruit.

• We had an amazing time at Detroit Zine Fest last year. The community spirit was so special and the organizers put so much care into the event. Catch late night copeis tabling there again on April 5

• April riso 101 in Minneapolis at WIP

• Check out Open Copy in March & April - walk-in public printing at WIP. I will help you format & print your project!!! All kinds of projects welcome. Sometimes people stop by for help planning a printing project, or just to bring me snacks.

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Is riso ruining zines???

At art book fairs, when attendees approach our table, they routinely exclaim “wow! these are really zines.” Perhaps people are referring to the fact that we mostly do not make things that have a spine, or our table is usually the only photocopied dot in a sea of riso. Meanwhile, some zinesters have made a point to let us know we’re too fancy, fakers who are not making real zines at all (our zines are too glossy, not cheap enough, etc). Another way of putting this is that Late Night Copies Press finds itself in the crosshairs of a broad shift in what zinesters are tabling at fests, and what people are actually reading and collecting (if we assume there’s a connection between the two).

In a recent editorial aimed at librarians and archivists, Evan Bobrow (of Rathaus Press) reflects:

“In recent years, there has been a shift in quality of the archetypal zine, with the line between “zine” and “art book” becoming a bit murky. At fests you’ll see fewer perzines and classic photocopied minizines, and more professionally printed work (McDermott, 2018). This can range from periodicals reminiscent of traditional glossy magazines, to risograph printed work, to elaborate popup books … these works are still zines, and in some cases unique printing techniques and constructions can be a source of inspiration to potential, emerging, or established zinesters. However, the overall trend towards refined and curated work has the effect of making the medium seem more professional and less attainable. Some zinesters have pushed back against this shift, creating events such as Dear Diary Zine Fest (DDZF). DDZF was founded in 2018 in response to feeling discouraged by the commercial nature of modern zine fests, and craving space specifically for perzines. The inaugural event had exhibitors from all over North America, some travelling internationally or cross-country to attend, indicating that this gap had been felt in the larger zine community.” 

Bobrow writes to encourage libraries to include “scrappier, unassuming zines” in their collections, while following best practices like the Zine Librarian Code of Ethics. For Bobrow, the shift away from the classic, cheap, black-and-white photocopied zine is driven by frustration with social media platforms, and a hunger for in-person connection—perhaps exacerbated by COVID-19 lockdowns. In a digital age, communities that remain invested in print are perhaps even more invested in materiality than in the past, increasing the production value of the average zine. As Bobrow puts it, “the option to post [countercultural] ideas on the internet recontextualizes the choice to print them on paper.”

There are other reasons for this shift, too. At two of my adjuncting gigs, an ID has to be swiped to copy anything, and scans of those copies can be traced back to me. Theses days it’s so much harder to steal copies anonymously—that is, if your workplace still has a copier. With the trend towards paperless offices, photocopiers have become much less ubiquitous. At one of the colleges where I work, there are just two copiers for the entire campus (including all faculty and nearly 6,000 students).

Today, 90% of zines start their lives as a digital file of some sort that gets printed (not copied). Someone could make zines for years without ever touching a copier … and actually, that’s pretty par for the course. It seems like photocopiers should be pretty self-explanatory, but based on the kind of questions we get during Open Copy, plenty of prolific zinesters have actually never used one before.

On top of tightly controlled access to a dwindling number of copiers, photocopies are no longer the cheapest DIY printing method. In some circles you’ll hear the accusation that riso printing is kind of ruining zine fests. But compared to the click rate for color on a photocopier/laser printer contract, riso printing is significantly cheaper. And unlike most copiers, riso machines can be self-serviced; they’re less electronic and easier to run far past the point of obsolescence. As someone running both a copier and a riso from our living room, the riso is far easier and less costly to acquire, move, and repair. You’d think zinesters would be all over the cheapness and DIYness of riso, but instead it’s perceived as bougie. As Bobrow reminds us, “access is very important to zinesters,” and I suspect that riso is sometimes denigrated in zine circles because it requires some skill and, well, access to a machine that not every has or can get. That being said, in a large city offering various community print shops, using shared riso equipment might be more affordable and artist-friendly than relying on the closest Fed Ex.

Ultimately, I believe the shift from “classic” black and white photocopied zines to riso and full-color digital printing is a fairly organic one, driven by a number of factors. It’s not an overwhemingly positive or negative change; overall, it’s a change I feel pretty neutral about. Listen, if we were still living in a world of copiers in any and every office I would not object, and also a world of charming indie comics printed in fluorescent riso ink is definitely OK with me. But some segments of the zine community are … how shall we say this? not coping particularly well with what is ultimately an organic change.

In the case of Late Night Copies, every dollar we’ve earned from selling zines has been spent on printing zines for our press and other zinesters (often at a break-even rate), collecting zines, hosting a zine fest, and opening a community print shop. If that’s what it means to be a sellout then I guess I’m proud to be one. If you order our publications, ask us to speak at a college, hire us to teach workshops, or acquire zines at a markup for a non-circulating collection, know that it directly funds the work of community-based publishing. We also do plenty of free printing for a cause, devote so many (too many?) unpaid hours every year to fest organizing and running a space, and circulate plenty of free copies of our work. But if we gave all our work away for free or it always lost money or we had to stick to small print runs that could be stolen from the copier at work, we simply couldn’t make and distribute very much of it … and one of the reasons we publish (rather than, say, make paintings) is that we have something to say and we want to be read. We believe in audiences and multiples and we are interested in being a little ambitious in how widely we distribute, even if at the end of the day our “press” is just two people and a copier in their living room. This approach is not 100% punk (and neither am I). But I’m suspicious of rigid approaches to printing and publishing. If I hadn’t been flexible about how I make work over the years, a lot of it would simply not have happened. I don’t think there’s any one best or true medium or process for making self-published zines and books,¹ and there are pros and cons to just about every setup or approach, including the workflows we’ve chosen for our press and designed our print shops for. At the end of the day, we control our equipment and keep it running reliably, which feels increasingly important in the political landscape of 2025. The flip side of that is that we’re also responsible for a lot of overhead … not a staggering amount, but more overhead than zinesters have traditionally accounted for in their pricing and distribution, including equipment service agreements, rent, etc.

As Bobrow (a riso printer themself) writes, as we’re seeing a palpable shift in how zines are made, it’s worth going out of our way to make sure “classic” zines are included in public zine collections and events. For instance, DDZF is a great example of carving out dedicated space for perzines (and it’s back for another year in 2025!). As zine fest organizers, we always wish we saw more “classic” zines in the applications and on the tables. But I fear there isn’t any going back—for better or worse, more colorful, inkier zines with yummier paper are probably here to stay. As a community, zinesters can cling to the past—or we can do our best and live pragmatically in the present, hopefully one with as much copier noise as possible.

1. although there are reasons I am not a letterpress printer, at this point you could not pay me to be a letterpress printer (and folks, you can pay me to do a lot of things)