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Auckland Zinefest 2026 report

Tabled at Auckland Zinefest on Sunday. Boys, we are so fucking back.

Background

I hadn't tabled at any events since mid-2024. To sum it up, these were a few of the reasons I stopped:

Zinefest specifically was even harder for me because you couldn't rely on fanart to get you through; you needed to create something worth it on its own. Very hard if you're embarrassed to share your feelings through art!

But since mid-2024 I have also been writing a lot, so much so that it is not really embarrassing for people to read my feelings. In fact, I actively want to make you listen (when it's about pro wrestling).

So when applications for Zinefest 2026 opened, I realized I could simply make non-fiction writing zines, just like my blog! Thus I signed up with my friend Silver.

Admittedly, the new Zinefest market rules—that you must only bring paper-based products, and have at least 5 zines—were a big reason for my excitement. In recent years the fest has felt pretty much like any other artist alley so the change was certainly a return to form.

Creation

Zinefest apps only get confirmed 1 month before the event, so I was pretty much rushing to meet the minimum. Luckily I'm more motivated to write than to draw and formatting was a cakewalk. New goods this time!

Scrapbook 2025 and 2026 sold out so look at the table image above.

I formatted the zines on InDesign and in retrospect it is insane how long I've used this program without understanding all of its capabilities. I've managed collaborative zines with text before, but only one involved spot art and when I look at it now I'm like bro that does not look good. The pen tool is amazing. One of these days I want to try creating a layout in InDesign and converting the PDF to an HTML file!

I was soooo fucking excited to make ONE FALL (12P) you have no idea. Wrestling is the biggest driver in me learning how to take photos on my phone so I was very excited to finally put the pics to use (I also drew some illustrations for wrestlers I didn't have any good photos of). I love how the cover turned out! Even though it's so dark and gritty it matches pretty well with the rest of my goods. At first I was annoyed that so many pictures had the ropes, but I think the recurring horizontal pattern is real cool in the end.

Plan (Procreate) vs final (Clip Studio Paint and InDesign)

Analog refuge (14P) is a rework of a blog post I planned to write (I'll share it later since it kinda just goes into the same "go outside" topic I've been harping on about too much lately). I didn't want to bother drawing or formatting any images so I made it a workbook where the reader fills in the artwork haha. It uses the fukurotoji binding method1, which let me use weird pagecounts and 'thicker' paper without paying as much. No one noticed it though! Except for my therapist.2

The cover uses a cut-up laundry detergent box and ice block packaging.

Both of these zines were A6 for cost-saving reasons but I think it's the perfect size. Big enough that they feel serious, small enough that they don't take up too much space!

The scrapbook zines I made to fill the minimum zine requirement; Scrapbook 2023 was the only zine that sold well at last my last stall, and I had already created the scrapbook pages so all I had to do was scan them. Having a home scanner again is a lifesaver. The fact that I don't have to wait until the weekend to have time to take photos in the daylight! The consistency! The quality! I was quite pleased to see how my scrapbooking style evolved over time; it's definitely a lot more intentional now, to the point that I would consider it collage instead.

I printed all of my zines with Print Online, who I've used many times in the past. They're crazy fast and the print quality is good, but I found that the double-sided printing was quite unaligned compared to my workplace's printer. A lot of the wrestling zines ended up with tight margins after cropping.

My risoprints and business cards were from The Online Printer. Amazing quality as always with a pretty good price. Read my process for the zodiac print!

Since I only got the prints the Wednesday before the market, I was in a rush to cut everything at work. I'm ashamed to say for how long.The day before the market I went into the office to keep at it and my boss was there working on his own stuff too. He was like "oh wow, you've got a whole end-to-end setup here" which is possibly the most corpo way of describing zinemaking.

Stall setup

This time my setup process was super streamlined! I used a lovely New Zealand-made leather briefcase that I bought at an op shop for only $45 NZD ($26~ USD), propped up by a ruler. It's so perfectly convenient! No need to worry about your zines getting squished or lugging around a corkboard, it's storage and display in one!!! If you only sell small products and it matches your aesthetic, I definitely think you should try tabling with a 2nd-hand briefcase.

I made the wolf standee the night before with some leftover cardboard and packaging filler paper. He's so cute it literally fucking kills me.

Overall I'm seriously happy with my setup this year, though I ended up removing the A5 zines because I figured they wouldn't sell. I guess I'll pop them back up on Etsy sometime.

Market

I had a really great time at the market. I think that the minimum zine requirement filtered out a lot of artists who would typically apply, so there much fewer stallholders than before and much more room and better placements as a result. At the last Zinefest, I was placed in an underground area, which made for a bit of a miserly experience as no one knew that section existed despite the main foyer being so busy you couldn't breathe. This time they used the Lower Grey Gallery as the secondary section instead, which not only was much more visible but also a very cool space to be able to display your art.

06/08/26: I talked to one of the organizers, who said that there were actually more applications than last year. But most people were half-table and the main foyer's sculpture was much smaller than before, so it felt more spacious.

My sales were a lot better than last time; that is to say I actually managed to sell my zines. Ahh, I think it helped that I wasn't selling niche fanart comics, and that I was 100% proud of my work this time. But even my Anchovy zine that only sold two copies before sold three here (the remaining pieces), so the location was certainly part of it. I'm glad I managed to sell out of most of the other scrapbook zines.

The risoprints didn't sell as well as I hoped—and since it was riso I printed a ridiculous amount—but I don't feel bad about it! The scope of people you can sell to is simply so much higher with original art. I can just reuse these next year or load them off to a consignment shop of some sort.

Same deal with the bear stickers. I CBFed doing deals so poor Mr. Morrison Thornbury didn't get one buyer even though I think he looks so terribearly adorable. But he's really timeless so he'll try his best next year. It's interesting to compare it to the last time when I was literally making stickers of the most trending topic just to see if they'd sell. They did, but after the fact I was stuck with leftovers that no one would ever be interested in again because who gives a fuck about Planet of the Bass in 2026. Though I don't even know what's trending these days to be honest.

Regardless, tabling is free so I didn't sweat the cost. It's pretty much a whole day spent with one of my only art friends and I got to meet a lot of other cool people too! Case in point: MAXIMILLION! He saw my post about the wrestling zine on Instagram, so popped out of a law conference at the nearby university to grab a copy :') I met a couple of other wrestling fans too which was so bloody awesome.

Bro looked so suave my friend commented on it later. I'm very grateful that he took the time to come over; it was so nice to meet him!3

biqqin also stopped by and it was so great to catch up with them again. I don't use social media outside of wrestling Instagram so we exchanged LinkedIn profiles. The next day I realized we were already mutuals on LinkedIn.

Our table placement was pretty boss in terms of neighbors as well. On the right was D*List, an online newspaper about disability culture. Their free zines about the government's treatment of Deaf people were very interesting. On the left was Sophie Watson, who I had bought a print from earlier in the year. Her art style is so whimsically cute and mature at the same time. She shared her table with another friend, Kristen LumWe only ever see each other at conventions, but thinking about it she might actually be the person I've kept in contact with the longest IRL. I really like how high-quality her zines are, especially since narrative manga-style zines are so rare here.

The significance of zines

Now I have talked plenty about the significance of collaborative fandom zines as a means of artistic permanence and connecting with others (when using free-for-all signups at least) but 'handmade' zines were a bit different—I found them neat but I couldn't understand what made 'zine-making' such a notable hobby in the digital era. After all if you care to share your work, the internet has a much wider reach than any sort of zine distribution. But the significance is that it's local distribution.

I think that online zine discourse muddled this a lot. I'm not sure if people still discuss it today, but back when the fandom zine scene was booming in 2021–2023, there occasionally be drama about what constituted as a zine. Some people said that the new crop of so-called zines couldn't be called as such, because they were professionally printed and often exclusive and were paired with a lot of merchandise. They would talk about real zines being handmade 8P booklets about punk and feminism and such.

This shit would drive me mad because the fandom zine scene has always existed since the 60s. Girlies were creating insane 100 page Spirk anthology collections by the 80s and 90s! 4 Fandom zine drama has always existed! Please look up whatever the hell zine agents were. Sure the quality wasn't as polished but we do live in the internet era now so we have the ability to create pretty full-color works instead of using the cheapest possible printing method.

On a personal level I was bugged by it because there was always this implication that zines should be low-effort and simple and that was massively insulting to me, when I put hours into drawing and hand-binding my dojinshi.5 But it was also massively insulting to other people who made DIY zines, including the countless high-quality feminist and punk zines—like it was clear that these Twitter users had never been to an IRL zine market and just had a romanticized idea of what 'zines' were in their mind.6

Anyhow there was all this discourse about what a zine is and not what the purpose of a zine is. Now, in the past that would be non-professional publishers spreading uncensored information across a wide network, but we have the internet for that today7. So instead, the significance of zines isn't that they're DIY or talk about punk ethos but that they do it to a local audience.

That's what it's about! Spreading your ideas to a real life crowd, even if it's only 1 or 2 people.

I never noticed it before because the subject matter of my fanart zines would only be relevant to an overseas audience. But I'm sure that local information distribution is part of why Japan's dojinshi market thrives too—your gay sex fancomic might not make any noise on Twitter or Pixiv but IRL, you're given the same amount of space to present your art as all the big-name artists.

So, talking about original work now—I've got this online blog that often discusses New Zealand-specific topics, but all of my audience (who are literally just five existing Twitter friends plus three people I met through blogging) are from overseas, primarily American or Canadian. I sometimes get clicks from New Zealanders but I don't exactly write about SEO-relevant topics. It's the sort of stuff that's too personal to push onto local subreddits and Facebook groups as well, and it'd just get lost in the crowd anyway.

But zines are a way to get your message out to the real world to people who would care! Information distribution without algorithm or judgement!

Now the thing about zines is that you don't need to worry about how other people are pricing theirs—you can go as high or low as you want, which is important when you want to spread information about something you care about. But even if no one buys your zines it's OK as long as they pick them up and the information is ever so slightly imparted on their mind. I was very happy that people of all ages flipped through my wrestling zines and some expressed that they had no idea Auckland pro wrestling existed.

Even if you're sharing a digital resource with someone you personally know—how many times have you said you'd check something out and never got around to it? I can't make my coworker read a blog post about pro wrestling because she'd just save the link and never look at it but I can give her a copy of my 12 page wrestling zine and know that she's going to read it because she might as well. In fact I did that yesterday.8

Zinemaking being a local affair also gives you reason for you to make your work to begin with. I think that so often on the internet, you don't do something because you see someone else do it and you're like what's the point, it's been said and done before. But the internet gives you access to information from the minds of billions of people.

I don't write posts about why you should start using RSS or why you need a personal website because they've been done to death online. But if I want to put this information in front of people IRL—it's not going to be effective to print out some other guy's blog post and maybe I want the information to be more specific to my country anyway.

So I have to write something new myself. It has to be my own creation. And it's worth it because—even if only for 10 seconds—someone will pick it up and read.

Artistic identity

This was my first time tabling with majority original art. It feels good!!! Like I mentioned before, a big part of it is just how much less hopeless you feel even if you have leftovers. Everything's more timeless and, in my case, I'm not relying on an audience that literally does not exist in New Zealand.

This is also the first time my stall has had a proper visual identity. I know a lot of other people can manage it, but it was hard for me to achieve when I only drew fanart, maybe because I don't care about my personal branding and so I'm very flexible as a result—I want to change up my style to match the tone of the series or character! But when I create whatever—I suppose, not working to a 'brief' in my head—I don't even have to think about branding for my art to feel like me.

It helps that my non-artistic aesthetic has developed a lot since 2024. I was always primarily shopping at thrift stores before but I'd go after things that looked modern-cool... thanks to The Great Ace Attorney I've much more embraced being a cute old man.9

But I guess a big part of why I can feel so good about it is that I don't have any pressure now that I'm not actively aiming to work in art. I've been thinking about this for a while but I am somewhat grateful I never got an early success like getting in the field right after graduation or becoming Twitter-famous. I feel like that would have only increased my dependency on using money or validation as a marker for my own skill and enjoyment in art.

Is that cope? My boss is treating us to lunch tomorrow so IDC!

Anyway, I don't want to discount the digital world in all this. I know I have been writing a lot about the topic of going outside and local community is so awesome blah blah blah lately but I love the internet. I think that having my own website is one of the biggest things that helped me be my own artist. Just being able to put my work out here without having to know how many times someone has seen it or how many people are watching my updates makes me feel so much better, it's crazy to compare my mindset in my old posts versus now.

Upcoming plans

I'm doing Auckland Zinefest again no doubt, already have a lot of plans in mind. I'm also thinking of tabling at Overload next year, but I'll have to be a lot more strategic to cover the fee. In the past I've crossed it easy with big prints, but I'm not sure how well an original could sell and I don't see myself making >A4 fanart prints unless it's something I'm passionate about, which puts me back into relying on an audience that does not exist in New Zealand. Maybe it's time to make an iDOLM@STER SideM zine? Wait, I've already done that.

In any case though I do want to make more artwork that includes more of what I'm specifically good at, like cool characters and backgrounds and compositions. I'm getting too excited!!!

Gets

Lots of trading this time. I wish I had time to go to Saturday's fest as well~... Linocut by GoodBadEnglish. Not sure who made the Cerebus or knight sticker.

This post is the length of 165 140-character Tweets. This is why I quit Twitter

  1. AW Sketch's post reminded me of it—I'm going to update that old blog post in the future too.↩

  2. He also said that the wrestling zine was very journalistic of me. I think he's glazing me because I pay him $160 to listen to me complain for an hour but he used to be an actual journalist so I'll take it.↩

  3. I only started interacting with the local pro wrestling scene once my favorite wrestler's mother emailed to say that she had read my post about the promotion Maximillion performs in, so my therapist was like "awww that's nice you're having a full circle moment". I was thinking my brother in Christ you are a national newscaster I used to watch on TV when I was 5 years old YOU are the full circle moment. Guys, something really fucking weird is happening with my life right now.↩

  4. My personal favorite is the story of a gay guy who printed a crazy amount of copies of his Kirk x self-insert fanfiction but was left with dozens unsold because he didn't realize that Star Trek fujoshi care about their ship instead of some random dude.↩

  5. Also I literally drew a 40 page comic about the least popular characters in an untranslated series with 300+ characters. You will hear me talk about this on my deathbed.↩

  6. As for modern fandom zines, I think it's fine to call them that but I prefer using the term 'fanbook' or 'anthology' in the case of comic or fic-focused books.↩

  7. But TBH given the youth social media ban that might start being relevant again.↩

  8. She said that she wanted to go to the Aotearoa Wrestling event with me because Charlotte Flair's ex-husband is in it. I'm like girl I have no idea who he is.↩

  9. I'm planning to make a room tour post later this month so that you understand the full extent of this statement.↩

  10. OK so my actual opinion is that because pro wrestling is a lot more curated to be entertaining and family-friendly, wrestlers will spend most of their time doing more exciting action moves like punching and kicking. But MMA fighters who only want to pin their opponent to the ground? That's fucking.↩

#2026 #2D #art #convention #pro wrestling #report