Mr. Mute is a cartoon character that doesn’t speak, with wacky, murderous intentions towards you all!

Zine-publishers, as a whole, please me, because they at least have the good sense to put their imbecilic ravings in writing instead of bleating them out audibly, thus leaving nothing but the peaceful rustle of paper in their wake. This doesn't mean that zinesters aren't morons. It just means they don't land on my To Do list as often as the rest of you talkative bastards. Of course, that doesn't mean that zinesters don't flout the Laws of Civilized Society, thus earning my wrath. It just takes me longer to realize it, because they aren't SHOUTING their idiocies into my ear. But have no fear, I am well aware that you're a danger to society.

Once I spark the Silent Revolution, people who create poetry zines will be shot even before those who talk too much.

Still, I would rather you all put out zines instead of becoming a street preacher or some such nuisance, which is generally your other career opportunity. Zine Publisher or Street Preacher, that's you, admit it. Towards a more livable world, a world with fewer Street Preachers filling the air with their prattling, I have decided to put my Campaign for Forcible Silence on hold and get more of you yokels into zining. So, here's a guide to putting out a zine that anyone can follow, and I certainly hope you all will, instead of talking about not doing it, or talking about doing it, or talking about how people who put out zines are just effete assholes.

1. Decide what kind of zine you're going to put out. Some people would say that there are as many types of zines as there are wonderfully individual people in the world. I wouldn't. There are five. A. The Perzine. This is a zine wherein you write about your inner feelings and the events in your life, like a public diary. Don't do it. Perzines are for effete assholes. B. The Music Zine. This is a zine that has music, specifically the kind of music you accept and enjoy, as its central theme. This gives you lots of easy material in the form of vapid record reviews and amateurish interviews with bands no one else will ever care about. I don't recommend the Music zines; they're for effete assholes. C. The Collage Zine. In this zine, you cut out a lot of clip art and fill every page with various doodles, poems, snatches of text, coffee stains, and inscrutable little shout-outs. Collage zines are like talking with a schizophrenic on the subway. How many times can Bob the fifties man smoking a pipe be used for satiric effect in a zine? The Collage ziners are determined to find out. D. Poetry Zines. Jesus, if you're looking for effete assholes, look no further. E. Review Zines. These zines primarily review other zines. While lots of zines in the other categories use zine reviews as a way of filling a few pages, or as a nobly-intentioned service to the zine community, Review zines have made this their reason for existing. Before starting a Review zine, ask yourself why anyone should care what an effete asshole like you thinks.

Does a 5-item list of your favorite cat names really need a two-page spread in the middle of your zine? I condemn you to have your tongue ripped out.

2. Actually create some material. Whether your zine is going to be book-length and cost $15 in stamps, or a single postcard with tiny type, too many zines are quite obviously style over substance. Don't worry about the style of your zine (layout, design, etc.) until you actually have written/drawn whatever it is you want to put in it. You can usually tell a ziner who made this mistake by one of these clues: There are more fonts in the goddamned thing than actual words or cartoons; There are whole articles devoted to the style and design of the fucking zine; The last page(s) of the issue are a big-font, wide-leading exploration of how the authors ran out of material for the issue. If you can't come up with however many pages of reasonably typeset stuff, don't fucking bother to put out issue #1. If it took you a whole year to come up with 1,000 words of stuff for issue #1, why fucking bother? It'll be six years before you come up with issue #2. Might as well go to Business School, asshole.

The busier you are creating your zine, the quiter you’ll be, I’ll bet.

3. Then, just fucking do it. Got a few pieces of your creative brain on paper? Great, you're a genius, now stop talking about it and do it. I would recommend you don't worry too long about design and layout. You start fucking around with layout and design, and six years later you're still putting the finishing touches on the cover of issue #1. Some time spent thinking about layout and design is great: Realizing early on that using 250 different fonts and type sizes, reverse-bleeds, and lots of dim, photocopied photographs is a Bad Thing will move you down to the bottom of my To Do list. For a while. Getting that first issue out is much more important than getting that first issue right. Get it out, and start working on issue #2. The layout and design will evolve and clarify, unless you're an effete asshole, in which case it will only get worse. As for how to produce your zine, well, thousands of years ago people managed to paint on cave walls. Do you really need an in-depth discussion of Quark vs. Pagemaker? If you have a computer, lay it out in Word Pad, for god's sake. For a photocopied zine, you could type it all on a typewriter, paste it up, and go.

Despite the fact that I can predict right now that no one has read your first issue--no one--I’d still prefer you just go ahead and put out the second issue rather than blather on and on about how disappointing the reception to #1 was.

4. Give the fucking thing away. Sure, put a price on the cover, and act all tough about making people pay for it. But then give it away. No one wants it badly enough to pay you, trust me. Maybe five years down the road when you're being celebrated as a genius for a disaffected generation someone will pay you, but for now getting paid should be the last thing on your mind. If you put out a zine in order to make money, you're both evil and dimwitted, and shoot up to #1 on my To Do list. No, give it away. Send it to everyone you know. Send it to every ziner you've heard of. Above all, send it to Review Zines. Good reviews make you feel good, bad reviews might teach you something, and even poorly written or vague reviews can offer you a sense of superiority to the monkey who penned it. Plus, it's free advertising.

5. Stop jerking off on your first issue and put out the second. Nothing sadder than issue #1 out two years ago and issue #2 "still in the planning stages", unless issue #1 sold 500,000 copies.

There. Even dimwitted throwbacks should have little trouble following those steps. While you're busy quietly creating your publication, I will be free to stop supervising you and get back to my real work, reorganizing the world according to my wishes: a quiet, orderly place where no one speaks unless spoken to. Have fun. I'll probably kill you next year.