Take a break from scrolling, and let these zines take you to places the algorithm wouldn’t know to. Fall into the mischievous risograph world of Estevan Ester’s All City Dreamz, stumble through the woozy states of past, present, and future in Yuka Hirac’s jajaja…瞑想散歩, and plunge deep into the gritty underground world of tattoo subculture in Ben Trogdon’s Tattoo Punk. Below, we’ve rounded up nine must-see zines of the moment.

TYLER ANDREW, CAN I STAY?

“Can I Stay? is about maintaining relationships with people in your life despite the physical distance between you and them,” explains photographer Tyler Andrew. Suspended someplace between sleep and wakefulness, the zine uses photographs to revisit memories from a different perspective. 

Can I Stay? is available here.

POLLY PEARN-LEWIS AND IZZY WOODMANSEY, DYKE 4 DYKE

Made by dykes, for dykes, this zine is a “cheeky, pink and punky” project that platforms and connects lesbians from around the world. Built from “a growing desire for tangible action rather than drowning in online discourse”, the zine compiles art, essays, photography, poems and opinions in each of its issues.

As mainstream media becomes “increasingly dominated by single stories and fear-inducing headlines”, the zine provides an independent space for marginalised voices and the free expression of counterculture. The editors hope readers feel “loved, connected and encouraged to act”.

Dyke 4 dyke is available here.

CHAYANEE CHOEDSUK, GET IT TOGETHER

Get it Together traces the transition from girlhood to womanhood through portraits of friends in spaces that shaped them. “There’s something tender about wanting to remember what your body looked like at a certain age, or holding on to a feeling before adulthood changes how you see it. This book is all about those moments,” says photographer Chayanee Choedsuk. 

“It started when I began photographing girls in their first year of university, just like I was. Now, as I’m about to graduate, I’ve looked back at all those images and realised they’re all about growing up. Not just physically, but emotionally and mentally growing into your body, your memories, your relationships, and the city you live in.”

BEN TROGDON, TATTOO PUNK

Mainstream tattoo shops can be “alienating, expensive and uninspiring”, explains Ben Trogdon, creator of Tattoo Punk. His zine pushes back against that mainstream by celebrating tattoos in their DIY form, featuring tattooists, their sketches, and the communities that keep the subculture alive. Trogdon hopes readers feel “a little more free and a little less alone” when they pick up a copy.

Tattoo Punk is available at Printed Matter and Antiquted Furniture

QUINN BATELY, TAKING ON THE BIG MAN, TAKING THE BIG MAN ON

Put simply, Quinn Bately’s latest zine is about “taking on the big man, or taking the big man on”. For Bately, that shows up in a collection of cityscapes, skateboarding scrapes, fresh tattoos and buzzcuts as he takes us into the pulse of his city life. He hopes readers take “whatever they want” from the project.

Taking On The Big Man, Taking The Big Man On is available here

ELISE TOÏDÉ, THE DREAM LIFE OF ANGELS

In The Dream Life of Angels, photographer Elise Toïdé captures the “dizzying vertigo‘ of growing up”. Shot in Paris and its outskirts, the series follows four young women whose everyday surroundings turn into “a backdrop for an almost cinematic atmosphere, where intimacy and dreams intertwine”. For Toïdé, adolescence is “a time of metamorphosis, when everything is still possible”, and she hopes the work leaves readers with “a sense of floating, like a reminiscence of their own adolescence, with its mixture of hope, loneliness and fragile beauty”.

The Dream Life of Angels is available here

ELLA WARREN AND HANNAH CASH, CWYR

CWYR is an independent print zine that centres and platforms the work of queer creatives, exploring themes through this queer lens to highlight differences, similarities, and ambiguities in perspective. The zine investigates how perspectives can “distort our understanding of something, reframe it, challenge it, or reinforce” ideas. Using prose and artwork, the issues centre around various themes, with a constant spirit of “hope and resistance” running throughout. It’s with the aim that the zine can offer “a view for change and a belief that as a collective we can enact the change we want to see and resist the oppressive forces”.

CWYR is available here

YUKA HIRAC, JAJAJA…瞑想散歩

jajaja…瞑想散歩 is a zine by Tokyo-based artist Yuka Hirac that explores memory, death, and distortion. Inspired by the Japanese belief that memories replay like a “revolving lantern” at the moment of death, the work layers past experiences with imagined futures. “I’m interested in anything that connects the past and the future,” Hirac says. The zine introduces a recurring orange-haired figure, an earlier version of herself, set against references ranging from Kurosawa’s Dreams to rusty doors, truck logos, and Nina Menkes films. As Hirac puts it: “I like giving it an eerie meaning… something that makes you feel uncomfortable, that has a strange balance.”

jajaja…瞑想散歩 is available here.

ESTEVAN ESTER, ALL CITY DREAMZ

Cobweb-laced demons and mischievous creatures muddle through the city in Estevan Ester’s zine All City Dreamz. Made with love and a heavy dose of mischief, the zine is a collection of risograph short stories and drawings from his city’s imaginarium.

All City Dreamz is available at Jumbo Press and Kokoa Store.