How to Make a No-Staple Mini Comic or Zine

January 1st, 2009 by RR Anderson

1 DIY No-staple Mini Comic Zine

Whether left in a stack in your favorite coffee shop or ‘stuffed’ into a library book, these little comic books (or zines) can be super fun.  The No-Staple, method is nice because all you need to do is print, cut and fold.  Avoiding to use a stapler saves lots of time, especially if you’re churning out a crap load of these little suckers!

The Method

In the schematic below, please note location and orientation of FRONT COVER (F), BACK COVER (B), and PAGES 1 – 6.  You’ll need to shrink and orient your pages in photoshop.  It works best if you have a laser printer.  You can just print out one (1) copy and then duplicate the rest in photocopier if you don’t want to waste your own toner.

1 DIY No-staple Mini Comic Zine

Assembly Instructions:

Cut along the dotted line between the two marks “X” (pictured above) .  Now Fold the paper the long way (fig A). Next fold the pages taking care to pop out the middle (fig B).

2 DIY No-staple Mini Comic Zine

And that’s all there is to it!   If you want to get tricky with it you can print a MINI-POSTER on the REVERSE BLANK SIDE of the paper, giving people the option to unfold the comic and hang up after reading. Excelsior!

2 DIY No-staple Mini Comic Zine3 DIY No-staple Mini Comic Zine

1 Comment

  1. Official Claw Meeting Notes - Cartoonist's League of Absurd Washingtonians (Tacoma, WA) said,

    January 15, 2009 @ 5:30 pm

    […] OUR NEWSLETTER AS A “ZINE” OR MINI COMIC – talked about newsletter names Elliot liked ‘claw and order’ each member would draw page numbers from a fez and be responsible for cartoon content on that page.  zines would be distributed to coffee shops and or stuffed into City Arts and other unsuspecting host publications. Think old-school mad magazine… comics and fake ads. […]