Ruined by Design Econo Zine
THIS WAS ALWAYS THE INTENDED FORMAT
About halfway through writing Ruined By Design I got this crazy idea that it needed to be a zine. I grew up with zines. Sharing them with each other at shows. Having out-of-town bands trade zines about their scenes for zines about our scenes. Finding them in the back of record stores, and the weirder book stores, and that crazy ass health food place that everybody went to before Whole Foods came around. Zines are where you found out about stuff before any of your friends. New bands, new ideas, new movies. And not the stuff that everyone else liked, but the weird stuff. The dangerous stuff. Zines were, and amazingly continue to be, markers of fringe communities. They’re the social networks those communities use to communicate with each other.
The Ruined by Design econo zine is 120 8 x 10 pages printed on cheap-ass newsprint and stapled together. Laid out in two tight-ass columns in a less-legible sans serif typeface. It’s glorious. The front and back covers have enough ink coverage to get all over your hands and destroy whatever you’re wearing. And it has some sloppy collages I made like the one above.
It was printed by Fricke-Parks Press, the same employee-owned press in Union City, California that printed Maximum Rocknroll!
WHY WOULD I BUY THIS INSTEAD OF THE BOOK
Because you’re cooler than your friends. You don’t mind getting dirty. And you don’t need an index.
Does it have the whole book?
Yes. The whole book. Except for the previously mentioned index.
Why the fuck does it not have an index?
Damn! Have you ever tried renumbering a fucking index?!? Plus, if you need the index buy the paperback.
WELL, IS IT AT LEAST CHEAPER?
It’s priced for students. It’s priced for the young person who’s just getting started. It’s priced for buying in bulk. (About a dozen of them should provide a nice absorbent cushion for a guillotine basket.)
IS this just a marketing ploy to get more of my money?
Does it matter? You’re gonna buy it anyway. You’re going to hate yourself for it — but hey — it has collages! The book doesn’t have collages. Plus, maybe I’m working on an audio version recorded on Russian x-rays that only people who have both versions get access to.
Does Amazon make any money off this?
No. Not off the zine. They didn’t touch it. Like I said, it was printed by a small family press. Union City, California. Shipped by me.
Damn. I wish my publisher let me do cool shit like this.
Yeah, self-publishing is actually pretty awesome. DIY.
