This Tale is a Lie: A Fairy tale Zine

My first project this past semester, studying abroad at the Arts University Bournemouth, was to create a zine. My topic was folklore, and beyond that I was given no restrictions or guidelines.

I found my first few months there to be quite challenging, in that I had never before had so much free time for self-motivated work. That, paired with the incredibly broad topic of folklore, led me to struggle initially with finding a focus. I won’t post any of my first sketches because they are really quite aimless and I only truly started to make work when I developed a narrative to my zine.

For this documentation I’d like to focus on the exploration of different mediums and ways of working that was key to the zine unit. The narrative I developed, focusing in on fairytales, is metafictive, and therefore the use of different mediums even within a single piece became significant. (Every page is shown in order and the text was written by me).

Cover Page (watercolor, ink, folded paper, thread, digital)

My zine traverses through idealized imagery of fairytales, and pulls back the curtain.

Welcome (ink)

(Ink, lino print)

(Ink, watercolor, graphite)

I wanted to investigate the idea of the authors of literary fairytales, as collectors and potentially manipulators.

(ink, inserted photography)

(graphite, ink, watercolor)

I explored the idea of fairy tale characters having lives and minds external to the stories collected and retold by countless storytellers. With this narrative, I used differences in mediums, colors, and scale in order to separate the fairy tale characters from human reality.

I wanted to play with the reality of the page as a space, for control and imprisonment.

(ink, photography, torn paper)

(ink, watercolor, pins, photography)

(ink, watercolor, pins, needle, thread, photography)

I’m particularly attached to the piece below. Witches are evasive and do not follow the rules of society. They slip through your fingers. I chose watercolor (a similarly tricksy medium) to depict this stigmatized role of the “witch,” the woman forced into isolation for not following the dictated path.

"I'm not good, I'm not bad, I'm just right. I'm the witch!" (ink, watercolor)

Those who exert control over these characters are subject to their own rules of society. (ink, graphite, watercolor)

Below I placed myself in the role of the manipulator. As an illustrator I may make commentary but cannot exclude myself from the group. I actually felt pretty bad creating this page.

(ink, jar, water, photography)

 The zine narrative then shifts to a larger view, thinking about the multitudes of versions of each story across time.

Though each version may be but a shadow, the same girl flits between her stories (pringles tube, paper, tea bags, pins and needles, photography)

Beyond all individual versions, there is a central theme, there is a core that resurfaces and thrives with change.

(ink, watercolor, graphite)

The penultimate page is supposed to be layered over with a page of tracing paper, the words of both pages overlapping.

(tracing paper, colored pencil/ink, watercolor)

 The ending is left to you.

(watercolor, tracing paper, paper, thread)

Explanations of the content of individual images can be found on my tumblr. 

Hand-bound zines