Artist. Zinester. Game Dev/Designer. Graphic Designer. Hobbyist Programmer. LARPer. Creative Person.
Olivia Montoya

My Zines

Here is the current list of zines I’ve made or edited:

(meta)paradox #1

This is my first cut-and-paste perzine (personal zine)! It is 80 pages long (counting the covers) and quarter-size. Topics include: an intro to me, favorites, dreams, being autistic, asexuality, atheism and death, having multiple sclerosis, synesthesia, unexplained experiences, geography and road trips, creating zines, drawings/comics, and more! Black and white.

(meta)paradox #2

It’s quarter-sized, 88 pages, and even more text heavy than the last issue. Topics include being autistic, asexuality and aromanticism, mixed race identity, disability and chronic illness, co-op life, and more!

(meta)paradox #3

Here’s issue three of my main perzine! In this zine I have pieces about mental health, realizing I’m asexual, NaNoWriMo attempts, transhumanism, hipsterism, music recs, falling into gray areas, a comic, applying to college, having MS, and more. 44 pages, 1/2 size.

Content note: depression, hospitals, religious fundamentalism

(meta)paradox #4: The Religion Issue (not currently available)

(meta)paradox #5: The Neuroqueer Issue

This zine is about queer and neurodivergent identities and how they intersect. For me, this means the intersections between queerness, queer asexuality, being autistic, and having depression and anxiety, though other intersections are explored as well. There are pieces on femme and disability, bi-ness, queerness and atheism, asexuality and disability, queer and ace language, ace and aro relationships, body image, romance plots in LARPing, questioning where I belong, why I write the way I do in zines, a QTPOC conference I attended, and more!

This zine is 1/4 size and 88 pages long.

(meta)paradox #6: The Brainweird Issue

This zine is about my brain and the way it works (and doesn’t work.) In great detail. Writing it was a form of therapy and processing my thoughts. It’s basically a window into the way I think and my neurodivergences. I talk mostly about autism and my autistic traits and the nuts and bolts of my thought processes, but there’s also stuff about anxiety and depression, OCD, gender feelings, childhood experiences, getting diagnosed with MS, and reclaiming weirdness. If you are autistic or like the experience of getting inside someone else’s head, this may be the zine for you! Super super text heavy! This is the longest zine I’ve ever written. 23,500 words. 1/4 size, 88 pages. Comes with 16 page micro glossary zine.

Content note: depression, anxiety, OCD, medical stuff, mild self harm

Meta (meta)paradox

A small zine about how I make my zines. 16 pages, 1/16 size.

Anecdata #1

This is a mini perzine I made because it was taking a while to finish (meta)paradox #2. It’s mostly about mental and physical health, but also about asexuality and relationships, personal aesthetic, and Radioactive Soda. 32 pages, 1/8 size.

Anecdata #2

I made this perzine as a 24 hour zine thing. As with the other issue, Anecdata #2 is about a wide variety of things, including depression, airport horror stories, science fiction, why I love zines, and more. 1/4 size, 32 pages.

Anecdata #3

It’s a combination of a zine I started last summer and never finished and some miscellaneous writing I did more recently. It’s not the best zine I’ve made, but here it is. Some of the things I talk about in the zine include: self-publishing, mental and physical health, IRL asexual meetings, nail polish, microaggressions, being fat, and my summer. 32 pages, 1/8 size.

Anecdata #4

I made this new issue of Anecdata as a 24 hour zine challenge for International Zine Month 2016. It’s not that great, since I wrote it while extremely sleep deprived. Topics covered include: my summer, mental/physical health, getting my mother into zines, self published books I own, and some other random stuff. 32 pages, 1/4 size.

Anecdata #5

Here’s Anecdata #5, which I believe is back up to the quality of the first two issues! 32 pages, 1/8 size. Topics covered include: racial and ethnic identity, being autistic, mental and physical health, books, soda reviews, and more!

Anecdata #7

(no, that’s not a typo, I haven’t finished #6 yet and #7 was a 24 hour zine)

I made another 24 hour zine for International Zine Month 2017, and this is it! As with other 24 hour zines, I made this one while sleep deprived, so it may not be my best work. It contains personal updates about my life, especially my summer activities and health stuff, amusing family anecdotes about Facebook and the new dog, LOTS of zine recommendations, a short piece on body image, and another piece about empathy with plants. There’s an entire page that is just scanned washi tape. 32 pages, 1/4 size.

Psychometry

This is my first “real” zine. Inside I talk about topics such as: LARPing, my first multiple sclerosis flare, high school, college, religion and atheism, asexuality (very briefly, mainly in reference to the asexual flag), and my mother, all in relation to found objects and “relics” of past events.

1/2 size with 26 internal pages.

Psychometry #2: Little Voices Everywhere

It’s obscene how much time I’ve spent putting this zine together, and somehow it still has its typos, but here it is! Psychometry #2 is mostly an exploration of student graffiti at a top-tier university, and involves the author’s induction into said university’s Mystery Society (sort of) over the course of collecting material for this zine, as well as various other tomfoolery. 52 pages, 1/2 size.

In Veritas Lost

This is a 64-page quarter size handmade fiction zine. It’s a single science fiction story I wrote as my final project for a creative writing class. The formatted story laid out in the zine is liberally illustrated with found images. The initial concept was “post-apocalyptic dystopian Great Gatsby with lesbians,” but it sort of went off in its own direction. I have trouble judging the quality of my own writing, but I put a lot of time into writing it, and also into making it into a zine.

Note: This story doesn’t involve any romance, but the main character is a lesbian. It’s more about interpersonal bonds and emotions in general, particularly between parent and child, and whether being perpetually happy and safe is worth losing one’s free will and deeper connections with other people. You probably won’t want to read this if you don’t like unhappy endings.

Uncanny #1

1/8 size, 32 pages. This is a mini zine of weird short/flash fiction. It contains eight super short stories on a variety of topics. However, telling you much about them would spoil the endings! Let’s just say most of them are in the realm of science fiction and fantasy. Some are pretty creepy.

Content note: body horror and suicidal thoughts

Ephemeral #1

1/8 size, 16 pages. This is a stream of consciousness zine. Sort of. I wrote about a bunch of things that came to mind, from the deep to the mundane, covering things as wide as capitalism, ephemerality, finding cool stuff at the dump, alien life, and Taco Bell food.

Content note: swearing, abuse mention

Ephemeral #2

1/8 size, 16 pages. This is a zine of mostly shower thoughts that I expanded upon. Sort of. Most were things that just stuck in my mind for a while. I wrote about as varied topics as: Twitter popularity, philosophy and evolution, music and language, activism as a marginalized person, a rant about zines not being a means to an end and not being just a kid thing, and a discussion of the lack of zine community in Connecticut

Content note: swearing, racism discussion

Asexual Content #1: Relationships

This is a free compilation zine I put together around 2015-2016 focusing on asexual experiences with relationships. 1/2 size. I think it’s 56 pages long?

Infinitism: The Zine

64 pages of bizarre fun. This has got to be my strangest zine. It’s about a religion I invented for an English project as a junior in high school, the website I made for the final presentation, and the outside attention I got for the website. Also discusses my own teenage religious seeking that led me to create the titular religion. Lots of transcriptions of project documents, emails, and more! Weird, and sort of creepy. 1/4 size.

Content note: religion and cult discussion, stalking

Let’s Make a Zine!: An Interactive Workshop: The Zine!

I made this zine to go along with a zine workshop I teach, but not everyone has access to that, so I’ve decided to release the zine for free download and a physical version for the cost of printing and shipping. This zine covers what a zine is, zine genres, zine history, zine sizes, basic zine making, zine content and layouts, zine printing and assembling, copyright, where to find and sell zines, further resources, and some extra tips and tricks. 48 pages, 1/4 size.

Dark Light

Cute little cut-and-paste micro zine (1/16 size). DarkLIGHT is a poem I wrote in high school that has stuck with me over the years. The backgrounds are starry space images. 16 pages long.

Thanks to Deirdree of MC Sunflower Jones for the tutorial for how to make these!

Mirror Walk

Cute little cut-and-paste micro zine (1/16 size). Mirror Walk is a short story I wrote in high school with some context about my grandfather’s death. 16 pages long.

Thanks to Deirdree of MC Sunflower Jones for the tutorial for how to make these!

Seamless

1/4 size, 40 pages. This zine is a screenplay for a short film I wrote in high school, plus some context. The characters are also high school students, and it’s about dreams and parallel universes. It’s sort of overdramatic and wordy, but I still find it amusing.

Content note: some parts could be interpreted as dealing with suicide and suicidal actions, mentions of death and alcoholism

Possession Obsession

This is a one-off perzine I made for a monthly challenge called Creative Chaos. It’s about possessions I love and autistic special interests. I talk about topics including: books and notebooks, zines, music, prized possessions, speculative fiction, asexuality, cats, art, conlanging, programming, video games, personal aesthetic, and more. I went a bit overboard, so this zine is 88 pages long, 1/4 size. I’m open to fair trades.

Ailenn and Mark: First Meeting

I’ve decided to start distributing this minicomic I drew when I was a junior in high school (5 years ago.) It’s not great, but at the same time it’s sort of cute. It’s the story of two teenagers with superpowers (one of whom does some part-time superhero work) realizing that they’re not alone. It’s 16 pages long (counting the front and back cover) and 1/8 size.

Ailenn and Jay: The Interview

After 6 years, I finally drew another one of these minicomics! It features a lot of the same characters I created in high school. They’re essentially a bunch of young people with superpowers trying to go through life. This comic is about one character having to do a job interview when she can’t control her powers. The comic is 16 pages, 1/8 size.

Dream a Little Dream

I never actually listed this one on Etsy, but I sell it at zine fests. It’s all about dreams, both the kind you have at night and the kind you have about your life. 32 pages long, 1/4 size. Includes content about trauma and trauma dreams, as well as religious fundamentalism and academic ableism.

Nostalgia Whiplash #1: The Internet of 2005-2007

This is a 16 page, 1/8 size mini zine about my strong nostalgia for the Internet as it was in 2005-2007. Expect discussions of personal websites, pixel graphics, nostalgic fonts, my isolated and traumatic early teen years, AIM, Geocities, teen girl creativity, and escapism and healing through the web. Super text heavy!

A short zine on zines made for another zine workshop

I made a zine for my first queer zine workshop at Stanford and only ever distributed it there. It was a super simple intro to queer zines and the basics of putting together a zine.

Summer Mixtape zine

In the last few hours of the month, I decided to go ahead and make a zine for Melty Donut Zine Jam #1.

This zine is a simple 1/8 size mini zine with 16 pages, containing a playlist with commentary, anecdotes, and art.

You Know You’re a Rural Queer When… zine

I was feeling super isolated during pride month, so I made a zine about it and cried. 16 pages, 1/8 size. #IsolatedQueerSolidarity

Going Gray compilation zine

A 1/2 size compilation zine about people’s first experiences with getting gray hairs.

In Our Own Wor(l)ds

I’m currently working on these zines: