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The Glue
Manifesto

Section 01 — Editorial

Nothing here was designed on a screen first. Every headline in this issue was cut out of a dead catalogue with kitchen scissors, arranged on a scanner bed, and photocopied until the greys collapsed into pure black and pure paper.

We keep making it this way because the machine argues back. A copier flattens a taped seam into a hard shadow. It turns a fingerprint into a landmass. It refuses to be tasteful, and refusal is the whole point of a zine.

The rules are short. Use a grid. Use a table, a bad lamp, and whatever type you can find. If a fragment looks too comfortable where it sits, rotate it two degrees and tape it down anyway.

Fig. 1 — Third-generation copy of a copy of a copy. The hand belongs to nobody we can identify anymore.

By the
Numbers

  • 48Pages, stapled
  • 420Copies in the run
  • 19Contributors, unpaid
  • 3¢Cost per page
“If the toner isn't streaking, you printed it too early in the morning.”
— Marta Vex, on the correct time to use a library copier

Interview
Marta Vex

Section 03 — 2,400 words, abridged to four

You've printed eleven issues on the same machine. Why not upgrade?
Because I know exactly where it fails. The left third goes soft after page forty. I lay out around the flaw now — text lives on the right, textures live on the left. The machine is a collaborator with opinions.
People say cut-and-paste is nostalgia.
It's cheaper than nostalgia. A scanner and a stapler cost less than one month of a subscription. Nostalgia is what you feel when you can't afford the thing anymore. We can still afford this.
What's the hardest part of the layout?
Knowing when to stop rotating things. Two degrees reads as an accident. Nine degrees reads as a decision. Twenty degrees reads as a party trick, and the reader stops reading.

Tape Deck Rotation

Side A — played on loop during the paste-up weekend
#TrackActLen
1Photocopier HumBasement Union3:12
2Staple Gun WaltzCorner Shop Riot2:48
3Toner LowMarta Vex & Co.5:03
4Glue Stick BluesThe Paper Cuts4:19
5Reverse FeederNight Shift Press6:31
6Collate / Do Not CollateXerographia3:57

Classifieds & Trades

Three lines free to anyone with a stapler

Riso drum, blueBarely used, one small dent. Will trade for a working long-arm stapler or forty sheets of 100gsm cream stock. Ask for Dev, Tuesdays only.

Split a paper order?Ordering a pallet of newsprint in October. Need four people to make the freight worth it. No flakes — the pallet does not fit through my door twice.

Paste-up nightSecond Thursday, back room of the launderette. Bring scissors, bring your worst photographs. Tea provided, glue is not.

Lost: guillotine bladeLeft it at the print fair. It is 18 inches and extremely obvious. No questions, no reward, mild embarrassment.

Typesetting swapsI have three drawers of wood type. You have a working scanner larger than A4. Let's talk before either of us buys anything.

Distro wantedSmall shop in the north end will stock zines on consignment, 70/30 in your favour. Drop five copies, we'll try them for a season.