It’s a coincidence, but given the timing of Juneau’s first Alaska Robotics Mini-Con, it’s a pretty lucky one. About 50 students in two of Dzantik’i Heeni Middle School teacher Miah Lager’s classes have been making zines this semester — under the direction of student teacher Jordan Kendall — and many of them will display their work along with professional exhibitors at Juneau’s first comic con.
If you’re not familiar with zines, Kendall says that “a zine, unlike a magazine, is determined by the maker’s imagination.” The small booklets, usually self-published and self-directed, go all the way back at least to Voltaire, and had a heyday in the 1980s, with punk bands and the popularization of Xeroxing.
Seventh grader Camille Varner created a moving zine about self-doubt, pain, and faith.
Initially, she said, she didn’t think she had a theme.
“I thought there was no correlation between the pages, but there was actually a story going on subconsciously in my mind,” she said. Some were inspired by events in her own life, like the death of her grandfather.
“That’s the beginning. That’s pain,” she said. “You have to keep moving forward. You have to keep thinking about your dreams, and you can’t fear the future.”
One spread of pages compares natural and manmade disasters. Another drawing is surrounded with negative, critical things people say to each other.
“Most ugly words come from your own mind,” she said. “These words represent what people are telling you… I feel like everyone, at some point, goes through the stage of thinking ‘Am I good enough? Do I say the right things?’”
Another page asks if the reader has faith in him or herself. More whimsical drawings feature animals in clothes.
The final one is an expression of love.
“I just think people need to know that they are loved all the time, because without love it’s really hard to move on,” Varner said.
Seventh grader Jenae Pusich’s zine, which uses both collage and drawing, features the journey of an old maid and her cats to fast food restaurants in the Lower 48. At the beginning is a collaged map, and the story follows the woman as she checks off locations: McDonald’s — a bright yellow beacon against a black and white background— Dairy Queen and others. Along the way, the woman gets progressively unhealthier. (The cats, a fun addition, follow her everywhere, twining around booths and tables.)
Pusich was inspired by the movie “Super Size Me,” and learning about what fast food does to the body in her Life Skills class.
Seventh grader Jasmin Holst’s zine is an exploration of shape and color, incorporating animals and faces as parts of a landscape. She starts out with a quote from Walt Disney — “Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever.” One page is different colored circles, another a tightly packed city of buildings, another a bunny making a shadow that looks like a hand. Another shadow drawing is a dog quailing at the enormous shadow of a cat, accompanied by a line about how worry makes small things bigger than they are. Another page cross-hatches music.
Seventh grader Claire Scott (the name she plans to publish under) isn’t in the zine class — she’s doing an independent study with Lager as she works on her graphic novel, a superhero saga inspired by her two cats, Willie and Bertha. Scott will also be showing her work at the Mini-Con.
“In my story, they’re superheroes, and they’re trying to start up their family’s old business again,” Scott said. “People hire them to do heroic things.”
At first, they catch thieves — they’re not that experienced, so they have to start off small.
Willie — as a cat and as a human superhero — is outgoing and likes to be around people, “kind of like a dog,” Scott said.
Bertha, on the other hand, is very shy. “She hides all the time,” Scott said.
Scott has already outlined the book, complete with dialogue and scenes. It takes place in the imaginary city-state of Pherin.
“I’d say my favorite part of the superhero genre is that the right person always wins in the end,” Scott said.
She’s drawing her entire novel by hand, something that feels warmer to her than computer drawn work, she said. She’s also working in black and white.
“I think it has a nice, dramatic style to it,” she said.
“I was impressed by the level of craftsmanship that I was seeing,” Kendall said of the zine class. “And I was pleasantly surprised how much they enjoyed it.”
“It was neat to see all the different paths they took,” Lager said.
The class, originally scheduled for a month, ended up being a month and a half.
Other student groups will have booths at the Mini-Con too, said Aaron Suring, who’s helping organize the event. The Juneau Charter School will have a booth, as will some high school students.
“A lot of kids are not touching magazines, or looking at print material,” Kendall said. “I wanted them to have a greater appreciation for print material.”
• Contact Capital City Weekly managing editor Mary Catharine Martin at maryc.martin@capweek.com.
From left to right, Dzantik’i Heeni seventh graders Jenae Pusich, Jasmin Holst and Camille Varner show the zines they made with arts teacher Miah Lager and Jordan Kendall. Kendall, a student teacher getting his Master of Arts in Teaching at UAS, designed a unit around zines. The work of many of the students in the class will be on display at Comic Con.
