Since its founding in the late 1980s, GAJOOB has always been about amplifying independent voices—especially those creating music, zines, and other DIY expressions. In recent years, GAJOOB has brought this ethos directly to the community through hands-on zine workshops, offering creators of all backgrounds the tools and support to tell their stories through self-published, tactile media.
A Celebration of Cut, Paste, and Personal Expression
GAJOOB’s zine workshops are part craft session, part storytelling lab. Participants are encouraged to explore themes from their lives, music, art, dreams, or even the absurdities of everyday existence. Whether it’s a personal diary disguised as a collage, a band tour journal, or a surreal mini-comic, the workshops are a space to bring those fragments into form.
Each workshop typically includes:
- A brief history of zines and cassette culture—highlighting their role in underground movements and DIY media.
- Examples from the GAJOOB archive, including rare issues from the 1990s, artist-submitted zines, and handbound micro-press creations.
- Materials for creation: scissors, glue, vintage magazines, typewritten scraps, markers, rubber stamps, photocopied imagery, and more.
- Guidance in layout, pagination, and duplication techniques, from folding and stapling to digital scanning for web or print runs.
Virtual and In-Person Formats
Recognizing the wide reach of the zine and cassette community, GAJOOB has hosted both in-person gatherings—at local arts centers, record shops, and community spaces—and virtual workshops via Zoom. The online format introduces collaborative prompts, live demonstrations, and downloadable templates so creators can assemble zines at home.
Participants often scan and send their final zines back to GAJOOB, where they may be added to the archive, featured in the blog, or mailed in exchange for others via a rotating “zine swap” circle.
Youth and Senior Engagement
In an effort to bridge generations, GAJOOB’s workshops have also expanded into schools and senior centers. Young creators get a taste of analog artmaking and personal storytelling, while seniors are invited to explore memory, poetry, and legacy through zine pages that can be shared with families and the wider community.
One special project pairs seniors’ handwritten stories with music created in response by GAJOOB’s Blind Mime Ensemble—transforming simple pages into multimedia tributes.
Building a Living Archive
The end goal of every workshop is not just creation, but preservation. Every zine made in a GAJOOB workshop is invited to live on in the GAJOOB Archive—digitized, cataloged, and made freely available alongside music, essays, and art from across decades of underground culture.
As GAJOOB’s founder Bryan Baker puts it, “These workshops aren’t just about making zines. They’re about giving form to voices that often go unheard, and then making sure those voices are part of something that lasts.”
For upcoming sessions or to host a GAJOOB zine workshop in your space, visit gajoob.org/zineworkshops (coming soon).