kidattypewriter

Thursday, March 18, 2010

I have just made a zine about an octopus

I have just made a new zine about an octopus. I took a few copies of my zine about an octopus in to the the pub the other day to give to some friends. What I hadn't been counting on was the fact that two out of three of the friends were editors. The following conversation ensued:

E: (Opening up the zine, reading the first two pages) Hmmm, octopi.

TIM: Oh, did I get the plural wrong? ... I'd just like to point out in advance that there's a stray apostrophe in the back half.

E: (Turning over the pages) There's also a split infinitive.

TIM: (Squints at the pages and tries to look as if he knows exactly what that means.) Er, yeah.

E: Also, aren't octopuses molluscs, not crustaceans?

TIM: You're probably right. But 'mollusc' doesn't rhyme with 'sensational'. 'Crustacean-al' does, though!

I suppose it's better than being completely and utterly worshipped by your readers. That's just annoying when that happens.

7 comments:

Maria said...

Oh! This sounds very adult.

TimT said...

Well it's not just any publication that will let a split infinitive through.

Maria said...

I read your zine to my mother.

She is now very confused. Sh eworks for a magazine publication company.

She has been calling them "mags" for short.

Now she's been wondering if the proper abbreviation should be "zine".

She has been thrown into a state of confusion about this and needs resolution.

Funnily enough she had not a lot to say about octopuses, octopodes, or octopi.

Just mags and zines.

Please help.

Maria said...

By the way when I was in Canberra last year I wrote a book about a penguin.

There was a table in the Canberra Art Gallery that had a children's book on it and said read this book on it (so I did) and then had some coloured pencils and paper on it and said "Write your own bird book!"

So I did.

It onlytook me a few minutes as there was not a lot of paper provided.

Your octopus zine has inspired me. Perhaps I should be publishing a Penguin zine.

Oh and animalia and animalia zines shall abound!

We start with the octopus and then the penguin and from then ... well ANY ZINE IS POSSIBLE

Cam Black said...

you called a cephalopod mollusc a crustacean just for the rhyme? that's genius. Ogden Nash would be proud. ;-)

heh.

TimT said...

That's exactly my argument Cam. Not sure how many people would agree with it, but.

TimT said...

Maria, I think 'zine' describes publications that are a) underground or b) personal or c) a combination of both. 'Mag' applies to commercially-sold/professionally produced material. But the boundaries are endlessly porous, and the definitions subject to endless clarification...

Email: timhtrain - at - yahoo.com.au

eXTReMe Tracker

Blog Archive