Zoë Thompson on the Power of Zines and Keeping Print Alive

0:06Katy Cowan:This one is a bit special. It's my first ever in-person video recording in a podcast studio in London. And what a guest to share it with. I'm joined by Zoë Thompson, the brilliant founder of Sweet Thang, a zine for black creatives around the world. Zoe's a zine maker, editor and workshop facilitator who's obsessed with bringing projects to life in print and giving underrepresented voices the space they deserve. What started as a DIY side project has grown into a proper platform and community. And it's growing. We chat about the magic of zines and why print still matters, the scrappy joy of independent publishing, and the lessons Zoe's learned from eight years of building something from scratch.

0:50Katy Cowan:She shares the story behind Sweet Thang's latest issue on dreaming, the highs and lows of running a grassroots platform and why imperfection is the heart of zine culture. Something that I think very much relates to the vibe we're seeing today. This is familiar territory for Creative Beam, but I have huge respect for anyone keeping print alive. It's a whole different ballgame to pull off compared with publishing online.

1:21Katy Cowan:This season of the Creative Beam podcast is proudly sponsored by James Cropper, the last mill standing in Britain for premium coloured paper. Its new colour source range puts designers first, giving you direct access to 50 stunning shades in a range of weights and textures straight from the mill. Incredible colour crafted in the Lake District and delivered straight to your door. Discover the paper that brings your ideas to life via paperandpackaging.jamescropper.com

1:57Katy Cowan:I'm joined here by the wonderful Zoe Thompson from the founder of Sweet Thang. Yes, indeed. Can you tell us about this? Hi. Hello. Yeah, I'm really happy to be here in this incredible podcast studio. So yeah, I'm Zoe Thompson. I'm the founder of Sweet Thang Zine and we're an arts and literary zine that publishes work by black creatives around the world. And I've been running Sweet Thang for eight years, but then more broadly been sort of down the zine rabbit hole for about like 10 years, just really loving everything about zines and independent publishing. That's amazing. I have had a very similar background, gone more into broadcast journalism, but I always was making magazines when I was a print.

2:40Katy Cowan:Was that something that, you know, started for you? Was it seeing that or did it start later? Yeah, no, honestly, I, my eldest sister was also in journalism, loved fashion magazines, I would always steal her magazines. And yeah, for collaging, but also just reading. And it was really through that, that I sort of found this love for print media, also just looking at cool people doing cool things in a creative way, whether that was fashion, whether it was music. So yeah, seeing that was really exciting. And I kind of fell in love with like the vessel of a magazine, like the paper, the way it felt, that kind of thing.

3:20And when I was around 14, 15, I started a blog on Blogspot. I don't know if you ever used Blogspot. I do remember that. Yes, gosh. I love Blogspot so much. Like we go back. And yeah, I started a blog, basically oversharing to like my friends and random bots and stalkers. And yeah, it was through there that I sort of developed this kind of love for youth culture and kind of connected with other, well, that sounds kind of weird saying I had a love for youth culture because I was part of the youth, but it was kind of finding ways to articulate what it meant to me and how it felt to be a young person with stuff to say.

3:57And yeah, I connected with lots of other teens on Blogger and yeah, someone made a zine. I was like, what's that? And then all of a sudden, just like never looked back. So, yeah, it was kind of through that trajectory.

4:11Katy Cowan:Yeah, I suppose we're really lucky. I've never really thought about it that way before, that we're the first generations to, not that I'm in the same age, I'm way older than you, but you know what I mean? We're the first generations to be able to do these things, to bootstrap, and then to be very kind of easy to get set up and running and then just have all this creativity at our fingertips. We've been very lucky. that was the most exciting bit about zines actually it was the fact that they were so it was so accessible to make and it was like oh these two like teenagers from that I met on blog spot have made a zine and I've written for it and loads of other people have written for it and it looks really beautiful like oh I can do that too and that's kind of how sweet than came about because I was like I want to do something that you know represents myself and my community and yeah I've just never looked back is there anything that surprised you about the process of turning that idea into a reality?

5:03I mean, yeah, 100%. I've been surprised by the kind of like logistics of running a business or even like it's surprising when I started Sweet Thang to like have it be this thing that was very grassroots, very simple, very like, oh, I'm 18 and I'm just going to like start this zine. Like how hard can it be? And then realizing that as I wanted it to progress, things actually did become harder or I kind of had to articulate new things about like running a platform and serving a community and just yeah I think the there was a lot of learning to do and I think that was that's been a continuously surprising process oh yeah I can resonate with

5:44Katy Cowan:that definitely I've been doing it for 16 years and I'm still learning and it's still very creative but do you think we would have done it if we'd have known how on a personal level I want to say yes and that's because I recently realized that like I have an entrepreneurial like mindset or like personality um and I thought everyone did like I remember asking my friends like do you not just want to like start your own business and they were like no could never be me like I need someone telling me what to do I was like oh wow okay so maybe this is like a this is a specific thing to me like I and maybe like and like other people who share the same kind of you know entrepreneurial spirit they want to do these things they want to do it because it excites them even if it's hard so yeah I feel like yeah if if you told me at 18 like oh it's gonna um it's gonna be hard or like you're gonna run into xyz problems I probably would have just been like okay well I'll cross that bridge like when I get to it but yeah I think it's the it's the only way to do it I think you can just throw yourself in yeah and then just for sure I think I get a real enjoyment out if something comes up and I don't know how to do it so then I'll like solve that it'll just be a little kind of challenge for that day and then there'll be something else the next day and then so on and so forth yeah it's part of the fun 100 % yeah what kind of opportunities has it opened up for you oh I love that question I feel like on a very on a very logistical level I don't know why I keep second time I've said logistical.

7:17Katy Cowan:I don't know why that one's coming to me. It's podcasting. It happens. But yes, in like a really short answer. Yes. As a platform, we've been able to get recognition from brands that we love, organizations that we love working within like institutions that we that we really admire or that we like frequent like magazines, magazines, museums, galleries, that kind of thing. So like going to the Tate and like then being able to give a talk at the Tate, like that's cool. Like that trajectory has been quite cool. And yeah, that's, you know, part of like the opportunities that have blossomed since starting Sweet Thang.

7:56And then also just on a personal level, it's really made me realize that like, yes, I love being a community founder, but then I also just love being like a zinester. and it sent me on this journey of kind of figuring out who I am as an individual artist and like trying to create offerings for myself for like paid work so yeah opportunities for paid work that's been like a really huge part and yeah it's been really exciting.

8:23Katy Cowan:We've not made it easy for ourselves publishing is very difficult in everything that's going on the last 20 years the internet now we have ai do you think though that probably makes publishing more important than ever oh yeah i i think that you know it's like the age-old question of like whenever you bring up print or or publishing people are like oh does it really matter anymore like don't people just use other other formats isn't video like more important and i just i don't know there's there's part of me that's like always going to be biased towards print but i do truly believe that that you know So, you know, it kind of reminds me of, I think it was like a TikTok that I saw.

9:04And someone was saying, like, I'm so grateful that libraries have existed for like hundreds of years. Is that accurate? Hundreds of years? Decades? Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. Hundreds of years.

9:17Katy Cowan:I was trying to think then. It was a throw in me. I was like, oh, God, I'm in this podcast studio for the first time. Like, think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, basically this person on TikTok was saying, I'm so glad libraries have existed for hundreds of years because I feel like if people tried to introduce them now, no one would give a shit. And I think that... Attention span, isn't it? It's just gone. Yeah. And also, but I feel like there's this kind of, because of that, there's this really like, what's the word? Strong sort of idea that what is in print is inherently valuable. and I know that you know progressions with technology and AI and yeah it's scary and it has like posed so many threats to like print media to all types of media and art and expression but I truly believe that print will stand the test of time and you know as we kind of go into an era that's quite scary politically you know socially I think that there's something really special that print will be able to um house and i think for that reason like it's here to stay essentially yeah they're little mini platforms aren't they that actually have a big impact and they give people a voice yeah um and and people i think more than ever want to hear that human voice 100 when when you when you read a zine it's like you're having like a conversation with the person who made it or the people whose art is in it and um yeah when when you know there's a small platform or a small zine, like the work that they do and the impact that they have is so direct to the communities that they're trying to reach.

10:52There's no middleman. There's no like, there's nothing stopping really them from reaching. If they say they're going to platform a specific voice or if they say they're going to use like the funds to, you know, help for like mutual aid, like it's going to happen and it's going to be immediate. There's, yeah, there's no sort of like blockages. Whereas I think with bigger print media, potentially there's loads of

11:13Katy Cowan:hoops and stuff like that so yeah no algorithms either no algorithms yeah and and because of that no censorship either and yeah I think I think we need these I think we need these little these little bad boys these are gorgeous so what have you got in front of you yeah so I brought some some stuff along I feel like this is like a like a show and tell um I loved that at school didn't you yes and it's just so fun um but the thing about yeah what I've brought for the people who can't see it and yeah you can't really see it on the on the video either but i've got two issues of sweet thang i've got like our latest one um and then i've also got some like handmade traditional a7 zines um so yeah actually feel free to feel free to flip through a7 zines tell me about these what are these i guess i always kind of say that like um a zine like this is the most traditional form of a zine it's literally just a a4 piece of paper um used scissors to make it into like the little booklet shape and then obviously like used a bit of collage a bit of writing stuff like that but um it's super easy to make and yeah this is what people started off making I would say um maybe they would use a3 paper um to make a slightly bigger version maybe something that was maybe around half the size of a5 but what I'm trying to say is that is the most um traditional format of a zine what you're holding a few of these are um this little like A to Z series I did for Black History Month in 2023.

12:40And so obviously it was like an A to Z, each letter was like a kind of featured a slice of Black British history or something a bit more random like this one. Was this called? Describe it. Yeah. So for H, it was like H is for hungry ramblings of a hungry Jamaican gal. And I think I just did it because I was just eating a lot of good soul food and eating lots of my family's food and feeling really nostalgic for my grandma's cooking. My grandma who passed away in 2022, like she just, her food was so like, so special. And I think every single, I think every single human being will say that their grandma's food is special because it is.

13:18Grandma's food is like special all around. But I was just feeling really nostalgic for that. And I think there's something really like fun and silly about this little zine.

13:27Katy Cowan:This says here, both of my grandma's made the face and in brackets, you know, the one. what's that that's an inside joke it's literally so many people have related to this but it's just like when you're at your like grandma's house and you say you don't want any more food and like she just looks at you and she like spoons more food onto the plate it's like the face they make when you say you don't want an extra spoonful of food and their lips pucker upwards before kissing their teeth and spooning the extra portion on your plate countless countless times that's happened because they know you they know you yeah and they also just won't take no i don't want any more food for an art.

14:02I love that.

14:03Katy Cowan:That's so nice. Yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's a Jamaican proverb. Say it. Say it. Belly full, batty glad. There are so many hilarious Jamaican proverbs. And in fact, I say it's a proverb. It's probably not, but it's just like a saying. But I think proverb just makes it sound powerful and philosophical. Why not? So yeah, that was a really fun series. I kind of want to bring it back. I think everyone loves an A to Z. That's beautiful. Yeah. The one that Katie's holding is a little zine that I made at Rabbits Road Press in Newham. They're a really incredible community press and overall community artist space in Newham.

14:42And I took part in their spring school. And it was basically just five days to experiment with risograph printing or risograph. I don't know if people say both pronunciations, but yeah, it's a really beautiful space. And it was just a time to experiment. I didn't really know what I was going to make, but I did make this zine called, I didn't go to art school and it was just some ramblings about how I didn't go to art school and how I studied like English and French instead and kind of I don't know there I know people who went to art school who are amazing and I think like my sister did loads of my friends did um but that but from stories that they told me there's lots of nepotism in the art school realm and it was kind of just like you know you don't have to go to art school essentially to be creative and have creative career and make make art so that was what that zine um was kind of did you did you

15:32Katy Cowan:have to go through that then did you have to come to that realization yourself that you didn't need to have these kind of medals or trophies or certificates to say oh actually I can do these things yeah entirely I um definitely feel like experienced a lot of imposter syndrome whilst making sweet thang um for the most part so for issues one to seven I would do the editorial design so putting everyone's work together doing the edit on top of editing and stuff like that and sometimes I'd be like oh like I'm not good enough to do this like I didn't I never got trained with um Adobe unlike all of my like art school friends where it was like just it was just a normal normal occurrence that you would know how to use Adobe and I felt very very insecure that I didn't and um there was just so many things about creative expression that I kind of thought I wasn't allowed to tap into because I didn't have this art school background and yeah it's just taken a lot of being like fuck it like it's it's fine yeah we think there's a mythical table don't we that there's no seats at and actually we can just build our own table we've talked about this a lot on the podcast and people tell me that it's a rite of passage you realize at some point you can just do it anyway yeah I mean who are these voices in our heads that are telling us otherwise Exactly.

16:44And I also feel like embracing messiness, embracing imperfection is literally one of the centrefolds of zine culture. Like you're not supposed to care about how things look. You're not supposed to. Yeah, you're not supposed to kind of be held to any kind of like high standard. You're just meant to create and say what you want to say. And I think that's. Yeah, I love it.

17:05Katy Cowan:All the best things I think that are created come from just letting go and not overthinking it and just enjoying the process. Yes. Yeah. Stunning. Yeah. Even. Yeah. So A for activism. I loved doing this one. Obviously, it's the first one in the series. This series in general, I was just making these little zines in my room. And obviously, I kind of held myself to a very high standard because I was like, I'm going to make one zine a day and post one every single day in October. That did not happen. I think Zed was like in sometime in December, like it took a whole like, I don't know, eight weeks to do this because I was doing it alongside working full time.

17:40And I would, you know, try and do whatever I could after work and stuff like that. But like, I just could not do one zine a day. It was also just a really great opportunity for me to like, not care what people think. And yes, if I was making a zine, and I kind of, you know, made a mistake or did something that wasn't super neat, I was just like, you know what, Zoe, it's fine, just keep going. Like, it's gonna look good anyway, when you scan it. And it's gonna, it's gonna look like an art piece. And it doesn't matter if things aren't perfect, if you know, you've gotten the writing a bit wrong, or the spacing of it wrong it was really the perfect kind of creative exercise of just like I'm gonna make a little zine for every level of the alphabet doesn't matter if it's if it's not great um or rather like it doesn't matter if it's not neat um so yeah really really fun love it I think you I do

18:25Katy Cowan:wonder if the creatives before us who didn't have to deal with Instagram and LinkedIn whether they still had that kind of you know perfectionism mindset whether they let go a little bit more because it feels like everything's on show now. And we just have, you know, it might not be the case, but we feel like everything, if we're going to put stuff out there online, it has to be perfect. But I don't know about you, are you getting a feeling that people are kind of moving away from that a little bit? As in like in a good way, people are moving. Yeah, for sure. And it's funny that you bring up LinkedIn because like I feel like LinkedIn gets like a bad rap for being super like a cringy social platform.

19:06I think people are really transformed. I mean, people have transformed the landscape. Let's be real. People are like getting so many great opportunities just by being candid and raw and unfiltered online. But then also on like platforms like LinkedIn, which previously had this kind of, oh, it's just like the professional things. And yeah, people have like turned a professionalism on their head with LinkedIn in particular. And I think, yeah, we're moving into a realm where people can just be, yeah, unfiltered. and I also kind of think that like whilst TikTok has a lot of issues it's also been a platform where people can just be so incredibly like um unhinged and um you know you can you can become a you know a like a full-time content creator making the most lo-fi things um videos and stuff like that so yeah there's kind of like this yeah moving away from imperfection kind of vibe um I don't think existed maybe in like in 2012 to 2015 where everything was about like aesthetic and oh yeah

20:04Katy Cowan:Yes, and perfectly curated and people would match different images on their grids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they all lined up, all that kind of jazz, gosh. I saw something on YouTube recently that people are moving away from perfectly edited, perfectly filmed, that the appetite for content now is just really kind of low profile, really low, not even low quality, just very chilled out, maybe somebody building a bench. or and I think I feel like that's been around for quite a long time but that's the when you're starting a YouTube channel like me you end up getting suggested these things all the time and it's like oh right okay so I can just relax then oh this is nice yeah um because you don't want to start a YouTube channel 10 years ago when it was well even five years ago when it was more about that so this to me just makes me smile so much because it's getting back to what we started being created for in the first place this one's fab yeah letter y good old letter y oh my gosh my not gonna lie my imagination was literally running running thin by the end of the alphabet you're a bit tired i was like for letter z i didn't even do anything i literally just um instead i just did a like a haul on instagram of all the zines i did so like z was for zine and i just did yeah a little haul but i think i think that's still fabulous yes and it was fun yeah definitely Yeah.

21:30Katy Cowan:I think I think things always shift and change. Do you think do you think we're all a bit exhausted about being online? Do you think there's another reason why we might be leaning more towards things that we can hold in our hands? Yes, definitely. There's definitely an exhaustion with social media, with all of the updates that it has. And obviously, you know, like, you know, with the desire to move away from perfection and like perfected feeds, it's also like prompting us to think, okay, where else can we take our unfiltered joy and like our messy lives and our messy selves? And yeah, in a way it is in tangibility.

22:07It's in like IRL spaces and then it's also in physical things as well. So yeah, I think there's an excitement that things you can touch have. It's like a kind of special exclusive thing. And it's yeah, I think there's something really special about it.

22:26Katy Cowan:yeah I'm meeting loads of people at the moment and the minute I see them I'm just throwing my arms around them and I've forgotten that like after the pandemic that might have been something you know not as um well liked have you had a scenario where it hasn't worked um I just sort of hover and go are we hugging are we elbowing you know this kind of thing what are we doing and there's always this sort of awkward dance but I just feel like we're just so delighted to all be backing each other's company and I feel like that spills over a little bit into what we're creating and what we're what we're making what we're putting out online it's just really nice to see I think I feel like as well AI is just sort of making that even more so because people are just oh right okay so there's all this fake stuff well I just want more of the real stuff which I feel like it's going to be our you know saving grace.

23:18100 % yeah I totally agree and I actually saw a LinkedIn post today and someone was saying that um yeah facilitation is a skill that's going to like really blow up in the next like five years or something like that and as a facilitator myself I was just when I saw that I was just like oh okay great so like I'm on the right path and but I think it's it's also that it's like the the ability to be able to facilitate um spaces for other people to find belonging and community and stuff like that so yeah I totally agree and

23:48Katy Cowan:community is where it's at yeah we've just done that with creative boom we've just brought everybody onto a space yeah really nice yeah really really cute I think I think people are just looking for something they're searching around and it's it's just such a fascinating time to be in it's also quite a scary time as you said it's a lot of change going on in the world and as creatives we always respond don't we to whatever's happening I mean what's this um what's the latest sweet thing focused on do you have a theme with each and that's actually a really perfect segue because um our latest issue issue number eight hopefully this is the right camera yes um issue number eight is on the theme of dreaming nice and it's a really beautiful compilation of visual arts written work um from poetry to essays speculative fiction that kind of thing and we're looking at dreaming as a form of freedom filmmaking and dreaming as dreaming sort of like in a spiritual sense, in a literal sense, and kind of looking at radical theories of imagination and how people can, you know, radically dream of better worlds, basically.

24:57So dreaming in this very multi-layered way. And the work that people have come up with has been so gorgeous. And the way that we work is we do a call out for pitches and we're like, the eighth issue of Sweet Fang is going to be on dreaming please send us a pitch or for an idea and um yeah we had 175 pitches and could only accept 20 oh gosh so that was and that's never happened before so that was like very um really really hard because we were like turning turning down like blatantly good ideas um but we just couldn't house them all because we were able to offer everyone a commission fee for the first time because we did some crowdfunding so like as much as we would have loved to accept more um work we just wouldn't have had enough money to pay to pay people so yeah all that to say it's just a really special one and I think yeah it's been a really really hot topic I would say actually over the past like over the past year loads of people have been talking about dreaming and yeah there's there's something really special about looking at this concept and thinking how can we come together as a community and dream of a better way to exist than the like reality that we're currently living in which I think we could all use um so yeah that's that's the vibe and um if you want to have a flick through we worked with a really incredible New York-based designer also called Zoe um her name is Zoe Pulley and she's a designer educator and um we got some crowdfunding in 2024 and like I knew that a chunk of that really needed really needed to go to an editorial designer because I just wanted this to be like the most special issue to date and she did such an amazing job it's really gorgeous so vibrant and yeah I love it beautiful beautiful I love the typography the the hand yes lettered yeah lovely really nice and I guess everybody loves being a

26:55Katy Cowan:part of it as well you're bringing people together they get to sort of put it on their cv on their LinkedIn they get to shout about it and it helps them yeah 100 % and and one of the sort of like I guess like kind of like an ethos but Sweet Thang has always wanted to be a space that doesn't just necessarily champion artists who already have a platform like sometimes someone who has never had a byline someone who's never shared their work on Instagram someone who has five followers on Instagram might have like a really incredible craft and it's those people that like I really want to give the platform to and yeah so where does this come from why do you want to help people Why do you get an enjoyment out of giving people a voice?

27:36Yeah, I just remember, you know, like going back to being like 15, 16 and being on Blogspot and then finding someone else's zine. And I've always written creative writing and poetry. And I submitted to a zine. I think it was run by these two women based in Canada. And it was called Plasma Dolphin. And it was so random. Plasma Dolphin? What a great name. I know. It was just like the coolest thing ever. Like as a 16 year old, I'm like, what is this? And, yeah, I remember how amazing it felt to be a part of that. Yeah. And seeing all of the other sort of like young people who were published in that little zine and where we all came from throughout the world, like the US, I don't know, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, like everywhere people like the contributors were from.

28:26And it just felt like I was part of this huge, amazing, creative community. And all I had to do was just like submit a poem. and I think it was that feeling coupled with the my own sort of learning about the history of zines that made me realize like this is a really powerful format for people to express themselves in and you know I've as much as I loved also the creative side I also loved being an editor and it was like so I just wanted to be part of the the process like 360. I knew how it felt to be like one of the artist inside a zine and then I wanted to know how it felt to like give other people that chance to be like edited and um published and stuff like that so I and I think it's really important um because yeah like I mentioned earlier it's just an impactful art form and there's something so joyful about just being able to creatively express yourself

29:23Katy Cowan:this season is sponsored by james cropper the only paper mill in britain still making high quality colored paper their new color source range gives you direct access to 50 hand-picked shades and a variety of finishes all crafted at their lake district mill when you choose james cropper you're supporting the makers who keep this proud british craft alive discover more at paperandpackaging.jamescropper.com. It's a very underrated thing, the thing that you and I do, because it's very creative. People think, oh, you know, you do this, you do that. But actually, our day, when we're sort of putting something together, is filled with so many different aspects.