The Complete Ars Nihil Zine - A Series [Zines On Hiatus]

Off-the-cuff ramble first, all the zines in downloadable version second.

After a couple months of not working on them, I'm putting a pause on the zines for an indefinite hiatus. I'm not satisfied with how they've been going but I also don't have time, energy, or resources to promote what has been a free product for hobby purposes. Not considering them a waste of time but the opposite, since I've learned a lot while doing them and glad that I finally made several of them instead of just stopping with one. Yet I'm feeling like I need to pivot and focus both on this blog (which I've been ignoring too but that's due to personal life-stuff...) and retooling how the zines will look going forward. Right now they're a little too bland/impersonal and I want to up the artistic element, despite not having any actual artistic or graphic design skill. So I'm going back to the drawing board to figure out what to do with the next set of zines in the B ("Bravo") series.

That said, I'm also reposting all eight issues I've done here since I'm also reconsidering whether itch.io is the best option for disseminating them in the future. I don't ask for money whenever I make them since most of this info is either publically available or essays I liked writing but post just for personal pleasure. I figure since I have a Google Drive account specifically designed to share PDFs, I may just go ahead and share them directly on the blog instead. Chasing after analytics is also really disspiriting, so this might help me steer away from that madness too.

So TD;LR version of all this:

1. Not making any more zines for a while until I figure what I really want to with them.

2. Probably will stop posting them to my itch.io account and just post new issues here instead.

   
   

Thanks for understanding & catch you all later. - AB

(Post image is by Luke Porter (Unsplash) and, yes, it was used before...)

A (Alfa) Series of the zine

Ars Nihil Issue A-1: "Getting Started"

This is the first issue of a series of zines I'm making, focusing on different types of content and information I've collected during the last 25 years.

Ars Nihil Issue A-2: Quotes to Know #1

This is the second issue ("Alfa" series) of the Ars Nihil zine, collecting several good quotes I've recorded either on my blog or in a commonplace book.

Ars Nihil Issue A-3: Albums I Love #1

This issue of Ars Nihil focuses on 9 albums I would recommend personally and hope more people would love just as much as I do.

Ars Nihil Issue A-4: Food! #1

This issue is the first of however many with recipe recommendations, containing 5 for this one:

1. Sweet Cornbread

2. Cauliflower-Leek Soup

3. Cheesy Potatoes

4. Chili Crisp Tofu

5. Muffins

Ars Nihil Issue A-5: "Playing the Pilcrows"

Originally written for the blog in 2023, this essay covers a rather helpful tool that very few are told about when they begin editing documents.

Ars Nihil Issue A-6: "The Semi-Forgotten Poet from Head Tide, Maine"

This issue is a republication of an essay I wrote for the main blog in 2023 about the American poet Edwin Arlington Robinson, while also collecting some of his most famous poems.

Ars Nihil Issue A-7: Glossary of Korean Foods Found in "Crying in H Mart"

This issue contains the full glossary from my post about the Korean foods written about by Michelle Zauner in her memoir Crying in H Mart. I also have included the links (yes, clickable links in the main version!) to the Maangchi recipes so you can make them yourself and various Wikipedia articles about each item. (This appears to be the most popular one based on how many more downloads it's gotten...)

Ars Nihil Issue A-8: An Alternative to Book Recommendations

This issue is a modified version of an old blog post, suggesting to ignore all of the same old same old book recommendations found online and on social media and try to build your own path into reading good books.

Ars Nihil Issue A - Complete

This file - in digital version only - contains all 8 issues into one 80-page PDF file if you just want to read them in one place.