Something Long
A risograph zine inspired by things that stretch a little too far—born from a laundry accident and transformed into a long-format snake book.
This project is a risograph zine titled Something Long. As the name suggests, I illustrated all sorts of things that are, well, long!
It really was this series of overly stretched leggings that sparked the idea for Something Long!
It all began with a pair of Uniqlo thermal leggings that, thanks to a laundry mishap, stretched out to almost double the length of my legs.After that, I started noticing “long” things everywhere in my life and kept sketching them.
At the time, I was also preparing for the Chicago Zine Fest application, so I figured this theme could become something solid. That’s when Something Long was born—I began developing a mock-up and fleshing out the concept.
I knew the content and title were working well together, but it felt incomplete unless the book itself was “long” too. The only problem? I had no idea how to produce such a format. The project paused for a while… until a few months later.
My husband and I took a risograph refresher course at Spudnik Press, and during that workshop, I saw a sample of a Snake Book format. That was the lightbulb moment! Once home, I grabbed a tabloid-sized sheet of paper, folded and sliced it, and created a horizontally long book that could be made from just one page. Perfect!
From there, I worked with my art director husband to decide which illustrations to include across 12 pages. I selected drawings from my Procreate archive and added bilingual captions in English and Japanese under each one.
I’ve printed the zine three times using risograph—once in four colors, and twice using a three-color palette of bubblegum pink, yellow, and teal.
So far, I’ve printed and assembled about 80 copies. I’ve given them to friends and local artists, sold them at the Chicago Publishers Fair, TCA Zinefest 2025 at the MCA, and DePaul Zine Fest. They’ve also been stocked by Quimby’s and Lot’sa here in Chicago. I’m grateful to say it’s been very well received wherever it’s gone!