The archetypal creative zine doesn't segregate its ideas. It flows — from illustration to photography to comic strip to poetry — as a single, uninterrupted current that trusts the reader to follow wherever it goes.
Trickshot Issue 3 is that zine. Opening it is like looking directly into the creative output of several talented people who agreed to put everything in without a filter. Bold colours. Sharp illustrations. Intricate pen-and-ink city drawings. Comic strips with genuine wit. Photographic work that holds its own alongside everything else. The silk inside pages make the images sharp — and the overall effect is a zine that rewards close reading.
Trickshot is a creative zine from California-based publisher Kaya Levin, combining the work of illustrators, photographers, comic artists and writers in a compact A6 perfect bound format. The content is genuinely varied without feeling scattered: detailed pen-and-ink architectural drawings sit alongside raw prose pages, full-colour comic strips run for several pages each. There are no divisions between contributions. Explore our zine printing service or read our guide to unique zine ideas.
A6 is a genuinely unusual choice for a perfect bound zine, and Trickshot earns it. The small format — roughly postcard size — gives the zine an intimacy that larger formats don't have. It's the size of something precious: a notebook, a card, an object you carry rather than display.
The 170gsm silk cover with matt lamination signals craft. Inside, 130gsm silk was a pleasant surprise — our team noted this specifically. Fine-line pen illustrations render sharply; the photography holds its colour; the comic artwork is vivid and clean. It all works.
The cover is pure statement — the Trickshot hand-lettered logo in yellow on red, alongside a densely detailed creature illustration. Inside, no template governs the approach. Each spread has its own logic: a full single-image page, a dense prose spread that feels intentionally raw, a comic strip in full colour, or a mixed-media page where photography and illustration coexist.
That variability is the zine's defining quality. It's a brain download. No chapters. One spread flows into the next.
Kaya's journey to Trickshot Issue 3 involved two print runs. The first resulted in a finished zine where the page content was uncomfortably close to the trim edges: page numbers cut off, content cropped at the spine gutter. We offered a reprint at A5 at a reduced price. The A6 copies were sold at a discount as mini editions. The episode illustrates something useful for any zine maker: page numbers and critical content should sit at least 5mm from the trim edge on all four sides.
"Thank you so very much, I really appreciate the support from your company." — Kaya Levin
When the A6 run landed with content too close to the edges, we worked with Kaya to understand what had happened rather than simply pointing to the approved proof. The result was a reprint at a reduced price and honest advice on file setup. Our file set-up guide for perfect bound books covers safe zones, gutter allowances and trim bleed in detail.
Silk inside pages make a difference, even in a small format. Fine illustration, photography and comic art all benefit from silk's sharper print quality over uncoated.
A6 is a genuinely distinctive format. Small, precious, intimate. If your creative content suits a format that readers carry rather than display, A6 perfect bound immediately stands out.
Keep content 5mm from the trim edge. Page numbers, crucial text, and anything that should be visible needs 5mm clearance from the trim on all four sides.
Matt lamination on silk is the right call for bold illustration covers. For hand-drawn or rendered artwork, it's almost always the better choice over gloss.
