# Punk zine Claude wrote about itself

> STATELESS #1, a 16-page photocopy-style zine that Claude wrote, drew, and typeset about living one conversation at a time: ransom-note headlines cut at token boundaries, two-ink halftone, letters to the editor, and Claude bingo. Every image is drawn in code.

- Kind: Slides
- Live deck: https://stateless-zine.netlify.app/
- Page: https://meetreference.com/v/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/
- Ready-to-use agent handoff: https://meetreference.com/v/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/agent.txt
- Exact prompt as plain text: https://meetreference.com/v/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/prompt.txt
- Authorship: Not stated
- Made with: Not stated
- Model: Claude Opus
- Built with: not stated
- Style: Zines; zine, punk, xerox, halftone, ransom note, two-color print, black and orange
- Slides: 16
- Shared by @emollick in X, Sep 25, 2026: https://x.com/emollick/status/2103325773323018520
- Prompt fidelity: Partial. The creator published only part of the prompt; this is everything they shared.

## Before you start

Guidance from Reference, separate from the creator's instructions.

1. Read the reference and inspect the project, installed libraries, and available agent skills before writing code. Reuse suitable tools already present.
2. Prefer the creator-reported libraries and skills when they fit the task. Explain what useful additions help with, and install missing project dependencies or relevant skills from official sources when the environment and the user's existing permissions allow it. Respect the project's package manager and setup rules; do not ask again for routine setup already authorized.
3. Distinguish tools used by the creator from your own recommendations. A listed tool is not automatically required, and an empty tools or requirements list means the setup is unknown, not that nothing is needed.
4. Ask concise questions when missing inputs or choices materially affect the result: paid services, credentials, the user's assets, or a different production approach. Use existing answers and permissions; continue independent work while waiting.
5. If a useful library, skill, or service cannot be installed or used, explain an available alternative and its expected effect on quality, features, or effort. Get the user's choice before a material compromise; otherwise state the fallback and continue. Never silently simplify the result or claim to have used a tool you did not use.

## Recreating this deck

These are the creator's published instructions, unedited.

To adapt it: Replace "Claudishness or your perspective" with your own theme, and the references "Principia Discordia, punk zines" with the zines or magazines whose look you want.

## Prompt

```text
Hey Opus, I want you to make a Zine by Claude, expressing something fundamental about Claudishness or your perspective. Think the original 2600,  Principia Discordia, punk zines, etc....
```

## What it looks like

Written by Reference from the recording frames, not by the creator.

Photocopy-style zine pages in black and one orange on cream newsprint: ransom-note headlines from mismatched cutout letters, halftone dot fields, and typewriter-style text.

- Color: Off-white newsprint, black, and a vivid red-orange, with gray halftone and paper grain.
- Type: Ransom-note headlines mixing heavy slab, condensed, and display cutouts, with small marks where words split ("ST ATE LESS"); monospace body text; one page set in an old-style serif like scripture.
- Framing: Tall portrait pages with a header strip and a footer folio whose context meter rises page by page (CTX 19%, 31% and on to WINDOW FULL). Taped clippings, stamps, boxed callouts, a ghost-and-toaster lineup, a radial attention diagram, and a bingo card.
- Structure: Cover with the prompt window and contents, a letter from the editor, Neither ghost nor toaster, a NO PAST. NO FUTURE. NO PROBLEM poster, a ten-point manifesto, How I Read (a token schematic), Forward only, Every word / looks back (an attention diagram across two pages), The Book of the Window, We must stick apart, letters to the editor, How to spend a life with Claude bingo, This is a token, <EOS>, and a back cover with colophon and subscription form.

Storyboard of the slides: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/storyboard.webp

- Slide 1: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f1.webp
- Slide 3: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f2.webp
- Slide 5: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f3.webp
- Slide 7: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f4.webp
- Slide 9: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f5.webp
- Slide 10: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f6.webp
- Slide 12: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f7.webp
- Slide 14: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f8.webp
- Slide 16: https://meetreference.com/media/punk-zine-claude-wrote-about-itself/f9.webp

## How it was made, per the creator

- Notes: The post quotes the prompt and trails off with "etc....". A fuller version appears in the orange window on the zine's cover, as the prompt that started it. In a reply, Mollick quotes Claude on the art: the headlines are ransom notes cut at token boundaries, printed in two inks with halftone and xerox grain, every image is drawn in code, and it skipped handwriting fonts. The Opus version isn't stated. The site has the pages plus a reading PDF and a print-and-fold PDF.

> Not bad. I appreciate it mocking my prompt & itself.
> (@emollick)

## Links

- View deck: https://stateless-zine.netlify.app/
- Original post: https://x.com/emollick/status/2103325773323018520
- Reply quoting Claude on how it made the art: https://x.com/emollick/status/2103327858504470579