To examine the production, distribution and social practices of zine-making, exploring whether or not they have a future in today’s society.
Books/essays
Girl Zines - Making Media, Doing Feminism, Alison Pipemeier
Rookie Yearbook One, Tavi Gevinson
Fanzines, Teal Triggs
Zines Are Not Blogs: A Not Unbiased Analysis, Jenna Freedman
Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture, Stephen Duncombe
Behind the Zines: Self-publishing Culture, Robert Klanten
Questions to be explored throughout:
What is the relationship between producer/author and reader?
How has production changed?
How do aesthetics change depending on genre?
How are zines distributed? How does this differ between print and digital?
How do zines create a sense of community?
Can zines be transposed to digital media?
Does the zine making practice still have a place?
Cultural, social and political factors?
What do the aesthetics of a zine ‘mean’?
The economy of zines? (Distribution/production costs, sales, how digital era changed this)
Who was part of this zine culture? (Subcultures, punk, feminist movements)
What has the emergence of craft meant for zines?
Introduction:
- What is a zine? Can they be defined?
- General overview of how they are produced and distributed
- What subject matters they cover
- What tools are used to produce fanzines, their aesthetics, medium, processes
- Start commenting on digital media and prevalence of blogs and e-zines
- Discussion of whether or not they continue to flourish, or tech. has taken over
Chapter 1 - DIY revolution, production and the author as the producer
Books to refer to:
Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture (1997), Stephen Duncombe
Imprinting the Sticks: The Alternative Press Beyond London (1997), Bob Dickinson
Fanzines, Teal Triggs
Questions to explore:
How do fanzines create a relationship between reader and producer?
Has DIY authenticity been lost?
Are the days of small press publications finally over?
Have fanzines as an ‘authentic, edgy, political underground publication’ now been imbued with commercial hipness?
Content
- The production of zines - irregular print runs, limited editions, hard to estimate
- Most remain hidden, flying beneath radar of mainstream publishing and conventions
- Self produced - production, philosophy and aesthetic are anti-professional
- Small press publications
- Methods of production allow for freedom
- Break conventional design rules or aesthetics
- relationship formed between producer and reader, readers may also be producers
- Zines are virtual spaces where producers and readers unite in communities of interest or dissent e.g. in football, each club has a separate fanzine title, but have a collective voice that can have a real impact on club decisions
STATISTICS - Gross, ‘Ideas: zine but not heard’
- late 80s, Guardian, more than 10,000 titles of UK football related zines
- 1994, Time magazine, 20,000 titles produced in US, growing at 20% annually
- 4000 sold in one month at branch of record chain Tower Records
- Fanzines designed to be ephemeral, produced quickly, cheaply, using copy paper, lo fi production and printing processes, irregular publication and limited print runs
- Leads Duncombe to state that the form is operating ‘against the fetishistic archiving and exhibiting of the high art world and for the for-profit spirit of the commercial world’ (Notes From Underground p.g 127)
BUT... are zines becoming mainstream/lost authenticity?
- DIY becoming mainstream
- Question of high end zines
- 1997, individuals within DIY community accused of selling out by trading DIY ethos for commercial gain
- 80s, 90s, new genres piquing interest of mainstream
- Co-option by mainstream culture industry very commonplace
- Process of moving away from ‘below critical radar’ into mainstream publishing houses - how this was criticised and why
- Using zines as a testing ground before entering professional careers
e.g. Jon Savage = Bam Balam and London’s Outrage to weekly music press to The Face and then national press and television
Danny Baker = Sniffin’ Glue to NME and BBC Radio
- Fanzines and their producers became absorbed into consumer culture and mainstream
- Questions around selling out
- Producers have become their own makers of cultural meaning
- Construction of the very pop culture that they critique
- Mainstream publishing would ‘endanger the alternative, anti establishment viewpoint that makes zines unique. Are these the last days of Pompeii for the zine world?’ - Futrelle, Been there, zine that
HOWEVER...
- Still maintain enthusiasm for and commitment to fanzine form as way of expressing individual concerns, rants on politics, loves and hates, desires, disappointments
- Authentic resides in authorial voice where personal is political and not beholden to global corporation (Fanzines, Teal Triggs)
- Don’t conform, define and manufacture own identity represented through writing and DIY image making
- Fanzine editors have simply become producers or makers, which introduces way of thinking about the producer as a ‘popular author’ and the fanzine as an ‘autobio/graphical’ objects - Jenkins, Mcpherson and Shattuc, Hop on Pop p.g. 161-62
- DIY nature of production leads to enhanced value in how they contribute to and reflect a broader everyday cultural experience
- Wertham, 1972 study, fanzines are a ‘novel form of communication’, have a unique place in history of communication, design, journalism, publishing and popular culture
- Wertham observes fanzines ‘exist as human voices outside of all mass manipulation’
Chapter 2 - Distribution and the creation of community
Books to refer to:
Notes From the Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture, Stephen Duncombe
Fanzines, Teal Triggs
Girl Zines - Making Media, Doing Feminism, Alison Pipemeier (p.g. 74)
Questions to explore:
How has the distribution of zines changed through time?
What is the most effective method of distribution?
- Overview of distribution, by hand, via independent music, book stores, fairs
- Gift culture
- Primary distribution versus online distribution (distros)
- Distribution within subcultures and genres (Punk, Riot Grrrl)
e.g. Punk 1975 - 83, zines only reliable way of disseminating information, David Mcullough (1979) distribution of zines against the mass media
- Immediacy of message, truth of message, reinforced by methods and processes
- Individualistic medium with the primary function of communication - define a community (chapter 3 of Duncombe’s text)
CASE STUDY 1 - DORIS #4 (1994)
- creation of community through distribution
- immediacy of person to person distribution
- offering zines to strangers - how this counters cultural messages
- how this exchange is different from financial exchange, capitalist distribution
- for-profit entities
CASE STUDY 2 - Girl Zines - Making Media, Doing Feminism p.g. 78
- intimate medium
- small print runs, particular aesthetic, structure - made for individual
- process of hand delivering = enhances intimacy and creates meaningful results
- zine distribution differentiates them from other media is particularly visible in envelopes
BUT... change in distribution
- Social networking now part of new media landscape
- Concept of information economy is commonplace in 21st century
- Gutenberg printing presses sparking literary revolution / online publishing services providing cheaper forms of printing and distribution
- This has changed business models
- Now have ‘print on demand’
- Digital medium is immediate, inexpensive and widely available
- New modes of distribution
- Can now be distributed online, through use of e-zines and blogs which is impacting the culture of zines both on and offline, underground and overground
- DIY spirit prompted migration of print fanzines onto the web
- Difference between them is in the mode of distribution ‘distributed partially or solely on electronic networks like the internet’ What’s an e-zine anyway?
- There is an immediacy in technology that allows info to be distributed quickly and efficiently e.g. updating entries, providing feedback
- This creates a different sort of connection between reader and producer as this method of distribution allows for ease and speed of access and receiving feedback - more so than method of sending off for something in the post
HOWEVER... is this the best method of distribution?
- As underground is discovered, paths toward wider distribution and contact are opened up to alternative cultural creators
- Whether for reasons of personal gain or public concern, zine writers and creators use these paths
- While message contained in content of zines is spread farther and wider than ever before, radical participatory cultural message of zines is muted
- In process of popularisation and distribution, real message of zines becomes lost
EXAMPLE in Notes From the Underground, p.g. 166
- Sent “The Curio Manifesto”, prospectus for a publication “part glossy, pat zine ... that will combine the traditional magazine format with the best of the zine world for a nationwide audience”
- “The best of the zine world” has always resided in the form of zines and the context of their distribution
- Even if Curio does contain words and artwork of zinesters, to sell a slick magazine with 50,000 circulation and a “corporate soul to foot our print bill” undermines the entire purpose and significance of zines
Chapter 3 - Electronic media and technology versus print
Questions to explore:
How has the web enhanced a fan community?
What has the web brought to fanzine production?
In what way has online fan publishing altered the writing and design of zines?
Content
For Technology
- Advantages in terms of blogging and e-zines, and advantages in terms of what technology has done for print
- Hard to imagine world without internet - constantly logging on and off etc
- Virtual communities, new digital relationships
- ‘Concept of information economy is commonplace in twenty first century’
PRINT
- Paradigm shift taking place in mainstream publishing
- Has created cheaper forms of print and distribution
- Reach wider audiences
- Change in business models
- Print on demand
- Can print at the time of ordering
- Economic advantages for small press publishers
- ‘Self publishing website Lulu allows authors to retain direct control of both design and production - prompts comparison with DIY ethos witnessed in early zines’ - Teal Triggs
- Digital medium is immediate, inexpensive and widely available
E-ZINES/BLOGS
- Allows for greater flexibility to move in between texts
- Immediacy e.g. updating entries, providing feedback
- Dialogue between author and reader
- Ease and speed
Against Technology
“In an age of electronic media, when the future of the book itself is often called into question, and when the visual and textual landscape is dominated by an increasingly voracious culture industry, zines endure.” - Girl Zines - Making Media, Doing Feminism
CASE STUDY - Victoria Law, Girl Zines - Making Media, Doing Feminism
- Created zine out of year’s worth of email correspondence between herself friend China Martens
- zine format: codex, digest size, tan cardstock cover, plain printed title
- zine has no images, just email messages printed on paper, physically cut and glue onto sheets of paper and photocopied
- content = one off zine, not intended to sell or be widely distributed but meant as an artefact that would encourage her friend and also document a year of friendship
- emails themselves were deficient
- wasn’t inspired to archive emails using digital means
- makes explicit idea that many creators allude and adhere to: the notion that paper is better suited for facilitating human connection than electronic media
- identifies a letter as a site of physical interaction
- paper connects two bodies, bears marks of body that created it as well as carrying other sensory information to reader
- paper is a nexus
- zine creators know material matters
- “Zines are different from e-zines, which are ‘zines’ published on the internet, via personal webpage or email lists...There are significant differences between the two genres, and we choose to retain the distinction. When zine World says ‘zine’, we mean something on paper. We only review zines.” - major zine directories
- “Real zines are xeroxed.” - Lauren Jade Martin
- “People thought the internet was going to herald the death of print, which was a crock even in the boom days. The feeling of a printed document is never gong to lose its appeal or be replaced by an electronic alternative.” - Lisa Jervis
- “Often people who have never ‘zined’ ask why I choose to print instead of publish online: I state that it’s obvious - how will we remember websites 5 years or even 20 years from now?” - Raina Lee
- Arguments from Chris Atton that e-zine appears less distinct, its culture more amorphous
- Duncombe's point that the internet has made communication too easy and that the deviant socialisation process of the underground might be lost as a consequence
HOWEVER... blogs and zines do have similarities
- Labovitz’s definition of e-zines showed they remain remarkably true to form
- One shared aspects of blogs and print = MOTIVATION - Jenna Freedman, online essay Zines Are Not Blogs: A Not Unbiased Analysis
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