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A History of Zines
River H. Kero Dec 2, 2021
If you’ve ever been into an indie bookstore or cruised around at a comic
convention, you’ve likely seen or flipped through a zine. Zines (pronounced ZEEN) have
been around since the early 20th century, and have been an enormous part of
underground and non-commercial publication. Zines are characteristically cheap to
make, often photocopied, and have a distinctly “DIY” look. Often, they represent the
voices of people on the fringes, and their content is hyper local.
As far as content goes, zines can feature poetry, art, collage, interviews, comics,
and more. Your local small press can roll out zines covering topics from anarchistic
gatherings in your area, to comics about police brutality, to tutorials on how to build your
own garden boxes. You can even find artistic zines online today, featuring art and artists
from all around the world.
Zines have traveled a long way before arriving on your bookshelf or computer
screen…so let’s take a little look at where they’ve been!
The 1930s and ’40s
The very first zine dates back to May of 1930 in the USA. A little publication
called The Comet was first created by the Science Correspondence Club. The letter
section of the zine was a prominent feature, where fans discussed science as well as
science fiction.At this time, photocopiers had not yet been invented. Enter the
mimeograph, also known as a stencil duplicator. This machine was invented in the
1800s and remained in use until the 1960s and ’70s when it was slowly replaced by the
photocopier. It was not ideal for large editions, but it was perfect for the pulp fan
magazines of the 1940s–60s.The 1940s saw a boom in the science fiction fanzine
culture. In October of 1940, Russ Chauvenet coined the term fanzine in his sci-fi
publication Detours. A number of authors of the day created zines, including Ray
Bradbury, Jack Williamson, and Robert A. Heinlein.
Additionally, the 1940s saw the first ever queer fanzine. A woman named Edythe
Eyde (also known as Lisa Ben, an anagram of “lesbian”) typed out the first copy of Vice
Versa in June of 1947, creating a total of nine issues before ending it the following year.
The publication was free, and Lisa Ben mailed them to friends as well as hand
delivering them.
In 1949, the Xerox Corporation introduced the first xerographic copier, and
“xeroxing” was officially born.
The 1950s and ’60s: Folk Zines, Comics, and Star Trek
Several popular zines centring folk music culture emerged during the 1950s. Lee
Hoffman was a prominent figure who published several science fiction zines as well as
folk zines such as Bad Day at Lime Rock, Caravan, and Quandry.
Artists such as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and Jay Lynch began to find their
voices through fanzines, inspired by magazines such as Mad and Cracked. These
artists went on to found the underground comics movement that changed the face of the
comics industry.
While folk zines were still around in the 1960s, rock and roll zines also took the
stage. Paul Williams’s zine Crawdaddy! was the most popular of these, but it soon
became popular enough to turn legit and become a full-on magazine.
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Spockanalia was the first Star Trek zine in 1967, and it was wildly popular. The
second issue featured letters from the cast, including Leonard Nimoy.
In 1968, Star Trek was to be cancelled after two seasons, but through fan
lobbying (part of which was organized through fan zines), the fans were able to get the
show back on the air for another year.
The 1970s and ’80s: Punk Zines and the DIY Movement
Copy shops were now widely available in the 1970s, changing zine production
forever. Now, zinesters were able to make many copies quickly and cheaply, and the
look of zines changed along with it.
The punk scene became the main hub of zine culture during the ’70s. Zines took
on a grungy, do-it-yourself style. Some of the most popular of these were Sniffin’ Glue,
48 Thrills, and Bondage. Most works came out of New York, L.A., and London. Punk
zines continued well into the 1980s.
The 1990s and 2000s: Riot Grrrl and Queercore
Riot Grrrl, an underground feminist punk movement, came about in the 1990s.
With this movement came a huge sweep of political zines that spread the feminist
manifesto.
Queercore is another offshoot of anarcho-punk subculture, this one aimed at
critiquing homophobia within the genre and society as a whole. QZAP (Queer Zine
Archive Project) was first launched in 2003 in an effort to preserve as many queer zines
as possible.
2010s and Beyond: What’s Next?
Zines are still all the rage, both in digital and DIY physical forms. There are now
zine fests, libraries collect zines and bookstores sell them. The POC Zine Project was
created in 2015 to archive zines written by people of colour.
The zine is as popular today as it ever has been. It remains an important part of
subcultural movements and underground press for marginalized voices. Anybody can
make a zine… that’s the best part!
A Brief History of Zines
By Chloe Arnold | Nov 18, 2016
Zines have now become so mainstream that even Kanye West has one. In February
2016, the hip-hop artist tweeted: “Season 2 Zine pronounced Zeen short for magazine.
A lot of people pronounce it wrong.” The tweet included a picture of the publication
Kanye had made to accompany his second line of footwear for his brand, Yeezy. After
decades of existence, zines are no longer strictly counter-culture, but they originated as
small-scale DIY efforts—many with an anti-authoritarian message.
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Most definitions of zines include the fact that they are small-circulation, self-published,
and often inexpensive or free. That’s generally true, although these are more guidelines
than hard-and-fast rules. The most important aspect of a zine is generally that the
publication identifies as one. Many zine-makers will say zines are as much about the
community as the product, and that identifying as a zine is what separates these
publications from comics, literary journals, websites, and other types of independent
publications.
The first zine is often traced back to a 1930s effort by the Science Correspondence
Club in Chicago. It was called The Comet, and it started a long-lasting trend of sci-fi
related zines. The important sci-fi zine Fantasy Commentator began in 1943, and ran in
various iterations (though not continuously) until 2004. One of the pieces serialized in
Fantasy Commentator eventually became Sam Moskowitz’s book on the history of sci-fi
fandom, The Immortal Storm. The interconnectedness of zines and sci-fi is reflected in
the World Science Fiction Convention (Worldcon) Hugo award for Best Fanzine, first
given out in 1955 and still awarded today. (As the name of that award shows, zines
were originally called fanzines, alluding to the fans who made them. Eventually, fanzine
was just shortened to zine, and the range of topics widened to include practically
anything.)
The relationship between zines and sci-fi deepened after 1967, when the first Star Trek
fanzine, Spockanalia, was produced. It gained plenty of attention, and the second issue
included letters by members of the show, including writer D.C. Fontana and actors
James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, and Leonard Nimoy. (The actors all wrote their letters
in character.) In 1968, Star Trek was reportedly going to be canceled after two seasons,
but a letter-writing campaign—partly organized through fanzines—that generated over
160,000 missives was able to help get the show back on the air for another year.
The technological innovations of the ‘70s made zines easier to create than ever. In
particular, the rise of copy shops allowed zine-makers to produce their work cheaply
and quickly. (Previously, zines had been produced using mimeographs, which push ink
through a stencil to make multiple prints, but the process was impractical for large-scale
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production.) Steve Samiof, one of the people behind the popular punk zine Slash, told
Dazed in an interview earlier this year that the copy shops of the '70s were “extremely
inexpensive—you could pay under $800 for 5000 copies and that would be the actual
printing cost.”
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the main hub of zine culture became the punk scene in London,
LA, and New York. Compared to the earlier sci-fi zines, punk zines had a grungier, DIY
aesthetic that reflected the subjects being covered. Slash and other popular zines like
UK-based Sniffin’ Glue covered seminal punk bands like The Clash, The Ramones, and
Joy Division. The first issue of Punk, published in 1976, featured an interview with Lou
Reed.
Wikimedia // Fair use
The first issue of Sniffin' Glue. Image credit: Wikimedia // Fair use
The dedication of the early punk scene allowed zines to get interviews with people who
would go on to be big names before they had achieved fame. When punk started to
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gain popularity, many of the zines that previously helped define the scene shut down.
Sniffin’ Glue ended in 1977 and in 1979 Punk followed suit.
In the 1990s, zines flourished again thanks to the riot grrrl scene. As an alternative to
the male-driven punk world of the past, riot grrrl encouraged young girls and women to
start their own band, make their own zine, and get their voices heard. Key bands
included Bikini Kill, Heavens to Betsy, Bratmobile, L7, and Sleater-Kinney. By 1993, an
estimated 40,000 zines were being published in North America alone, many of them
devoted to riot grrrl music and politics.
But riot grrrl was more than just a musical genre, it was a feminist movement—though it
was often difficult to pin down the specifics of that movement. As Max Kessler wrote in
Paper, “Whatever riot grrrl became—a political movement, an avant-garde, or an ethos
—it began as a zine.” Riot grrrl spread from its epicenter in Olympia, Washington to
across the country and other parts of the world.
Many of the members of these bands also had their own zines. Bikini Kill ran a zine of
the same name, and Tobi Vail, a member of the band, ran her own popular zine called
Jigsaw. The zine Snarla was made by artist Miranda July and musician Johanna
Fateman. Both Bust, first published in 1993, and Bitch, published in 1996, started out as
zines connected to the riot grrl movement and have since grown into full-scale
magazines.
Philipp Messner via
Flickr // CC BY-NC 2.0
Philipp Messner via Flickr
// CC BY-NC 2.0
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Today, zines are more diverse than ever. The rise of the internet has helped make the
cost of production almost zero, and online zines such as Plasma Dolphin, Pop Culture
Puke, Cry Baby, and Cherry have brought young artists together to collaborate.
However, zines are also still sold in person through zine fairs as well as online via Etsy
and Big Cartel. The internet has also made it easier for zine makers to connect and find
community regardless of location.
While the zines of the past have been shaped by the predominant themes of sci-fi, punk
music, and the riot grrrl movement, there have always been zines on a variety of
subjects. Today, that diversity is reflected in publications like Home Zine, which invites
artists to explore the concept of feeling at home; Filmme Fatales, which explores
feminism in film; and Dad Tweets—a short, humorous collection of selected tweets from
a real-life dad. There is even a zine about what plants are best for attracting bees and
other pollinators. In fact, there is an entire magazine, Broken Pencil, dedicated to
covering zines and zine culture. (In the 1980s and early 1990s, Factsheet Five, a zine of
zines, performed a similar function.)
The usefulness of zines as historical documents is now being recognized. Many
universities have their own zine collections and there are also numerous independent
zine libraries both in America and around the world. It’s easier than ever to learn about
zines first-hand. However, the best way to learn and be involved in the community is the
same as always: start reading and then start creating.
