Are Zines Dead?

I was recently going through the almost ghost town of alt.zines and there was an interesting post, “is zinning dead?”

I’ve been into the whole zine publishing thing since 1998, when I helped some friends with a zine called Empty Words in Erie, PA. I kept with the zine thing and got pretty successful with it (publishing UPState zine, a Syracuse, NY hardcore/straight edge zine) and contributing to numerous other zines as well as starting other small run zines since then.

But I can’t help notice that zine publishing has been shrinking or at least and perhaps this is what I secretly hope for, that zine publishing is crawling back to the real underground. For many years zines have enjoyed a rather interesting flirtation with the mainstream media (usually via the predominance of ezines turned blogs) and the realization of real free DIY publishing (whether through low to no-cost web hosting or via Cafe Press etc.)

There was always a craft involved with zine publishing, and the online world, while not completely eliminating the craft (more like changed the craft) the act of publishing zine requires a certain art that often, in our modern go go buzzword world, goes AWOL. I mean, there are just so many kids out there who would rather toss up a myspace page or a free blog and rant and rave about high school than interviewing a band or reviewing a pile or records, sneaking off to the kinkos to get 50 copies made, or even better sneaking into work after hours and comendering the copy machine. That element is really missing and because of that, perhaps zine publishing is dead.

In as much as anything that stirs up and requires passion can ever die, I firmly believe zine publishing is and never will die, so long as there are folks out there who want not just alternative non-mainstream news/information, but more importantly like to experience publications that express the author’s/publisher’s self and perspectives in truly unique forms without any constraints. So, zines? dead? No, not hardly. Its just like the “good old days” where you just have to look a little harder to find them. alt.zines has run its course I believe and probably isn’t the best source of zine publishing community activity. I could be wrong there, but since the question was asked there, my answer ends there.

Post a Comment | Trackback URI