Fanzine
A fanzine (
Typically, publishers, editors, writers and other contributors of articles or illustrations to fanzines are not paid. Fanzines are traditionally circulated free of charge, or for a nominal cost to defray postage or production expenses. Copies are often offered in exchange for similar publications, or for contributions of art, articles, or letters of comment (LoCs), which are then published.
Some fanzines are typed and photocopied by amateurs using standard home office equipment. A few fanzines have developed into professional publications (sometimes known as "prozines"), and many professional writers were first published in fanzines; some continue to contribute to them after establishing a professional reputation. The term fanzine is sometimes confused with "fan magazine", but the latter term most often refers to commercially produced publications for (rather than by) fans.
Origin
The origins of amateur fanac "fan" publications are obscure, but can be traced at least back to 19th century literary groups in the United States which formed amateur press associations to publish collections of amateur fiction, poetry, and commentary, such as H. P. Lovecraft's United Amateur.[1]
As professional printing technology progressed, so did the technology of fanzines. Early fanzines were hand-drafted or typed on a manual typewriter and printed using primitive reproduction techniques (e.g., the
Genres
Science fiction
When Hugo Gernsback published the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories in 1926, he allowed for a large letter column which printed reader's addresses. By 1927 readers, often young adults, would write to each other, bypassing the magazine.[2] Science fiction fanzines had their beginnings in Serious & Constructive (later shortened to sercon) correspondence.[3] The fans would start up clubs to ease finding others with their same interests. Gernsback founded the Science Fiction League in 1934, where these clubs could advertise for more users.[4]
The first science fiction fanzine, The Comet, was published in 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago and edited by Raymond A. Palmer and Walter Dennis.[5] The term "fanzine" was coined by Russ Chauvenet in the October 1940 edition of his fanzine Detours. "Fanzines" were distinguished from "prozines" (a term Chauvenet also invented), that is, all professional magazines. Prior to that, the fan publications were known as "fanmags".[6]
Science fiction fanzines used a variety of printing methods. Typewriters, school dittos, church mimeos and (if they could afford it) multi-color letterpress or other mid-to-high level printing. Some fans wanted their news spread, others reveled in the artistry and beauty of fine printing.[
The mimeograph machine, which forced ink through a wax paper stencil cut by the keys of a typewriter, was the standard for many decades. A second-hand mimeo could print hundreds of copies and (with more than a little effort) print in color. The electronic stencil cutter (shortened to "electrostencil" by most) could add photographs and illustrations to a mimeo stencil. A mimeo'd zine could look terrible or look beautiful, depending more on the skill of the mimeo operator than the quality of the equipment. Only a few fans could afford more professional printers, or the time it took them to print, until photocopying became cheap and ubiquitous in the 1970s. With the advent of computer printers and desktop publishing in the 1980s, fanzines began to look far more professional. The rise of the internet made correspondence cheaper and much faster, and the World Wide Web has made publishing a fanzine as simple as coding a web page.
New technology brought various print style innovations. For example, there were alphanumeric contractions which are actually precursors to "
Never commercial enterprises, most
Since 1937, science fiction fans have formed amateur press associations (APAs); the members contribute to a collective assemblage or bundle that contains contributions from all of them, called apazines and often containing mailing comments.[10] Some APAs are still active, and some are published as virtual "e-zines", distributed on the Internet.[11] Specific Hugo Awards are given for fanzines, fan writing and fanart.
Media
Media fanzines were originally merely a subgenre of SF fanzines, written by science fiction fans already familiar with apazines. The first media fanzine was a
Many other Star Trek 'zines followed, then slowly zines appeared for other media sources, such as
Men wrote and edited most previous science fiction fanzines, which typically published articles reporting on trips to conventions, and reviews of books and other fanzines. Camille Bacon-Smith later stated that "One thing you almost never find in a science fiction fanzine is science fiction. Rather ... fanzines were the social glue that created a community out of a worldwide scattering of readers."[15] Women published most media fanzines, which by contrast also included fan fiction. By doing so, they "fill the need of a mostly female audience for fictional narratives that expand the boundary of the official source products offered on the television and movie screen."[14] In addition to long and short stories, as well as poetry, many media fanzines included illustrated stories, as well as stand alone art, often featuring portraits of the show or film's principal characters. The art could range from simple sketches, to reproductions of large elaborate works painted in oil or acrylic, though most are created in ink.
In the late 1970s, fiction that included a sexual relationship between two of the male characters of the media source (first Kirk/Spock, then later Starsky/Hutch, Napoleon/Illya, and many others) started to appear in zines. These became known as slash fiction from the '/' mark used in adzines. The slash help to differentiate a K&S story (which would have been a Kirk and Spock friendship story) from a K/S story, which would have been one with a romantic or sexual bent between the characters. Slash zines eventually had their own subgenres, such as Femslash. By 2000, when web publishing of stories became more popular than zine publishing, thousands of media fanzines had been published;[16] over 500 of them were k/s zines.[16]
Another popular franchise for fanzines was the "Star Wars" saga. By the time the film The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980, Star Wars fanzines had surpassed Star Trek zines in sales.[17] An unfortunate episode in fanzine history occurred in 1981 when Star Wars director George Lucas threatened to sue fanzine publishers who distributed zines featuring the Star Wars characters in sexually explicit stories or art.[18]
Comics were mentioned and discussed as early as the late 1930s in the
In 1960,
Contacts through these magazines were instrumental in creating the culture of modern
One of the first British comics fanzines was Phil Clarke's KA-POW, launched in 1967.
At times, the professional comics publishers have made overtures to fandom via 'prozines', in this case fanzine-like magazines put out by the major publishers.
Horror film
As with comics zines, horror film fanzines grew from related interest within science fiction fan publications. Trumpet, edited by Tom Reamy, was a 1960s SF zine that branched into horror film coverage. Alex Soma's Horrors of the Screen,[24] Calvin T. Beck's Journal of Frankenstein (later Castle of Frankenstein) and Gary Svehla's Gore Creatures were the first horror fanzines created as more serious alternatives to the popular Forrest J Ackerman 1958 magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. Gore Creatures began in 1961 and continues today as the prozine (and specialty publisher) Midnight Marquee.[25] Garden Ghouls Gazette—a 1960s horror title under the editorship of Dave Keil, then Gary Collins—was eventually headed by the late Frederick S. Clarke (1949–2000) and in 1967 became the respected journal Cinefantastique. It later became a prozine under journalist-screenwriter Mark A. Altman and has continued as a webzine.[26]
Mark Frank's Photon—notable for the inclusion of an 8x10 photo in each issue—was another 1960s zine that lasted into the 1970s.[27] Richard Klemensen's Little Shoppe of Horrors,[28] having a particular focus on "Hammer Horrors", began in 1972 and is still publishing as of 2024.
The
Rock and roll
By the mid-1960s, several fans active in science fiction and comics fandom recognized a shared interest in rock music, and the rock fanzine was born.
In the post-punk era, several well-written fanzines emerged that cast an almost academic look at earlier, neglected musical forms, including Mike Stax' Ugly Things, Billy Miller and Miriam Linna's Kicks, Jake Austen's Roctober, Kim Cooper's Scram, P. Edwin Letcher's Garage & Beat, and the UK's Shindig! and Italy's Misty Lane.
In the 1980s, with the rise of stadium superstars, many home-grown rock fanzines emerged. At the peak of Bruce Springsteen's megastardom following the Born in the U.S.A. album and Born in the U.S.A. Tour in the mid-1980s, there were no less than five Springsteen fanzines circulating at the same time in the UK alone, and many others elsewhere. Gary Desmond's Candy's Room, coming from Liverpool, was the first in 1980, quickly followed by Dan French's Point Blank, Dave Percival's The Fever, Jeff Matthews' Rendezvous, and Paul Limbrick's Jackson Cage. In the US, Backstreets Magazine started in Seattle in 1980 and still continues today as a glossy publication, now in communication with Springsteen's management and official website. In the late 1990s, notorious fanzines and e-zines flourished about electronic and post-rock music. Crème Brûlée fanzine was one of those that documented post-rock genre and experimental music.
Punk
United Kingdom
The
United States
In the United States, Punk began publication in 1976 out of New York City and played a major part in popularizing punk rock (a term coined a few years earlier in Creem) as the term for the music and the bands being written about.
As punk and alternative culture grew more popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s—evidenced by the success of punk and alternative rock bands like
Some punk fanzines from the 1980s, like No Class[36] and Ugly American[37] experienced a second life by placing all past content online for free and adding new content. Although fewer in number in the 21st century, punk fanzines still exist in the United States, such as Suburban Rebels and Razorcake, both from California.
Most punk fanzines were printed in small quantities and promoted their respective local scenes. They were often cheaply photocopied and many never survived beyond a few issues. Their greatest contribution was in promoting punk music, clothing, and lifestyle in their local communities. Punk bands and independent labels often sent records to the zines for review and many of the people who started the zines became critical connections for punk bands on tour.
Australia
In 1977, Bruce Milne and Clinton Walker fused their respective punk zines Plastered Press and Suicide Alley to launch Pulp; Milne later went on to invent the cassette zine with Fast Forward, in 1980.[38][39]
After the year 2000
In the UK,
Mark Wilkins and Mystic Records
Mark Wilkins, the promotion director for 1982 onwards US punk/thrash label Mystic Records, had over 450 US fanzines and 150 foreign fanzines he promoted to regularly. He and Mystic Records owner Doug Moody edited The Mystic News Newsletter which was published quarterly and went into every promo package to fanzines. Wilkins also published the highly successful Los Angeles punk humor zine Wild Times and when he ran out of funding for the zine syndicated some of the humorous material to over 100 US fanzines under the name of Mystic Mark.
Italy
In Perugia, Italy, Mazquerade ran from 1979 to 1981.[40]
In Basilicata, Italy, Raw Art Fanzine ran from 1995 to 2000.[41]
In Milan, Italy, Gorezilla ran from 1988 to 1991.[42]
Mod
In the United Kingdom, the 1979
After the genre had started to go out of fashion with mainstream audiences in 1981, the mod revival scene went underground and successfully reinvented itself through a series of clubs, bands and fanzines that breathed fresh life into the genre, culminating in another burst of creative acceptance in 1985. This success was largely driven by the network of underground fanzines, the most important and far reaching of which were Extraordinary Sensations, produced by future radio DJ Eddie Piller, and Shadows & Reflections, published by future national magazine editor Chris Hunt. The latter in particular pushed back the boundaries of fanzine production, producing glossy, professionally written and printed publications at a time (1983–1986) when most fanzines were produced via photocopier and letraset.
Local music
In the UK, there were also fanzines that covered the local music scene in a particular town or city. Mainly prevalent in the 1970s, and 1980s, all music styles were covered, whether the bands were playing rock, punk, metal, futurist, ska or dance. Featured were local gig reviews and articles that were below the radar of the mainstream music press. They were produced using the technology of the time, i.e. typewriter and Letraset. Examples include Bombsite Fanzine (Liverpool 1977), Wool City Rocker (Bradford 1979–1982), City Fun (Manchester), 1984, Spuno (Bath 1980)[33] No Cure (Berkshire) and Town Hall Steps (Bolton) and more recently mono (fanzine), (Bradford) with many more across the country, such as Premonition Tapes Tapezine on cassette (Sheffield 1987) and Crime Pays (Liverpool 1988).
Role-playing-game fanzines
Another sizable group of fanzines arose in
Role-playing fanzines allowed people to communicate in the 1970s, and 1980s with complete editorial control in the hands of the players, as opposed to the game publishers. These early RPG fanzines were generally typed, sold mostly in an A5 format (in the UK) and were usually illustrated with abysmal or indifferent artwork.
A fanzine community developed and was based on sale to a reading public and exchanges by editor/publishers. Many of the pioneers of RPG got their start in, or remain part of, science fiction fandom. This is also true of the small but still active board game fandom scene, the most prolific subset of which is centered around play-by-mail Diplomacy.
The UK fanzine Aslan (1988–1991)[44] was responsible for popularization of freeform role-playing games in the UK.[45]
Video gaming
This section needs additional citations for verification. (September 2020) |
Video game fanzines first emerged during the
As desktop publishing tools became more accessible, there was an increase in fanzine production. Fanzines generally emphasized either classic gaming (e.g.
The popularity of video game fanzines diminished greatly with the rise of the internet, however some zines—particularly the classic gaming ones (e.g. Classic Gamer Magazine and Video Game Collector)—continued beyond the mid-90s. The rise of "on demand" publishing has led to a new outlet for print zines, like Jumpbutton and Scroll.
The video game fanzine era was biggest in the US and Canada,[citation needed] but zines are also produced in other countries. Prominent video game fanzines produced in the UK include Retrogamer, Pixel Nation, Capcom Fanzine, Mercury, and Super Famicom Mini Mag among others.[46] In France fanzines like Revival were circulated, and Japan has seen the production of lavish doujin works.
More recently, there has been a mini-resurgence in video game fanzines, with the launch of HyperPlay RPG in 2015 and Switch Player in 2017. Based in part on Super Play's focus on role-playing games and "any-bit" Nintendo,[clarification needed] HyperPlay RPG[47] received positive reviews by the mainstream video game media.[48]
Wargaming
Several fanzines exist within the hobby of
Sport
The first association football fanzine is regarded as being
The longest running fanzine is
With the widespread availability of the Internet, much of the energy that was put into football fanzines subsequently went into the development of supporters' websites. Examples of other UK football fanzines include
Fanzines are not exclusive to the top tiers of football however, with
And also away from the world of Football there were a number of established fanzines, for example Rugby league has such notable publications as Who The Hell Was St. George Anyway? Rugby League fanzine, by supporters of Doncaster RLFC and Scarlet Turkey of Salford City Reds.However, due to pressure from the Internet etc. these publications no longer exist in printed form. The title of World's longest running Rugby League fanzine now belongs to The Aye of the Tigers, by Castleford Tigers supporters. The fanzine movement has even spread to the United States, where ice hockey fans have produced several popular fanzines. In Chicago two examples include the formerly published Blue Line Magazine and currently The Committed Indian, both produced by Chicago Blackhawks fans.[51] In St. Louis there are Game Night Revue and St Louis Game Time for the St. Louis Blues.
There are also a number of fanzines to be found in Ireland of which Shelbourne's Red Inc. is the longest running since 1999.
In the United States, sports fanzines are relatively rare. In Boston they are a bit more common. There are two fanzines sold outside Fenway Park including Yawkey Way Report, which is run by a former Marine.[52][53]
Recent developments
With the increasing availability of the Internet in the late 20th and the early 21st century, the traditional paper zine has begun to give way to the
See also
- alt.zines
- Amateur press association
- British small press comics
- Desktop publishing
- Dōjinshi
- Fandom
- Hugo Award for Best Fanzine
- Hugo Award for Best Semiprozine
- Literature
- Minicomic Co-ops (The United Fanzine Organization)
- Minicomics
- Printing
- Publishing
- Revolutionart
- Science fiction fandom
- Weblog
References
- ISBN 9780313315787. Retrieved 13 October 2019.
- ISBN 978-0853238553.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ^ "Sercon". Dr. Gafia's fan terms.
- ^ Dorsett, Charlie (12 February 2009). "SCIENCE CORRESPONDENCE CLUB: Fandom as Culture". Project Shadow.
- ^ Moskowitz, Sam; Sanders, Joe (1994). "The Origins of Science Fiction Fandom: A Reconstruction". Science Fiction Fandom. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. 17–36.
- ^ "Detours". Fancyclopedia.
- ISBN 978-1-101-61604-8.
- ^ Cohen, Philip (1975). "Language of Science Fiction Fandom". Word Ways. 8 (1): 5–6.
- ^ "Letter Of Comment". Fanlore. Retrieved 21 July 2022.
- JSTOR i219220.
- ^ "Amateur Press Associations (APAs) (UPDATED)". That's Not Online. Retrieved 28 December 2016.
- ^ ISBN 0-9653575-4-6. Archived from the original(PDF) on 10 September 2016. Retrieved 6 October 2008.
- ^ Grimes, William (21 September 2008). "Joan Winston, 'Trek' Superfan, Dies at 77". The New York Times. Retrieved 2 April 2010.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8122-1530-4.
- ISBN 978-0-8122-1530-4.
- ^ a b "Database over Kirk/Spock Zines published – CyberDreams". beyonddreamspress.com.
- ^ Hill, Jemele (16 October 2017). "Fanzine". okbuy. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 4 March 2020.
- ISBN 9780470658086.
- ^ Kyle, David. "Phamous Phantasy Phan". Mimosa no. 24, pp. 25–28.
- ^ a b c The Power of Comics: History, Form and Culture, p. 175, at Google Books
- ^ Everyday Information: The Evolution of Information Seeking in America, p. 286, at Google Books
- ^ Freeman, John. "Fanzine Flashback – KA-POW, Britain's first comics zine?", DownTheTubes.net (Sept. 7, 2017).
- ^ Clarke, Theo. "And then nothing happened: THE ESCAPE INTERVIEW," The Comics Journal #122 (June 1988), p. 119.
- ^ "Horrors of the Screen". archive.org. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009.
- ^ "MIDNIGHT MARQUEE PRESS – BOOKS". midmar.com.
- ^ "Cinefantastique: The Website with a Sense of Wonder". cinefantastiqueonline.com.
- ^ Frank, Mark. "Photon". Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
- ^ "Little Shoppe of Horrors". littleshoppeofhorrors.com.
- ^ "School of Cinematic Arts Directory Profile – USC School of Cinematic Arts". usc.edu.
- ^ "Japanese Giants". Archived from the original on 11 September 2017.
- ^ "GFAN Magazine Index". g-fan.com. Archived from the original on 15 March 2018. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
- ^ "Ernest Farino". IMDb. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ a b Si (10 July 2011). "essential ephemera". si-site-nogsy.blogspot.com.
- ISBN 9781691716999.
- hdl:1903.1/26175.
- ^ "No Class Fanzine, No Class Records, No Class Now, No Class Gigs". noclass.co.uk.
- ^ "The Official Ugly American Zine Archives, 1988–1999". uglyamericanzine.com.
- ^ "Fast Forward: A Pre-Internet Story". messandnoise.com. 18 September 2011. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ "Fanzines (1970s)". Clinton Walker. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ "Perugiamusica.com". perugiamusica.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ "Raw Art Fanzine: restauro digitale e disponibilità dei numeri degli anni '90". truemetal.it. 26 May 2017. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ "Gorezilla".
- ^ "RPG Magazine and zine Index- Alarms & Excursions Page". 24 October 2006. Archived from the original on 24 October 2006. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
- ^ Role-Playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations at Google Books
- ^ "Me and Freeforms". Retrieved 22 April 2010.
- ISSN 0966-6192.
- ^ hyperplayrpg.com
- ^ "HyperPlay RPG Is A Glorious Throwback to the Pre-Internet Days Of Homemade Fanzines". nintendolife.com. 27 September 2015. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ Gavin Barber (updated by John Williams) (2002). "Fact Sheet 7: Fan 'Power' and Democracy in Football". Department of Sociology: Sports Resources. University of Leicester. Archived from the original on 21 August 2010. Retrieved 25 August 2010.
- ^ Azure Graphic & Web Design. "A Love Supreme – The Independent Sunderland Football Club Fanzine". a-love-supreme.com.
- Chi-Town Daily News. Archived from the originalon 3 July 2013. Retrieved 18 October 2018.
- ^ "CEO Sly Egidio – Yawkey Way Report". Yawkey Way Report. Archived from the original on 12 February 2019. Retrieved 17 January 2017.
- ^ "Fenway program hawkers' rivalry fuels competition". Boston Globe. Retrieved 21 February 2017.
- ^ "eFanzines.com". efanzines.com. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
- ^ "LA Zine Fest: Feb 19". 11 February 2012.
- ^ "The Zine Scene," Chicago Tribune
- ^ "Micropolis: The Brooklyn Zine Fest". WNYC.
- ^ "Sticky Institute". stickyinstitute.com. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
- ^ "Glasgow Zine Fest". glasgowzinefest.com. Archived from the original on 1 August 2015. Retrieved 18 April 2016.
Further reading
- Schelly, Bill (1995). The Golden Age of Comic Fandom. Introduction by Roy Thomas. Seattle, WA: Hamster Press. ISBN 978-0964566903.
- Lupoff, Richard A. "Dick"; Thompson, Don, eds. (1970). All in Color for a Dime. New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House. ISBN 978-0870000621.
External links
- "How the fanzine refused to die". The Guardian. 2 February 2009.
- "Citations for "fanzine" collected by the Oxford English Dictionary".
- "Origins of the amateur press associations". Archived from the original on 1 September 2005.
- "Historic science fiction fanzines at Fanac.org".
- "Current and archived science fiction fanzines". eFanzines.com.
- "An interview with Bomp! publisher Greg Shaw discussing his experience as a teenage SF fanzine and rock zine publisher, and the evolution of zines through the 1990s". scrammagazine.com. Archived from the original on 6 February 2005.
- "The Underground Comix movement began as a network of fanzines". skipwilliamson.com. Archived from the original on 20 February 2006.
- "Ink Stains (column on comics fanzines of the 60s, 70s, and 80s)". Comic Attack.
- "Zines". M. Horvat Fanzine Collection. U. of Iowa.
- "Zines". Fanlore.
includes an extensive resource of media fanzines including table of contents, awards and covers
- "Zinelibrary Italy".
- "On-File Who's Who of videogame fandom".
- "Gaming". Journalism: Unplugged. Archived from the original on 30 April 2015.
- "Japan's Gaming Fanzines Delve Into the Most Obsessive Topics". Wired.
- "LA Zine Fest".
- "Chicago Zine Fest".
- "Brooklyn Zine Fest".
- "Italian Raw Art Fanzine 1995–2000".
digitally restored for free online
- Zine Libraries Barnard College
- "Fanzines". Dez Skinn's website.
- "Fanzine". The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
- Fandom-related Collections at the University of Iowa Library