| Introduction
| Background | What are
Zines | Topic Variety | Zine
Incarnations | Examples in Our Collection
Finding
Aid | Container
List
Introduction - Aims of the Zine Archive
The West Coast Zine Archive's aim is to provide a protected space for
Do-it-Yourself
collections while advancing public access to these important works.
This archive will protect and preserve tangible evidence of these unique
literary creations to come. Zines in this collection will not circulate
beyond the library, but Archive
is open to all patrons of the library.
The archive features zines related to gender and gender issues, music,
art, and popular and alternative culture. This Archive focuses on publications
West of the Mississippi and South of the U.S.-Mexico Border; but zines
from other regions are also accepted and added to the Archive. We are
requesting donations of single issues as well as large collections. Donations
are tax-deductible and donor names will be credited in the Archive's inventory
list. Allow someone 100 years from now to read what life was like for
YOU and have your publication live on indefinitely. Have extra zines just
collecting dust where few people can enjoy? Send
us those too!
Expand access to D.I.Y. publications and promote
their preservation!
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While only recently gaining recognition from mainstream popular culture,
zines have actually been in circulation for over sixty years. The term
comes from fan magazine. Fan magazines were first created in the early
1930's by Science Fiction fans and often published by Sci-Fi club founders.
These productions served as a way to share science fiction stories and
commentary and to widen communication between fans. Amazing Stories, published
by Hugo Gernsback in 1926, was the first creation of its kind. In the
1970's, fan magazines became known as "fanzines" as they were
adopted by the growing punk rock music scene in response to its neglect
by and criticism of the mainstream music press. The world of fanzines
became greatly influenced by the punk scene as alternative music and politics
met face to face. Early examples of these fanzines were Punk and the now
infamous Sniffin' Glue. By the 1980's, streams of publications by fans
of other cultural genres entered the scene, mixing with the writings of
discouraged, disgruntled authors and the printed leftovers of 1960's-1970's
political dissent. At this time, fan was dropped and zine became the umbrella
term for all genres encompassed within this form of alternative press.
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What are Zines?
Zines are informal, personal mini-magazines on virtually any topic, written,
published, and distributed by their creators. The incredible breadth of
zines make it difficult to classify them but several areas of focus consistently
emerge such as the political, personal, network, scene, grrrl/girl, art,
fringe culture, sex, religious, health, vocational, travel, and literary
zine, as well as comix, and many, many more. Throughout their history,
a unique and important publishing network has been developed by the dedication
of both zine creators and their readers. A large and complex subculture
revolves around the distribution of this literature where "zinesters"
have created a self-supported underground rich with resourcefulness, networking,
and interaction. While types of zines and their content are as unique
as the individuals who create them, all zines present a social, if not
political, challenge. Backed by a hardboiled Do-It-Yourself ethic, zines
become a form of cultural rebellion where individuals take initiative,
community develops, and a movement is born.
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Topic Variety
While various genres of zines have held forum for personal-political
subject matter, the 1990's witnessed an explosion of "grrrl"
zines onto the scene. Just about every area of an individual's life
is represented and examined in the zine world but the exploration of feminism
and gender has successfully competed for center stage. The Riot Grrrl
movement of the 1990's popularly reclaimed the term "girl,"
birthing a prolific genre of girl/grrrl zines feminist in nature. Zines
seem to be one of the few spaces wherein the representation of feminism,
gender, sexuality, and women's issues generally cross race, class, and
geographic boundaries, making for very special cultural productions and
artifacts. Individuals of all ages publish zines and the production and
popularity of these important creations only seems to be exponentially
growing with time.
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Zine Incarnations
Over the years, the zine world has expanded its production into several
major realms: the traditional cut and paste zine or print zine, the high-production
and widely distributed zine also known as the glossy, and the on-line
electronic or Internet e-zine. In addition, zinesters not only produce
their own publications but also distribute the inventions of other publishers
with zine distros. A few examples of girl print zines collected in the
SDSU Special Collections Archive include Glue
Magazine, El Sueno de Venus, Oya, Hip
Mama, and Wive's Tales. Collections such as Bitch
Magazine, BUST,
Venus, Rockrgrl,
Hip Mama, and Fat!So?
are popular "glossies" that started small only to develop into
high production magazines with the spirit of home-spun zines. Zines such
as Bamboo Girl,
Worse Than Queer,
Action Girl Online,
Digital Chicana,
and Blackgirl Stories
provide not only print versions but also virtual tours inside the minds
and hearts of women taking their passion for zines on-line for wider access.
Acquiring sometimes hard to find print zines is made easy by distros like
Grrrl Style, Pander,
Zomblasta, Towanda
Distro, and Pisces Catalog
and Zine Distro. Because the network has become so expansive, directories
for the sole purpose of reviewing, tracking, and archiving zines have
surfaced worldwide.
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Examples in Our Collection
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