Fanzines
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Fanzines were the back bone of the pre-Internet fan fiction community and continued to play an important role long after the Internet became a vital part of the fan fiction community. They helped distribute information, distributed stories, informed people about what was going on.
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[edit] Types of fanzines
There were several types of fanzines. They include:Fanzines - Timelines
Adzines: (aka Zine Listings) This type of fanzine contained advertisements for other fanzines.
Newslettters: (aka Letterzines) This type of zine included different types of content and tended to be based around a fan club or fdandom.
Reviewzines: This type of fanzine reviewed other fanzines. This was a helpful service as zines cost money and most fans could not buy everything out on the market.
[edit] Purpose of fanzines
The main reason to publish a fan fiction fanzine was to provide a cost-effective means of providing the most fanfiction to the greatest number of people at the least cost. For many fanzine publishers, this meant that the final cost to the purchaser was either less than or slightly above the amount of time/labor/materials paid by the publisher to produce the fanzine.
There were exceptions to this rule, where some fan publishers created a livelihood based on the sales of the zines that they published, charging a markup above the time/labor/material cost of producing the fazine.
[edit] Quality issues
In recent fannish discussion, there has been some discussion that fanzines were superior to net based fan fiction because of fanzines had quality control issues. This is something that is untrue. Fanzines were of varying quality, both in terms of how they were printed and the quality of story telling. Neadods explained this on a comment on fanthropology saying:
- I agree about (lack of) quality controls, but not about survival of the fittest. Even the cheapest zines cost a large sum of time and money to produce, especially way back in the dinosaur days when you did your entire print run up front. Plenty of people ended up with garages full of unsold stuff because the market simply wasn't interested.
- But the word-of-mouth mill worked just as good back then, and if a zine was good, we would find out about it. Then we'd get it. Then we'd start submitting stuff for the next issue, hoping to get in... the fittest did survive, because the fans were all rooting for the best zines to continue.
- I also think that while writer's circles are good, as is feedback, there's a lot to be said for the educational effects of getting an edit back from a reputable zine-ed. Almost more than the feedback, because one of the things that you had to do for a zine ed that you don't do in a circle and you never do in feedback is to make the critical decision of whether you agree or not. When an editor says "add this, change that, or give it somewhere else" after the initial "My baby! She doesn't like my baby!" reaction it is up to the writer to look at the story cold-bloodedly and decide "was I right, is she right, or is there a third option?"
- There's nothing analagous to that in online fic. You post it or not, people like it or not, but there is no point in the story development where a third person looks at it and critiques it as a work in progress. [1]
[edit] Historical definitions
The following definition is from the science fiction fandom and dates to November 2003:
- fanzine
- An amateur SF publication (often shortened to zine) sometimes including stories, con reports, book reviews, articles of fanni sh interest, and almost always LoCs. [2]
[edit] Sources
Below is a partial list of articles and academic sources that reference fanzines.
- Aikman, Becky (1995). Express yourself. Newsday, December 17, p.1.
- Atton, Chris (1996). Alternative literature: a practical guide for librarians. Hampshire, England: Gower Publishing Limited.
- Aul, Billie (1997). Is it a zine? Is it mail art? It's...a dead locust. In Factsheet Five, #50, p.107. [P.O. Box 1700099, Sn Francisco, CA 94117-00099]
- Barnes, Denise (1996). What the hell is a zine, anyway? In Fodder January/February, p.3.
- Bauder, David (1990) What's the alternative? Hundreds of 'Fanzines. In Saint Paul Pioneer Press. Ene. 28, , p.3E.
- Becker, Christ (1993). What I’ve learned from Fanzines. In Factsheet Five # 35, . p.3
- Biancolli, Amy (1995) Ragtime: underground magazine venture where mainstream publications won' t. In Times Union [Albany], March 12, p.I-1, 4.
- Carstensen, Jeanne (1987) Fanzines: your right to rave. In Whole Earth Review, Winter, p.46-47.
- Castro, Laura L. (1990) Blast from past: nostalgia magazine published for love and money. In New York Newsday, February 14.
- Chepesiuk, Ron. (1997) The zine scene: libraries preserve the latest trend in publishing. In American Libraries, February, p.68-70.
- Criterion. (1997) Zinedom. In Making punk a threat again: Profane Existence: best cuts, 1989-1993. Minneapolis: Loin Cloth Press, p.64 [P.O. Box 8722, Minneapolis, MN 55408].
- Dodge, Chris (1995) Pushing the boundaries: Fanzines and libraries. In Wilson Library Bulletin, May, p.26-30.
- Duncombe, Stephen. (1997) Notes from underground: Fanzines and the politics of alternative culture. New York: Verso.
- Dunn, Jerry (1997) Zine readers and zine publishers. In Idiom savant: slang as it is slung, p.269-271.
- Emerson, Bo. (1992) Zine scene In Atlanta Constitution, December 1, p.1G.
- Emigre (1998) Fanzines and the culture of D.I.Y. In Special issue of Emigre Spring #46.
- Fanzines in libraries (1996). In Information for Social Change. Spring, #3, p.25-26.Zobel, Cheryl (1999).
- Flinn, John (1994) Think it, publish it: the zine scene In San Francisco Examiner, January 23, p. A-1, A-9.
- Green, Karen and Tristan Taormino, eds. A Girl's Guide to Taking Over the World: Writings from the Girl Zine Revolution. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. 1997.
- Gross, David M. (1994) Zine but not heard In Time, September 5, p.68-69.
- Herrada (1995). Fanzines in libraries: a culture preserved. In Serials Review, Summer, p.79-88.
- Marr, John (1997) On the trail of Cometbus: a talk with the publisher of Berkeley's best-loved 'zine. In Bay Guardian [San Francisco], February 26.
- Werthman, Frederick (1973). The World of Fanzines. Illinois: Southern Illinois Press.
