What the Heck is a Zine?

Self-published titles whose name comes from an abbreviation of the punk-era "fanzine"; which, in turn, is a corruption of Hollywood's post-war "fan magazine." Print zines are photocopied on paper and side or saddle-stapled. E-zines are sent via email and are generally all text. Web zines are infinite in variety - from personal pages to full blown slick net zines.

Zine culture hit its stride in the mid-'80s with thousands of tiny-edition photocopied publications distributed by mail. Many of these small, idiosyncratic hand-crafted publications departed from the fan idea to focus on the zine creators themselves. Personal computers and the simplicity of desktop publishing accelerated the zine revolution, which is has been documented since 1986 by Factsheet Five, the ultimate zine-about-zines. The zine phenomenon has been furthered by the proliferation of zine- watch columns in aboveground youth culture publications.

The Book of Zines: Readings from the Fringe: http://www.zinebook.com/

Factsheet Five Zine Reader - one of the principle online clearing houses for hundreds of web zines, some derived from print versions: http://www.factsheet5.com/

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