The Zine Yearbook

The Zine Yearbook (Became the Media, June 1999, 132 pages) is an anthology which collects small/independent press writing published during a certain year. Publications included have circulations of less than 5,000 copies, and the content is a diverse as the magazine publishing world. This edition includes excerpts from 40 zines published in 1998, and is an accurate and vital documentation of the zine world and of underground publishing. Included are articles, interviews, commentary, illustrations, etc. The book is perfect bound, color cover, with many illustrations and photos as well as the reprinted articles.

About the Author:
Jen Angel has been publishing zines since 1991. She has written and edited her zine, Fucktooth, for 8 years, and edited one of the largest zines, MaximumRockNRoll, for a year. She also coedits a mainstream magazine called CLAMOR. Jen is a twenty-something college graduate who likes to be really busy all of the time, and loves living in the Midwest. She has been a writer, contributor, and editor in the zine community for a long time.

Reviews:

The hype around the so called "zine revolution" seems to have finally subsided, and now, after all those terrible "inside the zine world" kind of books have long since disappeared into remainder table limbo, The Zine Yearbook gives us a clear glimpse of what is really going on in the world of zines. Not by telling us what the larger sociopolitical ramifications of desktop publishing may be, but by showing us, through excerpts from various fanzines, that all over the world people are taking over the means of production and glutting the market with reams of photocopied musings. Sure you may have to wade through more crap than ever to get the good stuff, (I sure don't envy the job Jen and whoever else worked on this project must have faced in going through the entires sent in for this year's Yearbook; the mountains of terrible "per-zine" submissions they must have waded through is frightening to even contemplate) but it's worth it, believe me.
-Sean Sullivan, Maximum Rock N Roll #193

This is a book about zines. This is about recognizing the truly amazing stuff that exists in an underground we've created." I took the day off work specifically to catch up on mail, but the first envelope I opened was the only envelope I opened - it was the new Zine Yearbook, and there, wonderfully, went my whole fucking day. The book's goal is to assemble in one place a wide array of some of the best self-published writing out there, and that goal has been accomplished beautifully. If you have friends, acquaintances, or family who don't get the whole "zine thing," this is the book you want to leave on top of your unplugged TV set, because just by comparison, The Zine Yearbook shows how empty and uninteresting is virtually everything from the mainstream media. And this third annual collection of highlights from zineland is by far the best edition yet...

Go To Page: 1 2

Articles in this Topic    Discussions in this Topic