My New Love Affair with Zines

I love the printed word and buy lots of books and magazines. I’ve recently become enamored with a new medium — the zine (pronounced like magazine without the “maga”). Fans of the independent press will scoff at my discovery, as zines have been around in one form or another for centuries. Zines are not mass produced, slick publications full of mainstream advertising. They’re made by people like you and me on computers, letterpress printers, or by hand.

Like anything self-produced, quality ranges from sophisticated to sophomoric (intentional or otherwise). But you can find some extremely well-written, entertaining and informative zines that are available for just a few bucks. Publications are available both as stand-alone issues or published regularly and available by subscription. Topics are as varied as they are in the blogosphere.

Here’s just a few zines in my personal library:

• CROQ – Published quarterly by Heather Mann, CROQ is written for crafters by crafters and covers the online crafting community, independent crafts, the indie business and DIY projects. I have at least 6-8 issues by now.
• Christmas Digest 2007 and Creative Spirit – by Sister Diane, a favorite blogger and podcaster of mine.
• How to Bag – a single issue DIY zine on how to sew your own messenger bag
• Do It Yourself Silkscreening – another DIY zine
• Bread and Salt – a zine of food history by Tim Miller (3 issues only)
• Ker-bloom! – a letterpress zine that’s been produced bi-monthly for over 11 years; I own #56, which describes a 2-week bike trip from Eugene, OR, to San Francisco
• Stolen Sharpie Revolution: Zine and DIY Resource Guide, 3rd Edition – the master resource for making your own zine

Did I pique your interest? Learn more or buy zines from these resources:

• Distributors that I’ve purchased zines from: Microcosm Publishing, Sweet Candy Distro, and Parcell Press
• List of more distros and another list
• Xerography Debt – zine that reviews other zines
• Definition of a zine
• Zine World – A reader’s guide to the underground press, including zines, books, comics, newsletters, one-shots, videos, posters, spoken word recordings, or anything else in almost any media on any subject — except music.
• The Book of Zines – everything you want to know about the world of zines
• ZineWiki – an open-source encyclopedia devoted to zines and independent media; covers the history, production, distribution and culture of the small press