Zine Culture

A zine is a self-published collection of text and/or images, usually distributed on a small scale and aimed at a relatively specific community. Punk zines, poetry zines, political manifestos and fan fiction zines are all associated with specific factions of contemporary subculture.

Zine Culture grew out of the Punk scene in the 1970s and hit its stride in the 1990s, when zines like the feminist Bust and the underground graffiti zine 12 Ounce Prophet gained mainstream popularity.¹

Current Zine Culture tends to revolve around Internet-based e-zines, which are even easier and less expensive to produce than their photocopied counterparts.

Zine Culture Hits The Big Time

Bust was started in 1993 by Debbie Stoller and Marcelle Karp as a photocopied feminist zine², and by the year 2000 it had achieved national circulation. No longer self-produced, Bust is now an award-winning glossy magazine.

Giant Robot began as an Asian pop-culture zine in 1994: photocopied, stapled, and distributed by hand. By the late 1990s, Giant Robot's mass popularity afforded founders Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong not only a glossy printed magazine but also several retail stores selling dolls, figurines and t-shirts.³

Zine Culture Quotes

""There's something about being able to hand somebody a copy of your zine. There's more of a personal interaction. When I ask people what they love about reading zines, they mention that it's not just getting the zine, it's getting this note from the person who made the zine. It became a personal correspondence."" --Chip Rowe⁴