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Chapter 1 - Introduction

I have been interested in fanzines for a number of years. When I was about 15, I had an article published in Bamber's Right Foot, a fanzine dedicated to Torquay United Football Club. Since then I have bought copies of various types of zines and worked on the publication of a horror film fanzine, Firelight Shocks, and its related web site. What I slowly became aware of was the volume of fanzines being published regularly and the wide breadth of subjects that these cover, despite very few shops stocking them (and even then it is generally only music zines that can persuade independent record shops to take a few copies). I seemed therefore to have come into contact with an underground publishing culture, not done primarily for profit but enjoyment and expression. What seemed particularly strange to me was that, despite the huge amount of zines being published on a semi-regular basis, there was apparently very little awareness of this culture, either in academic writing or amongst the general public. In this dissertation, I wish to explore the area thoroughly and look at all areas in order to come to an understanding of how and why zines are published.

A number of definitions of fanzines have been suggested, although whereas Gunderloy suggests that they are "anything published on a non-commercial basis" (1988: 86), I wish to use Duncombe's narrower definition; "zines are non-commercial, non-professional, small-circulation magazines which their creators produce, publish, and distribute by themselves" (1997: 6). It should also be noted that the "fan" of fanzines is somewhat misleading in terms of their subject matter. Although many fanzines do exist to publish fan-related writing and pictures for and by followers of, particularly, a specific band, most are far wider in their scope. In the introduction to his Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics and Alternative Culture, Stephen Duncombe states that his initial reaction when asked the inevitable question 'what is a zine?' is to "hand over a stack of zines and let the person asking the question decide" (1997: 1). There is a certain truth to this statement; the character, content and format of zines is perhaps best understood through looking at a variety of the publications themselves, many of which defy easy description.

Although some people view the term "fanzine" as referring only to publications written by fans of, for instance, a specific band or personality, as opposed to "zines" having a more general content, I wish to take the perspective that zine is merely an abbreviation of fanzine and will therefore use the two words interchangeably throughout this dissertation. Whilst I am dealing with the terminology that I will be using, it should also be noted that due to one person often being responsible for all aspects of a zine's publication, the terms fanzine writer, editor and publisher are also generally interchangable.

Gunderloy offers a number of different categories of zines that are useful here in displaying the breadth of both subject matter and approaches to this form of self-publishing. In terms of format, the two main types that he describes are Genzines (the small-press equivalent to professional magazines, containing an editorial, a letter column, and articles on various subjects) and Perzines (much more stylistically relaxed, often mainly consisting of a personal record of the life of the writer). One of the most important distinctions between these two types is that although Genzines can be the product of just one person, it is often a collaborative effort, unlike Perzines which are only rarely not the work of a single individual (1988: 8).

Concentrating on contemporary zine genres, Gunderloy identifies a high number of different fanzine types according to subject matter. Here he lists political/anti-political zines (including small-scale hate literature), zines dedicated to punk and other musical styles, poetry and literary zines, religious zines, science fiction, fantasy and role-playing games zines, along with many other subject areas from ecology to erotica (ibid. 9-14).

One category that Gunderloy doesn't mention but which Duncombe comments on is the sports zine. Duncombe refers to this category as being only small in America, in contrast to in Britain where football zines "are an integral part of sporting life" (1997: 9). In fact, I have found quite often when mentioning my dissertation subject to people that they assume fanzines to be primarily football-orientated. The scale and extent of fanzine publishing as a whole is commonly not perceived - even though it has been estimated that there are around 30,000 zines of various description in existence (Mitchell online reference).

In this piece of work I will be concentrating primarily on music fanzines. With fanzines as a whole being too wide an area to examine thoroughly in this dissertation, music zines offer not only an extremely large amount of publications but also a great amount of variety in content and style. This is particularly true in a British context; music fanzines are overwhelmingly dominated by punk in American small-press publications, whereas in Britain, despite the number of fanzines published being lower, a lot more attention is given to different genres of music. I will therefore be able to make more varied comparisons between fanzines covering different musical styles and how this is reflected in their design.

My aim in this piece of work is to provide as complete a view of fanzines as is possible. I wish to cover history as well as current practises and also look at the motivation behind their publication.

This is a particularly interesting time for this dissertation to be written; the long running music periodical Melody Maker, after having endured financial difficulties for a prolonged period, recently folded and was incorporated into the New Music Express. However, despite this traditionally successful newspaper being unable to continue publication, fanzines and zine culture continue to flourish, a phenomenon that I wish to investigate.

My dissertation will be structured as follows; in the next chapter I will review the existing literature available on the subject of fanzine production and culture. This will also enable me to engage with the issues and arguments related to fanzines that that are covered in these pieces of writing. The third chapter will deal with the way in which I conduct my research and how I intend to analyse fanzines as both publications and cultural products. The chapter following that will look at the history of fanzines and the 'fanzine culture' that they have created. Chapter five will look at the more technical aspects of the production, distribution and promotion of fanzines; how they are producedand how they reach their audience. Following that, I will look at the development of fanzines on the Internet and the changes that the electronic media might bring. Finally, I will state my conclusions.

I will now examine the material previously written on the subject of fanzines.