Zines
Morgan Murrah
What is a Zine?
A zine is sometimes hard to define but you can pretty easily know one when you see one. Its about the spirit of the publication.
There are whole festivals and events around them, making them, sharing them often called zinefests. Typically a zine is a small run publication made in a DIY fashion. Zines evoke themes of independence, creativity and sometimes ephemerality. They can be free or sold.
A classic “OG” zine is one thats made with a photocopier after using what materials you have on hand to create. A modern zine might be one made digitally with copy and paste. However, the bounds and limitations of zines are not easy to define. The IndieWeb Wiki does a good job at presenting the topic with some relationship to the web: https://indieweb.org/zine.
There are a good number of results for zines online…
I have loved Zines for Decades
When I lived in Dunedin, New Zealand, I worked sometimes at a local bookshop called Black Star Books. It has a large zine collection. I wasn’t very tech savvy at the time about websites but I did make a website showing off a small selection of the bookshop: https://cargocollective.com/zinefest.
It seemed to do a good enough job, as even the UNESCO City of Literature website adopted the websites content: https://www.cityofliterature.co.nz/news/article/LPDxZSb/black-star-books-otepoti.
I keep selections of Zines today
I own all of the Wizard Zines
https://wizardzines.com/ - I don’t know when I discovered Wizard Zines, but I was hooked. Im probably going to stay hooked for as long as new ones are made.
These resources are the best technical explainers and reference material I think I have come across ever. When you need to re-learn something FAST these come in super handy. My sincere gratitude to all who contributed and to their creator Julia Evans.
I was featured in a zine from Dunedin, years ago in 2014
Stockings Zine was a 50 page zine project by a number of people I knew at my University. Its fun to remember, and I felt good enough to share it here.
The cover evokes a sense of home, the old victorian style Dunedin houses, and the cold and need to wear a good jacket.