Zines Their Way:
During my stay in the hospital, I found myself inexplicably reading a stack of zines I had acquired over the last few months and most of then were just plain awful, dry, pedantic blather from people who had no idea how uninteresting they were.
A wonderful exception, however, brightened my mood, a how-to-make-a-zine guide from Microcosm Publishing, a Portland-based distribution house. Microcosm has been around since 1997 and is an absolute blessing to vaguely obsessive zine fan, a well-organized online catalog, distribution policies that respect both zinesters and fans and a manifesto that is neither pretensious nor self-rightous, just honest.
I was fortunate enough to grab Stolen Sharpie Revolution, which has some excellent DIY tips but I’d recommend just about anything they do.
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18 Replies to “Zines Their Way:”
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I am curious which zines you liked and didn’t like. Sometimes I think I get so charmed by them that I’m not as critical as I could be.
I just bought “Stolen Sharpie…” and found the Microcosm site only about a month ago. I was similarly impressed. I just wish I could get my Paypal account to work.
I am curious which zines you liked and didn’t like. Sometimes I think I get so charmed by them that I’m not as critical as I could be.
I just bought “Stolen Sharpie…” and found the Microcosm site only about a month ago. I was similarly impressed. I just wish I could get my Paypal account to work.
I picked up a zine called “Chatty Pig” which I found to be a ceaseless drone. And another called “Confessions of a Curmudgeon” which I was only able to get through about two pages of.”
Another take: I’m overly critical and demand a level of professionalism out of zines that I shouldn’t. Or contradicts the definition of the medium.
A third: Zines should be held up to the same standard as any other publishing venture and doing so will elevate the form itself.
What do ya’ll think?
I picked up a zine called “Chatty Pig” which I found to be a ceaseless drone. And another called “Confessions of a Curmudgeon” which I was only able to get through about two pages of.”
Another take: I’m overly critical and demand a level of professionalism out of zines that I shouldn’t. Or contradicts the definition of the medium.
A third: Zines should be held up to the same standard as any other publishing venture and doing so will elevate the form itself.
What do ya’ll think?
I think zines (and blogs) are a great way for people with limited resources (limited money, limited education) to express themselves. It’s a medium that’s open to just about anybody. I think that yes, they vary greatly in quality, but ‘elevating the form’ is just what the form doesn’t need. For one, what’s ‘awful’ and ‘dry’ to you could be interesting and entertaining to somebody else. Plus, as soon as people start criticizing the form in a way that discourages people from participating, or holding the medium up to the standards of traditional publishing, you start to get the printed equivalent of what’s happened to punk music – a bunch of transparent imitations that lack any of the originality or energy of the origingals. I think it’s also similar to folk art – if you make the claim that folk or outsider artists should be more professional, then they stop being folk artists.
The thing that makes a blog or zine really great in my opinion has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or the graphic design – for me, it’s much more about the story somebody has to tell. I’ve recently come across a couple of websites chronicling the lives of people with or dealing with the terminally ill, in one case a terminally ill child. The most memorable zine I ever read was all about people who made there livings (at least partially) from having drugs tested on them. They aren’t really great art, but you can’t get stories told in this way anywhere else. In my opinion, more people should be encouraged to write about these kinds of experiences without discouraging them by holding them to some kind of professionalism – tell your story, photocopy it and hand it out, put it on the web, whatever.
I think zines (and blogs) are a great way for people with limited resources (limited money, limited education) to express themselves. It’s a medium that’s open to just about anybody. I think that yes, they vary greatly in quality, but ‘elevating the form’ is just what the form doesn’t need. For one, what’s ‘awful’ and ‘dry’ to you could be interesting and entertaining to somebody else. Plus, as soon as people start criticizing the form in a way that discourages people from participating, or holding the medium up to the standards of traditional publishing, you start to get the printed equivalent of what’s happened to punk music – a bunch of transparent imitations that lack any of the originality or energy of the origingals. I think it’s also similar to folk art – if you make the claim that folk or outsider artists should be more professional, then they stop being folk artists.
The thing that makes a blog or zine really great in my opinion has nothing to do with the quality of the writing or the graphic design – for me, it’s much more about the story somebody has to tell. I’ve recently come across a couple of websites chronicling the lives of people with or dealing with the terminally ill, in one case a terminally ill child. The most memorable zine I ever read was all about people who made there livings (at least partially) from having drugs tested on them. They aren’t really great art, but you can’t get stories told in this way anywhere else. In my opinion, more people should be encouraged to write about these kinds of experiences without discouraging them by holding them to some kind of professionalism – tell your story, photocopy it and hand it out, put it on the web, whatever.
Although Matt’s points about the dilution of punk and zine culture are valid, the larger point is that some people who seize the DIY spirit to produce and distribute their own work just aren’t very interesting.
Case in point: I was at an event this summer covered by a ‘guerilla film maker.’ Soon after a local cable access channel agreed to air it, he convinced me and other attendees to watch it. We did. And it was awful. His camera skills were marginal at best, he ran a cycle of obtrusive and misspelled graphics throughout the show, and he made a fun time look painfully monotonous.
Do I support his right to shoot film and promote his own work? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t miss him if his ‘art’ disappeared.
Although Matt’s points about the dilution of punk and zine culture are valid, the larger point is that some people who seize the DIY spirit to produce and distribute their own work just aren’t very interesting.
Case in point: I was at an event this summer covered by a ‘guerilla film maker.’ Soon after a local cable access channel agreed to air it, he convinced me and other attendees to watch it. We did. And it was awful. His camera skills were marginal at best, he ran a cycle of obtrusive and misspelled graphics throughout the show, and he made a fun time look painfully monotonous.
Do I support his right to shoot film and promote his own work? Absolutely. But I wouldn’t miss him if his ‘art’ disappeared.
Oh yes, I know there’s a lot of crap out there. I just wouldn’t want to discourage somebody from saying something interesting b/c they don’t have the skills or resources to produce something ‘professional’ – I’m sure if the guerilla film maker had made a shitty film about something that only he was uniquely qualified to talk about, it would have been a different story.
Oh yes, I know there’s a lot of crap out there. I just wouldn’t want to discourage somebody from saying something interesting b/c they don’t have the skills or resources to produce something ‘professional’ – I’m sure if the guerilla film maker had made a shitty film about something that only he was uniquely qualified to talk about, it would have been a different story.
I think Matt and Justin both speak the truth. I would never discourage anyone from producing a zine, film, i.e. expressing themselves in whatever medium they deem appropriate. All expression has the right to exist and be pursued in my mind. But does that mean anything goes? Does that mean we must clear vast tracks of space for the exhibtion of someone’s self-expression, even if they offer up little to no-concern for the audiences experience? I tend to be be very un-P.C. on this point and believe in the intrintic value of “cultural filters” that help us separate wheat from chaff. It’s not a perfect system, but if giving the audience an enjoyable experience is tantamount to “selling out” then why bother exhibiting at all? Why not take said zine/film and merely circulate it amongst friends, family, and others who wouldn’t dare criticize?
Now I’ve exhausted myself. Back to healing.
I think Matt and Justin both speak the truth. I would never discourage anyone from producing a zine, film, i.e. expressing themselves in whatever medium they deem appropriate. All expression has the right to exist and be pursued in my mind. But does that mean anything goes? Does that mean we must clear vast tracks of space for the exhibtion of someone’s self-expression, even if they offer up little to no-concern for the audiences experience? I tend to be be very un-P.C. on this point and believe in the intrintic value of “cultural filters” that help us separate wheat from chaff. It’s not a perfect system, but if giving the audience an enjoyable experience is tantamount to “selling out” then why bother exhibiting at all? Why not take said zine/film and merely circulate it amongst friends, family, and others who wouldn’t dare criticize?
Now I’ve exhausted myself. Back to healing.
So what constitutes “professional?” Dreary status quo voices hammered into slick, eye-pleasing Quark templates? And what constitutes the alternative, this so-called altruism? An unreadable and unpublishable 3,500 page essay by William T. Vollman finding a publisher through Eggers?
The status quo has its “professionalism.” The zine community has its ragged, scrap-collecting voices. Both are equally culpable to the crap factor. Or need we bring up Sturgeon’s Law?
In a world in which stunning compost heaps of mediocrity subsist both in movie trailers using that odious prepositional phrase and the latest braindead Michael Crichton-fests that take up pivotal shelf space from the literate, more inaccessible rabblerousers that make literature worth reading, it is not the slick image that matters, but the pith.
Case in point: There’s a world of difference between the dreary handheld shots of 1981’s “Kings and Desperate Men” and the dreary handheld shots of Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves.” Both films feature some of the worst photography ever seen in cinema. Both appear completely “unprofessional.” But in the former case, we have amateurism on nearly every level, and in the latter case, we have an emotionally compelling film about devotion based off thematic subtext, strong acting and a meaty script that takes chances. In other words, it is not the professionalism that matters, but what is said and accomplished, even if “Breaking the Waves” did not get the theaters that the professional (and moronic) “Die Another Day” received a few weeks ago.
If a zinemaker’s layout resembles words put thorugh a Cuisinart and yet says something real, rational, dangerous and bold about the world in a literate voice, I would prefer her zine over the bland suburban lifestyle pages of the San Francisco Chronicle which belabor the same tired points or the dirty, muggy air of a Rick Moody. But that’s just me.
But, ultimately, it’s the responsibility of the reader/media cultivator to draw his own cultural filters, ignore the bloated hype of a thousand PR flacks, and demand only the best. When two (TWO!) posthumous works by William Gaddis are published and get scant coverage in comparison to Crichton’s latest, how can cultural filters hope to bifurcate?
So what constitutes “professional?” Dreary status quo voices hammered into slick, eye-pleasing Quark templates? And what constitutes the alternative, this so-called altruism? An unreadable and unpublishable 3,500 page essay by William T. Vollman finding a publisher through Eggers?
The status quo has its “professionalism.” The zine community has its ragged, scrap-collecting voices. Both are equally culpable to the crap factor. Or need we bring up Sturgeon’s Law?
In a world in which stunning compost heaps of mediocrity subsist both in movie trailers using that odious prepositional phrase and the latest braindead Michael Crichton-fests that take up pivotal shelf space from the literate, more inaccessible rabblerousers that make literature worth reading, it is not the slick image that matters, but the pith.
Case in point: There’s a world of difference between the dreary handheld shots of 1981’s “Kings and Desperate Men” and the dreary handheld shots of Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves.” Both films feature some of the worst photography ever seen in cinema. Both appear completely “unprofessional.” But in the former case, we have amateurism on nearly every level, and in the latter case, we have an emotionally compelling film about devotion based off thematic subtext, strong acting and a meaty script that takes chances. In other words, it is not the professionalism that matters, but what is said and accomplished, even if “Breaking the Waves” did not get the theaters that the professional (and moronic) “Die Another Day” received a few weeks ago.
If a zinemaker’s layout resembles words put thorugh a Cuisinart and yet says something real, rational, dangerous and bold about the world in a literate voice, I would prefer her zine over the bland suburban lifestyle pages of the San Francisco Chronicle which belabor the same tired points or the dirty, muggy air of a Rick Moody. But that’s just me.
But, ultimately, it’s the responsibility of the reader/media cultivator to draw his own cultural filters, ignore the bloated hype of a thousand PR flacks, and demand only the best. When two (TWO!) posthumous works by William Gaddis are published and get scant coverage in comparison to Crichton’s latest, how can cultural filters hope to bifurcate?
Indeed!
Indeed!
All I know is, my new zine is now gonna be called “stunning compost heaps of mediocrity.”
All I know is, my new zine is now gonna be called “stunning compost heaps of mediocrity.”