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What's In A Zine: New Book Explores DIY Feminist Roots

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WaltzingMatilda
11/12/09

In reply to What's In A Zine: New Book Explores DIY Feminist Roots
I wrote in a zine in my little suburban town put out by arguably the most punk rock kid in our county. It was a glorious exercise and felt like a mini-rebellion. I was dis/heartened when he found me on facebook - he is about to get married and he is all "growns up." It happens to the best of them. I miss that zine. I miss zines in general. #zines
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whynotshesaid
11/12/09

In reply to What's In A Zine: New Book Explores DIY Feminist Roots
It's funny that I got into zines primarily because of the Internet (I mean, I'd heard of them through Sassy but I never really knew how to get them until I could go online and order them using Paypal) but that the Internet has really taken the steam out of the zine community. The community still exists, but the creative energy once used to put them out has become so diffused by the technology that is so readily available online.

Even so, the zine community - particularly the feminist perzine community of the early 2000s - played such a huge role in my political, personal and artistic development. (I even put out a few of my own.) I would order huge packages of them, then sit in the bathtub and read them, one right after the other. I had no friends who shared my politics or my tastes, and it was wonderful to know that there were people like me out there somewhere. Plus, some of the zines were so good, so smart and well-written that reading them over the years has been like earning a graduate degree in cultural studies. I learned about Judith Butler, Urvashi Vaid, Dorothy Allison, Amber Hollibaugh, bell hooks and about eighteen thousand other artists, critics, academics, writers and activists through the world of zines. My life is that much richer because of them.

In short, I must read this book. #zines
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Cam/ron
11/12/09

In reply to What's In A Zine: New Book Explores DIY Feminist Roots
I was a zine addict back in the mid-late 90's (I still have a dozen, yellowing Factsheet Five issues), and what mainly attracted to them was their often fearless content. Many zine editors couldn't care less about ad revenue and they just ran whatever they damn well pleased (one favorite was "Murder Can Be Fun," a zine dedicated to real-life freak accidents). I agree that the Internet and blogging killed off the zine as well as the overcrowded zine market that had too little retail distribution. Yet, a zine always has a great sense of being a product of much blood, sweat and tears. #zines
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