What is a “zine” you ask? Zines are a physical medium (though sometimes digitized for more access) can be about anything and everything. A subculture of knowledge and information shared, free for all. They have long been an outlet of uncensored free speech, and often unpublished, and probably made on a xerox machine. Zines are imperfect, like humans, and can be about ANYTHING. One of my favorite quotes about zines is “if they say it’s a zine, it’s a zine”.
The zine community is very welcoming and anti-gatekeeping. That means, regardless of your personal feelings.
Zines are meant to be shared with the community and respect an individual’s right of self-expression, their intellectual property and their ideas. Zinesters are MORE likely to shout out someone for giving them an idea than in many other communities. Being inspired by fellow zineters is a good thing!
In true fashion, zines are usually free and showered amongst the public. A common zine “genre” is punk rock music. Underground by nature, zinesters will drop off their zines at record stores for anyone to grab. This is how some teenager in Alabama may find their new favorite noisy punk band from North Dakota. The possibilities are endless.
Zines are a sub-culture without ANY rules. It can be about anything and everything. Punk and anarchy zines were some of the first but it branched out into a whole sensational sub-culture reaching topics. A reminder that they are not alone.
Some types of zines include….AND this is such a short list…
Addiction, Anarchism, Art and Design, Conspiracy, DIY, Feminism, Food/Cooking, Gardening, Houseplants, Mental Health, Movies, Outer Space, Photography, Poetry, Political, Punk, Queer/Trans, Tarot Cards, and Witchy. Anything that you like/dislike or anything in between can be a zine! Do it yourselves are a plenty!
Zines are also released in series! For instance this Star Wars zine is issue number 20! This particular zine is a mix of conversation, fan views, fan fiction, and fan art, all about Star Wars!
Keeping and preserving these zines available can be troublesome due to their flimsy and low quality printing but there are libraries dedicated to zines which specialize in preservation, cataloguing and organizing them! They are usually built on donations from across the world from zine collectors and the zinesters themselves. They want to have their work preserved as well!
So much information can be found in zines. It’s great to pick up a bunch of niche topics like “The Burning Lies: Witches, Radical Feminists, and Nazis”. It goes over how many witches were burned in Germany due to their early feminist ideals. The zine connects this to Germany’s “familiarity” with xenophobia and the eventual genocide committed by the Germanic country controlled by the Nazis.
With all that being said…The Young Adult Room at Falmouth Public Library is now building it’s own zine collection. And we challenge you…to make your own zines! They can be anything and bring your niche knowledge and interests to the Falmouth community! Once the word gets out, there very well may be zine workshops in our future….
A big thank you to all the anonymous donations to our growing zine collection. The people have a voice because of you guys.
