Thoughts on making zines after 7 months

Last weekend, I took part in a panel discussion about making zines with Tero, H-P and Jukka at this year’s Finncon. We had a wonderful 45 minute discussion: many good things were said but a lot remained unsaid due to limited time so I wanted to share my thoughts on zines, especially from the perspective of a new zine maker. What’s a zine? When I tell people I make zines, the first question always is: what’s a zine? Zines, short for fanzine and parallel to magazine are a grassroots media format that started in the early 1900s from American political activism and spread especially in the science fiction fandom from 1930s onwards and later found popularity also in punk scene. American zines trace their origins to the amateur press movement of the early 20th century, when amateur printers purchased their own presses in order to produce small works concerning a specific topic or interest. Components of the amateur press movement can be seen in an often overlooked precursor to zines, the…