Talking about the tactile quality of zines is a given in this day and age, and I’d prefer not to be the person standing atop a soapbox extolling the virtues of physical media — if only because, if you’re reading this, you can probably recite those arguments by heart by now. I like print; I like digital; I like reading. I can talk for hours about the advantages of a particular media for a particular work — and I have. […]

A couple of weeks ago, I wandered through Bushwick Open Studios: the day was hot, and after spending some time walking through the halls and artists’ spaces at 1717 Troutman, I was glad to be back in the open air, where I was, perhaps, sweating a little less. A few steps outside of the building, I ran into a friend, who reminded me of the zine-related proceedings — the successor to Bushwick Open Pages, essentially — happening at Blonde Art […]

The focus of a zine can be anything (assuming it has a focus at all): scenes from a life; the intricacies of a particular job; a writer, artist, or tv show of interest. Others can focus on a specific place: I looked at one focusing on ruined spaces around Washington earlier this year, for instance. The zines examined today have a scope that’s a little closer to home: from Manhattan bookstores to art made in Brooklyn, these cast an eye […]

When I hear the phrase “DIY,” I inevitably think of something tangible: a piece of writing or an album, or a venture dedicated to disseminating something creative, whether a record label, publisher (print or online), or something similar. But our identities can be just as inherently DIY as our books, albums, and zines. There’s a trial and error to discovering who you are; some people had the aid of older siblings, while others (myself among them) discovered the things that […]

Apparently, it’s one of those nights when I feel compelled to summon up the bygone days of 2002. Specifically, I’ve got Radio 4’s album Gotham! on the brain — and even more speciifcally, the song “Calling All Enthusiasts,” which always had a way of livening my mood. Around the time that album came out, I was still theoretically editing a zine; I was starting to write fiction, and I was doing a halfway decent job of going to shows semi-regularly. Enthusiasts? […]

It might not be the biggest mixtape in the world, but a playlist surrounding songs about zines would be a potent one indeed. Most notably, you’d have Belle & Sebastian’s “Chickfactor,” one of the highlights of their 1998 album The Boy With the Arab Strap. And Jessica Hopper once noted that Fugazi’s “Song #1” may have coined the phrase “magazinses,” which, if not a nod towards zines, is probably not not a nod towards zines. So…a small mixtape indeed. Maybe a mix […]

So: geography. Whether it’s the view of a country from out of an airport window or a look inside a particular city’s neighborhood, zines can elucidate a particular space, making it visible in previously-unseen ways. The three zines discussed today have an eye on place, albeit in vastly different ways — from embittered essays to record store boosterism.

Zines can mean different things, depending on where you first encountered them.