In 2006, Osa Atoe was inspired to create an expression out of the experience of being the only Black kid at the punk show - and Shotgun Seamstress was born. Like a great mixtape where radical politics are never sidelined for an easier ride, Shotgun Seamstress was a fanzine by and for Black punks that expressed, represented, and documented the fullest range of being, and collectively and individually explored 'all of our possibilities instead of allowing the dominant culture to tell us what it means to be Black.' Laid out by hand, and photocopied and distributed in small batches, each issue featured essays, interviews, historical portraits of important artists and scenes, reviews, and more, all paying tribute to musicians and artists that typify free Black expression and interrupt notions of Black culture as a monolith.
From their origins in early 20th century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in '60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock, Stephen Duncombe pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital network of popular culture. He also analyses how zines measure up to their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Packed with extracts and illustrations, he provides a useful overview of the contemporary underground in all its splendour and misery.
Archival material from the 1990s underground movement that served as a "gateway drug to feminist history" for so many. (--Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kill) Before the rise of the Internet or desktop publishing, the zine and music culture of the Riot Grrrl movement empowered young women across the country to speak out against sexism and oppression, creating a powerful new force of liberation and unity within and outside of the women's movement. While feminist bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile fought for their place in a male-dominated punk scene, their members and fans developed an extensive DIY network of activism and support.
Do you have a passion that you want to obsess about in a love letter to the world? In this new edition of Microcosm's popular DIY guide to zine-making, Joe Biel updates the information provided in the first edition (edited by Biel and the late and great Bill Brent) to address zine making in today's digital and social-media-obsessed world. Covering all the bases for beginners, Make a Zine! hits on more advanced topics like Creative Commons licenses, legality, and sustainability.
Since 2002, Stolen Sharpie Revolution: a DIY Resource for Zines and Zine Culture has been the go-to guide for all things zine-related. This little red book is stuffed with information about zines. Things you may know, stuff you don't know and even stuff you didn't know you didn't know! Stolen Sharpie Revolution contains a cornucopia of information about zines and zine culture for everyone from the zine newbie to the experienced zinester to the academic researcher.
This book presents an in-depth look at adding these unique materials successfully to a library collection. Their homegrown and esoteric aesthetic make zines important cultural and historical objects. Including them in library collections is a perfect way to amplify underrepresented voices. But the road from acquisition to cataloging these underground, self-published, and often fragile items can be difficult. This resource smooths the path forward, offering top-to-bottom guidance for collection development and acquisitions staff, administrators, catalogers, and access services librarians in understanding and processing zines for library collections.
Making Feminist Media provides new ways of thinking about the vibrant media and craft cultures generated by Riot Grrrl and feminism's third wave. It focuses on a cluster of feminist publications--including BUST, Bitch, HUES, Venus Zine, and Rockrgrl--that began as zines in the 1990s. By tracking their successes and failures, this book provides insight into the politics of feminism's recent past. Making Feminist Media brings together interviews with magazine editors, research from zine archives, and analysis of the advertising, articles, editorials, and letters to the editor found in third-wave feminist magazines. It situates these publications within the long history of feminist publishing in the United States and Canada and argues that third-wave feminist magazines share important continuities and breaks with their historical forerunners.
Through exclusive interviews, never-before-seen photographs and reprinted zines from the time, Queercore traces the history of a scene fabricated by a few young queer punks to its emergence as a real revolution. Queercore is a first-hand account of the movement explored through the people that lived it - from punk's early queer elements to the emergence of riot grrrl as a sister movement - as well as the clothes, zines, art, film, and music that made this movement an exciting in-your-face middle finger to complacent gay and straight society.
A volume in Critical Constructions: Studies on Education and Society Punk music and community have been a piece of United States culture since the early-1970s. Although varied scholarship on Punk exists in a variety of disciplines, the educative aspect of Punk engagement, specifically the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ethos, has yet to be fully explored by the Education discipline. This study attempts to elucidate the experiences of adults who describe their engagement with Punk as educative. To better know this experience, is to also better understand the ways in which Punk engagement impacts learner self-concept and learning development.
Academic Journal Articles
Bold, Melanie Ramdarshan. "Why Diverse Zines Matter: A Case Study of the People of Color Zines Project" Publishing Research Quarterly 33 (2017): 215–228. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12109-017-9533-4
Burkholder, Casey, Kate Hamill and Amelia Thorpe. "Zine Production with Queer Youth and Pre-Service Teachers in New Brunswick, Canada: Exploring Connections, Divergences, and Visual Practices". Canadian Journal of Education, 44.1 (2021): 89-115.
Comstock, Michelle. "Grrrl Zine Networks: Re-Composing Spaces of Authority, Gender, and Culture". Journal of Advanced Composition. 21.2 (2001): 383-409. JSTOR.
Creasap, Kimberly. "Zine-making as Feminist Pedagogy". Feminist Teacher 24.3 (2014): 155-168. JSTOR. doi:10.5406/femteacher.24.3.0155
Flock, Feminist Geography Collective. "Making a Zine, Building a Feminist Collective". ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies 20.5 (2021): 531-561. https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1918
Freedman, Jenna. "Grrrl Zines In The Library." Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture & Society 35.1 (2009): 52-59. SocINDEX. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
Herrada, Julie, and Billie Aul. Zines In Libraries: A Culture Preserved." Serials Review 21.2 (1995): 79. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
Jacobi, Tobi. 2007. "The Zine Project: Innovation or Oxymoron," English Journal 96.4, 43-49. JSTOR. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
Koh, Rowena. 2008. "Alternative literature in libraries: the unseen zine." Collection Building 27.2, 48-51. The library does not have online access but we can get the article for you if you use the link to Request article
Merhar, Amelia. 2020. "Too Long; Didn't Read: The Case for Academic Zines". The Northern Review 49.
Poletti, Anna. "Self-Publishing In The Global And Local: Situating Life Writing In Zines." Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 28.1 (2005): 183-192. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
Radway, Janice. "Girl Zine Networks, Underground itineraries, and Riot Grrrl history: Making sense of the struggle for new social forms in the 1990's and beyond." Journal of American Studies 50.1 (2016):1-31. JSTOR. doi:10.1017/S0021875815002625
Thomas, Susan. "Zines for Teaching: A Survey of Pedagogy and Implications for Academic Librarians". portal: Libraries and the Academy 18.4 (2018): 737-758. Project MUSE. doi:10.1353/pla.2018.0043
Velasco, Gabrielle, Caroline Faria, and Jayme Walenta. 2020. "Imagining Environmental Justice “Across the Street" : Zine-making as Creative Feminist Geographic Method.” Geohumanities 6.2, 347-370. https://doi.org/10.1080/2373566X.2020.1814161
Zobl, Elke. "Cultural Production, Transnational Networking, And Critical Reflection In Feminist Zines." Signs: Journal Of Women In Culture & Society 35.1 (2009): 1-12. Academic Search Complete. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
Magazine Articles
Arroyo-Ramirez, E., Chou, R. L., Freedman, J., Fujita, S., & Orozco, C. M. (2018). The reach of a long-arm stapler: Calling in microaggressions in the LIS field through zine work. Library Trends, 67(1), 107–130. https://doi.org/10.1353/lib.2018.0028
Braun, J. (2021). Unconventional collecting in extraordinary times: Documenting the pandemic through a COVID-19 zine collection. College & Research Libraries News, 82(8), 354–361. https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.82.8.354