Fanzine

A definition

The fanzine is a free newspaper , sometimes clandestine (a vast majority of them does not have a registration of copyright), published under the aegis of the " C it Yourself" (slogan of Jerry Rubin taken again by the punks into 77), often specialized, which is subjected to no requirement of sale and that one gets in some Distros /librairies/disquaires specialized, in the colleges and the universities, the independent concert halls, or by the word of mouth.

Its diffusion is reduced (the average pulling of a fanzine in France would be of 200 specimens), its periodicity remains most frequently random and its relatively short lifespan, even if certain exceptions are to be noted, such as Cometbus (in) or Maximum Rock' roll (in), two fanzines North-American existing since the beginning of the Eighties. In France, the fanzine punk Rad Party has existed him for more than 15 years and always holds the form. Some fanzines historical as New Wawe are reappeared in the years 2000, certain missings find one second life on MySpace (example: Orange agent).

A fanzine becomes a Magazine when it professionalize and decides to have for objective profitability or the profit.

Often militant in the cultural field (in the broad sense), the spirit of the fanzines finds in the slogan of the alternative network Indymédia " Do not criticize the media, are the médias".

History

Generally devoted to the music Rock'n'roll, with the Cinema, the televised series, the Political sphere or the popular Literature (and, initially, with the Cartoon), the first fanzines appears at the dawn of the Années 1930. More than good progresses in the field of the Xerography, it is its diffusion within the spheres private and public which contributes to the rise of these publications in the middle of the Seventies, in particular in the musical field or the fanzine remains one of the media fetishes of the movement Punk. One also speaks about Graff' zines : fanzines graphic with the posted artistic ambitions, generally carried out by students in schools of Article.

Some make start the history of the fanzine much earlier, with the press amateur of American Science-fiction and the newspaper The Time Planet , appeared in 1926. The first fanzine proven remains The Comet, appeared in 1930 and publishing correspondences of fans of science fiction.

Among most famous French fanzines of these forty last years appear in particular:

" Hello Happy Taxpayers" , " Orange" agent; , Hop! , Falatoff , Shock , Kaput , the Bulletin of the ACGP , Incongruous the , Actual-Hebdo , the Lemon hallucinogen , Jade , Goinfre , 813 , PLGPPUR , One has Faim! , Dangerous Abuse , Violence , the vegetable of the day, No government , Bold Rock'n'roll , One is not savages , New Wave .

Since 1981, the International festival of the cartoon of Angouleme reward each year the best of them. If the interest for this free press knew a certain decline with the beginning of the year ninety, the success of Internet allowed the libertarian spirit and generally Militant which is it his to perennialize itself. The Webzine or E-zine , fanzinat on Internet, touches an audience much larger: production costs being definitely less low, and really increased interactivity. The Nineties also saw the appearance of " Media libraries alternatives" for own-produced fanzines and discs in Toulouse or Poitiers, some collecting Fanzines.

The musics known as protestors -- like the Punk, the Rock'n'roll, the Reggae, the Hardware-core, the Techno or the Ska -- remain still today the compost of the fanzinat ( New Wave , born in 1981, always exists).

Nowadays, there exists also many fanzines drifting of a book or a history to lead to something of very different. Example: The book Harry Potter has many fanzines which makes derive the history on different subjects (the sex, homosexuality, the war, etc) or transports the characters in different universes.

Modes of diffusion

The fanzine is by definition a support with limited diffusion, from its weak pulling and the expenses caused by a massive diffusion. One distinguishes some practices generalized in the world from the fanzinat in order to facilitate the diffusion of the fanzines.

Of “hand with hand”: A fanzine is done above all for a rather intimate circle, near to its concerns and it is thus easy to meet potential readers and to distribute to these occasions the fanzines.
the post office: the fanzinat would not have almost any range without postal forwarding. Many exchanges are made by mail, whether it is between fanzines or of fanzine with readers. Shares in the expenses of ports are often required at the time of the sending of fanzine by the post office.
At the time of special events. For example at the time of concerts, living rooms of cartoon, associative living rooms or other meetings, it can happen that a fanzine holds a table of sale where he proposes the numbers with the people present. The interest is to touch people a priori sensitive to the topic of the fanzine. The fanzines can also be deposited at the entry for example to make it possible each one to have access there.
distros: the distros are held by people who undertake to collect the maximum of fanzines, photocopy them, then resell them with the request. Often the distros hold of the tables at the time of events and then propose with the sale multitudes of titles.
In bookstores specialized in the culture underground (modern Glance, Parallels or Tea-barter in Paris, for example), in the bookstores of cartoon, at the record dealers, etc This mode of distribution functions in a way different from the distribution " mainstream" : certain places make solid buies (without policy of return), others take the fanzines in deposit and sign a good of deposit, then pay what was sold with the editor fanzine if this last cost to claim it.

See too

Contreculture
Fandom
Made it yourself
Fanzines of cartoon
Webzine
Dōjinshi

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