Hand-crafted 'zines' still speak volumes
The scene at the Boston Zine Fair was straight out of the pre-Internet era -- paper publications everywhere, spread around rows of tables, printed on old-fashioned pulp product, all sold for a few dollars by devotees who would rather labor over their own three-dimensional creations than zap off another blog entry.
Zines, by definition, have always been outside the mainstream -- self-published, handmade, almost always made at a net loss by the "zinester," a dedicated soul driven to write about obscure bands, political movements, or personal stories, either in a one-off zine or a series.
But after the rise of the Web and then blogs made self-expression easier and easier, who would go through all the trouble of printing a zine?
Enough that last month's zine fair had to turn people away, said Janaka Stucky, organizer of the event, which was held in a large room at the Massachusetts College of Art on Huntington Avenue.
"We're going to try to get the gym next year," said Stucky, director of Black Ocean, a small, independent press.
Some 45 tables were set up, more than last year, but down from the zine fair's peak, sometime before Stucky took over three years ago, he said. But Stucky says that while there are fewer zines now, their overall quality has increased. Many of the crudest, least interesting zines have migrated to the blogosphere, he said, leaving behind the diehards who are compelled to produce something that can't be found online or in the mainstream print media.
"The rants have mostly gone to Live Journal," he said, referring to a popular blog. "The purpose of zines has shifted. Now there's more attention to detail, more focus on artistry and making something that's pleasing to read and eye-catching."
Zines were the do-it-yourself print companion to the punk rock explosion of the 1970s and grew as the personal computer and photocopier caught on in the 1980s. Their total numbers probably peaked, Stucky said, in the early 1990s, just before the Internet hit.
The dawn of the digital music era shrank the number of independent record stores, where zines were commonly sold or, if they had ads, were available for free. That's made zines a bit harder to find, although independent bookstores now sell more of them, said Michelle Millette, 24, a filmmaker and Somerville resident who helped found the Papercut Zine Library in Cambridge.
At first, some thought the Web might serve zinesters well, but there's been a paper zine "resurgence" over the past few years, Millette said.
"People who publish their own things still like the feeling of holding something in your hand, and that's not something I think will ever go away," she said. "You can throw it in your backpack, read it on the train, or wherever there's no WiFi. People realized the Internet would not take over the entire zine culture because it has a lot of flaws -- anybody can put stuff up, it's completely anonymous and nobody knows how real the information is."
It's natural for a zinester to progress from printing a rudimentary screed as a teenager to publishing something more sophisticated as a 20-something, she said. But overall, many zines now are "more coherent and focused, with less spelling mistakes" and indecipherable layouts, she said. While some are more visually striking, with ribbons or graphic flourishes that make them "like little works of art," some are well-written but are still stapled and laid out with a handmade cut-and-paste design. Millette placed Tyler Hauck, her fellow Papercut Zine Library volunteer, in the more straightforward category.
Hauck produced two zines under his Hot Milk imprint for the zine fair. One, "The Best and Worst of the Boston Curse," is a detailed study of overlooked albums made by Boston hardcore punk bands in the 1980s, music from bands like the F.U.'s and SSD that he said was derided by "simple-minded goons" who "so egregiously misinformed" him. The other, "Ready for Love," is a compilation of the e-mailed responses Hauck, posing as a woman, got after posting an ad on the craigslist Casual Encounters page with this headline: "Looking for ongoing casual thing with smart, cool, experienced guy -- w4m -- 26." Hauck mocks the responses, which include photos, with snide remarks pasted in, like "Did you cut your hair with garden shears?" and "OK guy, you let me know when you grow some chest hair."
A creative, well-written zine can find its way into the Learning to Leave a Paper Trail distribution network run by Ciara Xyerra, a 27-year-old Jamaica Plain resident who also buys zines for the Lucy Parsons Center's bookstore in the South End. The quality of zines ebbs and flows as they come and go, but there are plenty of serious adult zinesters out there who write about their own life experiences, she said.
"I have found that most of what I enjoy is written by people a little older -- I don't think I carry anything written by a teenager," she wrote in an e-mail.
Some of the nearly 150 zines Xyerra buys from around the country have color covers with block printing or screen printing (a stenciled graphic also known as a silk screen). The next zine she prints herself, "Love Letters to Monsters," will be "a little more artistic and collage-style" with a full color cover, she said. While she looks for zines that stand out, she says, there's a blurry line between a zine that's creative and one that is so polished that it could be called a magazine. Whatever the definition, it hasn't stopped several zinesters from using a commercial printer, getting a serial number or anthologizing their old zines in book form, she said.
Asked whether zines will survive in the Internet era, Xyerra expresses bafflement.
"I guess a prime example of mainstream media not getting it is how often I am asked, 'Why do zines in the age of blogs?"' she wrote. "It's not even a question of picking one over the other, because they are so different. Blogs are new technology; zines have been around since the days of the Lutherans nailing broadsides up on the doors of churches."
