I Ate Acne (analyzing fanzines)

Been rummaging through the LCC library's collection of fanzines which is impressively extensive, think they're over 200 zines. You can only look at 5 at a time so I picked some, pretty much from random, to have a look at. I found an interesting variety of approaches, and am definitely going to have a look at some more. Poor photography is due to not being able to take them out of the library but am going to do some scans soon.




Title: The Arts Pheumonia, issue 67
Size: A4 portrait
Pages: 36, black and white and colour lazer printing on white and coloured stock.
Price: free
Binding: 2 stapels
Content: Joke articles and games, (dot-to-dot) range of topics, arts, popular culture and music.
Design: Less professional than a glossy magazine but still uses quite a strict grid but a range of typefaces.
Advertising: none




Title: The Eel – from Hackney & beyond, issue 11
Size: A5 portrait
Pages: 52 (numbered) Coloured laser printed cover with all black and white laser printed inside pages.
Price: £2.50
Binding: 2 staples
Content: Guide to Dalston, local independent projects, quite anarchic view point. Un-expectedly text heavy.
Design: more like a local news letter
Advertising: inserts advertising music events and rallies by contributors. Fake perforated voucher inserts.




Title: Poor but Happy no.3
Size: A5 portrait
Pages: 6, black and white photocopied
Price: free
Binding: 2 stapels
Content: Money saving tips with a satirical tone.
Design: very low-fi. Uses children’s book imagery and limited design elements.
Advertising: none



Title: Meow
Size: A5 portrait
Pages: 28, black and white printed on pale yellow stock cover and black and white inside.
Price: free
Binding: 2 stapels
Content: All animal illustrations, not text except illustrator’s names.
Design: Clean, focus on illustrations
Advertising: call for entries message on back about next issue.




Title: Savage Messiah, spring 2009
Size: A5 portrait
Pages: 34, black and white photocopy
Price: £2.00
Binding: 2 Staples
Content: Illustrations, photography and text. Very personal style, seems like it’s made for a very specific audience or a group of friends.
Design: very d-i-y aesthetic. Use of ripped paper and scratchy, hand-written type.
Advertising: none.


Comparing these examples of fanzines to my first zine attempt has given me some considerations;
are there any messages/events I could use this as an opportunity to promote
how would use of coloured stock/printing affect the production cost and therefore would I consider charging for it (immediate thought is no)
most of the examples I looked at are A5 (rather than my A6), consider increasing the size of my publication.
Am I going to actually distribute my fanzine to the public, where are how?

Most 4/5 examples I looked at are a lot less 'D-I-Y' than I might have expected. Has the accessibility of desktop publishing and printing meant that they cut, paste and photocopy attitude no longer applies?
has modern technology changed the medium altogether?