Editor’s Note: Later this month, we’ll be launching our next Do Anything Jam, a zine we’re calling Our D.A.M. Jam. We’ve enlisted community member Wynn Mercere to share her history contributing to fanzines, with a ton of photos of some classic zines.

To learn more about the jam and get involved, sign up here. We’re looking for writers and artists. Take it away, Wynn!

Digging through old boxes, I discovered copies of several fanzines I’d contributed to over 30 years ago. One was called Chasing Shadows, dedicated to the ABC soap opera Dark Shadows.

Ground Zero covered everything from music to movies to how-to crafts.

What You Fancy published fan and original fiction.

It was delightful to see the dot-matrix printer text, cringe-worthy art, and amateur earnestness in these issues. Some had limited editorial oversight, but mostly took any contribution offered up to the altar of self-expression. Seeing them again reminded me of dozens of zines of this type I used to read in decades past.

While the most popular genres in the 1980s embraced beloved television shows, local music scenes, and literary worlds (i.e. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Lovecraft’s Cthulhu-verse), the ability for anyone to easily photocopy and cheaply distribute fanzines by mail encouraged publications on every conceivable pop or subculture topic. While there were thousands of such creations, sheer numbers didn’t make them easy to find. You needed to know where to look.

For several years, I purchased a Yellow Pages-styled book titled The Fandom Directory which had all the juicy details on where to send away for fanzines that piqued my interest. The choices ranged from nicely produced newsletters from sanctioned fan clubs to barely-readable pamphlets. These were sold as paid subscriptions or offered free via one-time SASEs (that’s “self-addressed stamped envelope” for those who have forgotten all about snail mail). Fanzines also had discoverability at record stores, festivals, conventions and colleges, and always encouraged readers to submit their own material.

As the new decade of the 1990s opened, many fanzine creators began to move their writings to Internet forums and websites. Profitable zines were still produced in print, but there was a steep decline in interest as online communities blossomed and anyone could make a website. Now we have PDFs that mimic the look of printed magazines – perhaps it’s time for a fanzine revival!

BONUS: Check out Wynn’s In One Week video from our first Do Anything Jam.

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