Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2018: Week 22

Fake front cover of Jim and Blair Do the World (2000), a Sentinel zine. This issue has a cover that reads: "The Thin Blue Line: An Anthropological Study of Closed Societies within West Coast Police Organizations"

Reading and viewing print fanworks in public areas can be complicated, due to the misunderstanding, stigma, and ridicule which has long surrounded fandom, fanworks and fannish creations such as fanzines.

Fending off nosy observers, having to tote stacks of paper around, and disguising explicit zine covers are some of the challenges involved when fans read print fanworks in public.

Some fanworks were created with decoy covers, or plain covers, in order to make it easier to read fic on the bus, train, or at family gatherings. These covers were sometimes designed to disguise the explicitness of the zine cover, a custom that is sort of a related precursor to the phrase "Not Safe for Work" (NSFW). But just as often, these decoy covers were used to simply camouflage the topics of fanfic and fanart themselves.