My Fannish Journey: The Fanzine
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| Title: | My Fannish Journey: The Fanzine |
| Creator: | Cynthia Boris |
| Date(s): | March 5, 2014 |
| Medium: | online |
| Fandom: | multi |
| Topic: | Fanzines, Conventions |
| External Links: | online here, Archived version |
| Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
My Fannish Journey: The Fanzine is an essay by Cynthia Boris.
Some topics discussed: fanzines and MediaWest*Con and the zine Shades of Green.
Excerpts
When I first started reading fan fiction there was only one option – read what my friends were writing. In the beginning it was Protectors, UFO, James Bond and some pseudo-Hobbit tales loosely based on Tolkien’s masterpiece. (My first foray into book fanfic.) Unfortunately for me, the voracious reader and writer, I only had two friends who were into fanfic at the time so my supply was extremely limited. Fast forward ten years and I found a new kindred spirit. This one was into The Rat Patrol and she and I bonded over our fannish love for this oh-so bromancey war show. That was when I was introduced to the joy of fanzines. They were like tie-in novels, only better because they were written by fangirls who told all the stories I wanted to hear. And there were a dozen or more of them in every spiral-bound book so if I wasn’t floored by the first one, there was always another and another.
After that, I got brave enough to place more stories in zines, mostly because they paid you in copies. At $40 bucks or more per zine, it was worth it. Eventually, Jeannie and I partnered on our own weird little zine dedicated to Kermit on KF:TLC – “Shades of Green.” One of my epic angst-fests was the centerpiece and we filled out the rest with work from some of my favorite fan writers.From there – wow, Simon & Simon zines, Buffy zines, Bonanza and Alias Smith and Jones. And of course, Supernatural. But by the time I hit that fandom the fanzine game had changed. The internet, which started popping in the Buffy days, gave everyone easy access to new fic on a daily – heck, hourly basis. Fanfiction.net set up shop and fans filled hundreds of internet archives with even more fic.
The fanzine began to fade and in some ways, it’s a shame. Properly published fanzines are full of well-edited stories that fit together in a spectacular way. I’d never give up instant access to fanfic but I do still buy fanzines now and them. Mostly old ones when I fall into a classic fandom, (Starsky & Hutch!) or obscure fandoms (The Dirty Dozen!).