The K/S Netfan-Printzine Fan Wars

Event
Event:	The K/S Netfan-Printzine Fan Wars
Participants:	participants of alt.startrek.creative and The K/S Press
Date(s):	1997-2001
Type:
Fandom:	Star Trek: TOS, K/S
URL:
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

While there were many conversations and discussions in many fandoms regarding the changes that online fandom added to print zine fandom, the focus of this page is on two specific communities at a specific period of time.

The K/S Netfan-Printzine Fan Wars were a series of discussions and controversies that occurred among the K/S print zine fan community and fans of K/S (and other pairings and Trek shows) on the early internet, mainly Usenet lists alt.startrek.creative and later, alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated.

The terms they used for themselves and each other were 'print zine fans," "print fans," and "zine fans," "netfans," "netizans," "webfans," "webizen," and others.

Examples of Other Fanwars

• Alt.startrek.creative Slash Wars
• Church of Ford
• The Blake's 7 Wars
• The Beauty and the Beast Wars

Some Context

Print zine fans came from a long line of authors, readers, and artists who had, since Star Trek: TOS was on the air, forged the path in fan fiction.

The K/S fans sprung from wider print zine fandom, and their culture was one of deflecting derision from fellow fans, fear of retaliation from Paramount and other TPTB, and creating their fanworks in protected ways and spaces with each other. This insular and wary fandom very much tended to lean towards keeping out of visible spaces.

Print zine fans also had a long tradition of robust commenting and discussion in their letterzines, publications that had the sole purpose of sharing opinions with other K/S fans about stories and art. These letterzines were also places for fan creators to see comments about how their fiction and art was received, and how to improve it. Three of these letterzines were The LOC Connection (1989-93), Come Together (1994-96), The K/S Press (1996-2013). Each of them required a yearly subscription fee. They were published monthly, which meant that when a fan made a comment, they had to wait a month to see resulting replies. These letterzines tended to have robust reviews and comments, so while it was slow-moving, fans were satisfied with the pace. Monthly was better than four times a year, which was a norm for many other letterzines!

Before the internet, these zines and communities in them were the only game in town for regular, organized discussion. This mean that K/S print zine fandom was in the power position in terms of scope, product, and power for K/S fans.

A new breed of K/S fandom arrived in the form of those on Usenet. These fans included some fans who were print fans as well, but many of those on alt.startrek.creative and alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated were brand new fans, brought into their community in ways that were oblivious to print zine fandom, neutral towards its existence, or openly dismissive and hostile to these previous fans.

Alt.startrek.creative was new venue, a boisterous space. It prided itself on its raucous, free-for-all nature. From a fan in 1999:

Unhappiness, acid indigestion, angst, threesomes foursomes or moresomes, blood and gore all over the floor and me without a spoon — whatever you feel called on to write, it can be posted. 'Net fans are much more used to downers, ickiness, and bizarro pairings (would you believe Kirk/T'Pau?!?!? and yet it worked and caught the author no flak as far as I know); your reception might surprise you.

Some print zine fans who were online enjoyed the imaginative pairings, and the ability to shuck off tradition and per-conceived expectations. Fans who'd never heard of print zines were also making their own space into what they wanted.

The internet was also open to anyone who had access to a computer and a modem. This was a topic that often came up: computer access wasn't free, nor available to many. Print fans would point their fingers at this "elitism" while online fans pointed their fingers at the "elitism" of having to pay a yearly fee for letterzines.

This online Trek space was also not just for K/S fans. Instead, it included all relationships and pairings from Star Trek: TOS, Star Trek: Voyager, and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. K/S and Star Trek: TOS fans in print fandom often complained their favorite pairing and show was diluted in this online space, and that it was hard to find something to read.

Print zine fans began to feel at a disadvantage in terms of attracting new fans, who in turn created and consumed new K/S fanfiction.

BNFs in both worlds felt the pressure to protect their statuses and best interests, as well as be a cheerleader to keep their own fandoms surviving, and thriving, into the future. The battles between the two factions were fierce, and were both about protecting one's way of life, and winning the hearts and minds of K/S going forward.

This DOES NOT mean that all fans were involved in these clashes, especially in online spaces; most were agnostic, unaware, or simply ignored the discussions.

The resulting culture clash between the two communities was one propelled by outspoken BNFs. It included turf wars, blacklisting, and blanket statements by fans on both sides.

Comparing Apples and Oranges

To some degree, K/S fandom in print zines and K/S fandom in early online spaces were comparing two different things.

There were many discussions in The K/S Press about what constituted "K/S." Fans chimed in about their definitions of it. This included true love, happy endings, and for many, familiar tropes and plots. Often their reviews contained statements along the lines of "this is K/S to me" and "this story is K/S."

For many fans, this was the essence of why they read and viewed art. It fed them in specific and familiar ways.

Some fans, unsatisfied with the same-old, wanted other fans to be unsatisfied as well. They wanted to push the envelope, and felt other fans should do the same. One of those outspoken fans was Judith Gran.

Part of Gran's on-going and assertive campaign was to not only make other fans more discerning and adventurous, she wanted them to join online fandom.

But for fans invested in their preferred pairing, and for Kirk and Spock to have satisfying adventures and love, alt.startrek.creative was not an appealing place. Not only were they walking into what felt like a noisy pub or high school cafeteria full of unfamiliar people, they had to navigate everyone else's pairing and shows. This would be not unlike a dedicated fan of a pairing being required to be happy in a large multi-pairing, or mult-fandom, archive.

What Did They Think of Each Other?

They felt that net fans were brash and sassy. Net fans hadn't paid their dues, and appeared to have no fannish mentors. Posting fiction was very casual, and done without the help of zineds, which may print fans felt produced lazy, unedited fiction that one could not take seriously. Net fans were also missing out a curated zine experience that included context with the other fanworks in the zine, including fan art.

To print zine fans, the net fans were feral and dismissive of the traditions and culture that came before them. Their fiction was sloppy, and they only wrote for the instant feedback, feedback that was equally short and sloppy. Print zine fans pointed out that computer access couldn't be an assumed privilege (one fan cited the statistic that only 20% of fans had computer access at home). Even with computer access, it wasn't free, and that to have both the money for hardware, modems, and other requirements meant that online fandom was elitist. Print fans were also afraid that all these public venues (Usenet and newly-hatched websites) increased the visibility of slash and K/S and bring down the wrath of lawyers and TPTB.

To net fans, print zine fans were dull, too focused on their own importance and hierarchies, unwilling to take risks, afraid of change, and too incestuous in their pecking orders. They also criticized the very production of print zines, that of money changing hands so that print zines could be dispersed. Net fans felt that print zines were elitist, exclusionary, and because money changed hands, courted danger from TPTB. They also complained about the power that a handful of fans had over everyone else, both as reviewers and as zine editors.

Who Are These Netfans Fans? Some Sample Comments at The K/S Press

Some general comments from The K/S Press, a central gathering place for print K/S fans.

[1997]:

A lot of people have no access to the Internet. A lot who do may not, for several reasons, access alt.startrek.creative. I tried it twice; once I got seven eighths of a story - the remaining file (a middle one) never did surface - and the other time, what I got was complete, but so bad I've never touched .creative since; besides which, I like paper when I'm reading (which is why I'm not going to ask for K/S Press on-line) and while I could do a printout of a story I don't really want to stand over the printer for ages feeding in sheet after sheet of paper (I can't use fanfold). (I also have memory problems so can't download anything that's too long.) I may be missing some good stories. I'm probably also missing a lot of TNG, DS9 and Voyager that I don't want to waste time and money downloading. (I've tried these but they don't hold my attention.)

Anyway, I do most of my K/S reading in bed (a habit I got into when my parents were still alive) and you can't curl up in bed with a computer.

I doubt there's very much cross-reading between Internet readers and zine readers, but if a zined limits that kind of story to one a zine, and says in her flyer that a story has already appeared on the net, then readers who also pick up .creative would know what to expect. Just a suggestion.

[1997]: My husband and I had gotten online about this time. I occasionally checked out the Usenet Star Trek groups, but for a long time didn't find anything that interested me. One day I happened to look at a creative writing group, alt.startrek.creative, when a rather extraordinary writer had happened to post a wonderful story. Finding this gem finally got me hooked on the group enough to hang out long enough to discover how things worked. I had never seen fan fiction before. Realizing that other people thought up Star Trek stories was a revelation to me. I had never stopped daydreaming about Trek, even when I wasn't into Star Trek much. Finally, I knew that I was not insane. Naturally, I had to try my own hand at it, although I'd never written fiction at all. Besides, no one was posting classic Trek stories, so I figured I'd do one myself.

[1998]:

Why do K/S authors continue to post their work online, even when they could choose to publish those stories in a zine instead? I can’t speak for others, but I suspect that the sense of community in the newsgroups, especially ASCEM, may be part of the answer. Reading and posting to ASCEM is like being in a lively pub or cafe. There’s a constant hum of spirited discussion of all manner of topics both ribald and serious. From time to time, someone stands up and reads a story and is warmly applauded. Conversation flows into stories and back again--for example, a conversation about the bed in Kirk’s and Spock’s “flop” in “City on the Edge of Forever” that was covered with radio equipment and thus presumably unavailable as a sleeping place led to the posting of several K/S stories explaining how Kirk and Spock coped with only one bed that wasn’t occupied.

Perhaps the newsgroups’ appeal lies in the very nature of online communication: its immediacy, diversity and polycentric character. When you post a K/S story to ASCEM or its sister newsgroup, alt.startrek.creative, you can expect to get feedback from readers in Europe and Asia, from male as well as female fans, and from readers whose primary interest is in another Star Trek fandom. Conversation in the newsgroups tends to be direct and candid, not to mention boisterous and wildly funny, but it also tends to be deeply respectful of members’ differences. It’s hard to pin down the difference between online stories and zine stories, but I feel that online stories tend to push the envelope more, that online authors tend to give old themes a relatively fresh approach, and that a wider range of aesthetic values is tolerated in the newsgroups. Writers can get solid literary criticism online, but faultfinding of the “this doesn’t fit my definition of K/S” variety is rare to nonexistent.

[...]

The sheer number and diversity of opinions and perspectives among fellow K/S fans online makes it hard to take our own opinions as gospel.

[1998]:

And a response to Judith Gran’s comments about online versus print K/S — I think part of the difficulty lies in the term “versus”. Judith Gran wrote about all the comparisons, differences and divisions between print and online. This really disturbs me because I feel it only creates negativity and emphasizes differences rather than seeing K/S fandom as one large community.

Also, she states that: “The majority of K/S fans I know read just about everything published in both media.” First of all, the story is not published if it’s posted online.

Second of all, that is not my experience. The online fans I communicate with and many who contribute to The K/S Press are greatly unfamiliar with zines and even some have admitted to almost never having purchased a zine. So, no the concerns about online K/S impacting on zines has not subsided.

[1998]:

'95 rolls around. We're living in the mountains, now, having finally escaped southern California. I finally get UseNet access. For 27 years, I've been, as far as I knew, the only K/S fan in the universe. My other Trekfan friends think I'm nuts. Well, I am -- but that's beside the point.

So I go poking about through various newsgroups, and all of a sudden I find one called alt.startrek.creative. I prick up my ears and investigate more closely. Some interesting stories here; some like the ones I used to make up as a kid, some that are so good they move me to tears.

[1998]:

Of course, the net does exist, it isn’t likely to disappear any time soon, and I don’t think we should want it to disappear. All in all, it’s probably a good thing that K/S fandom now exists in this new medium. But if it’s true that “if K/S fiction continues to be posted on the net at its present rate, the volume of new K/S on the net will outstrip the volume in zines this year by any measure,” then those of us who love the print zines are going to have to make an extra effort to see that they do not disappear as online K/S lures readers and writers away from print in much the same way that TV lured people away from the old radio plays. Making that extra effort means writing for and buying print zines and encouraging online users to do the same.

Maybe this is a good time to say why we should care so much about print zines. [See more at I sometimes wonder if my reluctance to fully embrace K/S on the net may just be a sign that I’m turning into an old fogy..

[1988]:

I was always interested in everything of Star Trek, and when I was able to surf the Net I went looking for some interesting sites. That leads to alt Startrek creative and later to ASCEML. When I saw the stories there, first the Gen stories and later the slash, a whole New World opens for me.

[...]

I became a frequent lurker on those groups, collecting stories from the Net as many as possible. And I was disappointed that there were so few TOS stories. Stories about DS9, Voyager and TNG were numerous, and I thought there are only a few real TOS fans left. And then there was that mail from Kimbuk, who told us newbies on the Net why there were so little K/S stories on the Net. She was the first who said that there was something as zines, lots of K/S stories frequently published, and she shows me the way to K/S Press. I subscribed immediately and started to borrow from the library. Thanks to K/S Press I found the way to buy some zines, some new ones but mostly used ones.

[1999]: If you feel that printzine editors and fans are just too resistant to not-a-happy-ending stories, there is always an alternative. Robin Lawrie occasionally posts stories to ASCEM for writers who wish to remain anonymous, I believe under the name of Ascem Noone; Judith, Greywolf, Kathleen or I would be willing to do it, too. Unhappiness, acid indigestion, angst, threesomes foursomes or moresomes, blood and gore all over the floor and me without a spoon—whatever you feel called on to write, it can be posted. 'Net fans are much more used to downers, ickiness, and bizarro pairings (would you believe Kirk/T'Pau?!?!? and yet it worked and caught the author no flak as far as I know); your reception might surprise you.

[1999]: You said that people shouldn't feel their privacy is threatened on the Internet unless they actually put something on the net. That's not my experience. Every post I made on Usenet is searchable in several different ways on Deja News. I have had email I sent posted on web pages without my permission. There is no law protecting the privacy of your email the way there is for your snail mail, so if someone wants to go to the trouble of snagging it along the way, they are free to do so. Any privacy you have on the internet is due solely to the good graces of your fellow humans, not something I'm willing to trust very far.

[2001]:

I don't read the ASC newsgroup often, but not much K/S is posted there. I read the ASCEML newsgroup for about six months last year and quit reading in disgust. I couldn't believe the number of flamewars that occurred in the few months I was reading. (When debates or comments online get really nasty, the term "flame" is used to describe them. If you have a lot of these comments back and forth, that's a flamewar.) Things sometimes got really ugly and really nasty very quickly. I don't mean to offend any readers who enjoy ASCEML.

This is merely my own personal, very subjective opinion of the newsgroup, based on only a few months of reading it. Some K/S fans are regular participants in this newsgroup, so everyone has their own opinion of ASCEML.)

[2001]: I've visited ASCEML too and I can't say I was very thrilled. I don't think I persevered for six months though, I rapidly grew bored and disgusted with the ongoing flames. If you cant keep a civil tongue.... They're supposed to be ST fens with some of the ideals or is that too much to expect? I have strong opinions as well but I hope that my comments and portrayed views are put in such a way that it isn't hurtful.

[2005]:

I guess now I officially qualify as an "old timer," though at the time I thought I was coming in on the end (remember those 125 zines reported to be already out there) of an amazing alternate reality. And as we "old timers" always are; I am amazed at how easy the youngsters have it. I just googled K/S and Star Trek and first up was Hypatia Kosh's site. She's one of our bright new stars and I always look for her comments on the KirkSpockCentral and ASCEM.

We have cons just for us — no more boxes of zines hidden under a table. And "/" has evolved into romantic and usually sexual relationships between almost any "buddy" pair on TV. And the pairings: it takes a code sheet to figure out just who J/C/P + f really is! I checked the ASCEM archive a few months ago and the only paring with more stories archived then our boys is Janeway and Chakotay! Is that "/" or isn't it? Death, rape, and bondage, and hurt-comfort all continue unabated, though carefully coded for P C sensibilities. And with the world's awakening to the realities of gay life, Kirk and Spock have begun to be "married."

But very best of all we have our own, long lived and eternal, K/S PRESS to provide us with reviews, a place to exchange ideas, a library of out-of-print zines, and ads for every new, graphically polished, beautifully printed, and sometimes even technicolored K/S fan zine. What would we do without you? I can't imagine. Happy 100! And thanks to Shelley, Jenna, and Robin for all the work they do to keep me happily visiting my most special alternate universe.

Who Are These Print Fans? Some Sample Comments at the COCO CHANNEL Interviews

Some general comments from COCO CHANNEL Interviews, with a focus on BNFs who posted to alt.startrek.creative.

[1999]:

I've only seen a small handful of zines, and I don't really know any zine people well, so I can't really say. I've heard from those who do that the zine folks are skeptical of the web, but I don't know whether they're more skeptical of the web than other paper-based people, in the publishing industry for example. There are reasons to be skeptical of the web as a publishing medium, but most of them aren't connected IMHO to fanfic. One thing about the web that I think scares a lot of folks is the loss of control you get with web publishing. You hit "mail" and it's gone. People can do what they want with your stuff, including putting their name on it. Harder to do with paper. Personally I like that loss of control, that chance to let the balloon go, but not all feel that way.

[...]

I think the antagonism is partly because the paper folks think the web will drive them out of existence. I think this is a reasonable concern: in a different age people like me would probably have sent stuff to zines. Conversely, there are those (also me) who likely wouldn't be involved if paper were the only choice. I found slash in the first place via a web search; I'd heard about it for years but never could find any in print. I was sorry the Randylanders thread on ASC took the turns it did, because it brought out a lot of those issues with less discussion than might have taken place. We haven't yet seen a real fanfic site making best use of the web (i.e., electronic commerce). I am pretty sure that Paramount and its Large Lawyers would arrive to squelch such a trial, and that would be a shame. jonk and wildcat and others made numerous interesting suggestions about how a fanfic site might work, and I'm sorry they haven't yet been tried. I think in the long run the fanfic world is likely to emulate the book/magazine publishing world: most stuff in electronic form, paper still existing but for special purposes. The web doesn't do justice to fanfic art, I'm told, for example.

[1999]: I'm afraid that the web in general is becoming splintered. The newsgroups seem to be breaking up to smaller lists with topics and divisions that are much more sharply defined. In this way, we seem to be mimicking the history of print fandom. As I understand it, in the early days, K/S appeared in adult zines along with het and other pairings. Then it broke off, and a person who was exclusively K/S could easily avoid being exposed to anything else. I think that's part of why the print fandom seems ingrown to me. I really hope the newsgroups will stay healthy and the wide-open sharing across all boundaries of Trekfic will continue.

[1999]:

It's only a working hypothesis as yet, but to me it helps explain the uptight and narrow-minded behavior of certain printfen.

When fandom is expanding and new members are entering at a rapid pace, fandom's diversity also expands. People who are new to fandom are not mired in the existing conventions of fandom and instead, they tend to bring with them new and different perspectives and creative ideas. They also bring with them a wealth of experience outside fandom.

When fandom is contracting, it tends to become more and more inbred. The folks who stick around tend to be those with the deepest emotional and material investment in fandom itself. We all know of fans who don't have a lot going on in their lives apart from fandom; I believe that during a phase of contraction in fandom, the proportion of these fans tends naturally to increase.

Many of the most active members of the current K/S printzine community became active in K/S in the early 1990s, a period when K/S was in a state of contraction following the Great K/S Expansion of the 1980s. The average K/S zine circulation had fallen from up to 1,000 to slightly more than 100. So, the "typical" member of the current crop of printfen began writing at a time when K/S fandom consisted of a small number of women, mostly in the US, mostly straight and married, who all knew one another and read and reacted to one another's stories...*Current* K/S print fandom has become so respectable and bourgeoisified that it seems to have little edge left. K/S printfen are not the underground any more, they are the mainstream, the nice straight housewives. So the freewheeling diversity and gender-bending of the net culture is not necessarily the printfan's cup of tranya.

[1999]:

... some of us oldtimers are absolute angels, of course, but there is a vocal minority whose behavior is leaves something to be desired. In the olden days -- about five years ago -- getting into print was more of an ordeal. Individuals who wished to put out a 'zine had to have the money, time, and chuztpah it takes to walk into the local Kinko's and say, "I'd like five hundred copies of this fully illustrated novel about Kirk doing unspeakable things to a sexually ambiguous alien." Not all of us were up to the challenge -- I know I wasn't. Thus a power elite was formed. Writers, readers and illustrators had to court the favor of the few who edited and published. Some of those who were so courted began to have an inflated opinion of themselves.

Now, of course, anyone with a modem can put a story on the web without giving a good expletive deleted about what the Randy Landers type thinks. I think a good amount of the current nastiness from certain quarters is the old power elite trying to find a way to re-establish the authority they once held.

[1999]: Dunno much at all about the printfen. Don't do zines. I know people who have had run ins with them, but I steer clear of conflict.

[1999]:

I've had very good experiences with the few printzine eds I've dealt with, both in and out of the Trek circle. I've bought more completely crappy Trek zines than I like to contemplate, and I do wonder how some of them managed to convince themselves that what they were selling was worth anyone's money, but artistic differences aside, they were still straightforward and cheerful people to do business with. In 'Enterprising Women'... there's a description of the zine community as something like the scientologists. You only get admitted to successively higher levels as you prove yourself to be 'one of us'. Now, imagine some rogue scientologist setting up a web page that admitted *anyone* to the upper levels of Hubbard's empire, and the reaction there'd be from the hierarchy - you're stealing *some* people's reason for living. Not only were they authors and editors themselves, but they thought that new authors and editors could only come about by the laying on of their hands. For *other* people, it's no big deal, but they're sticking by their friends. Others still have made the transition to the net with no problems. I think all of us who were involved with printzines have regrets. A manila envelope hitting the doormat sounds *special*.

[...]

Printzines need a market. People won't pay for what they can get for free, even if the free stuff is substandard. It's a trade dispute, isn't it? Print people are trying to protect their patch from substandard imports that will wreck their business. The recent 'foresmutters project' looked like an attempt to reposition their product in the market. They're telling the netizens that it isn't just good, it's a superb cultural treasure, and should be hedged around with controls to preserve it. Unfortunately, that's just not true. I can't think of a single printzine that's as good as the best of what's available on the web, and very few editors were utterly reliable purveyors of excellent material. I'm very pleased to see some of the old 'classics' available to everyone on the internet. They just don't look like classics any more. They look like what they always were: imaginative, amusing (not always intentionally) romance stories, well enough written, vastly overpriced and part of the fun of belonging to a secret society.

[1999]:

Most [of] the print folks I know are really great. Some of them are locked into a set way that K/S should be written and some are literally afraid of the net/web. However, I think the major clashes between the web and print world are just based on a few individuals. That said, I still tend to be wary around print folks until I find out what their perspective is.

[...]

I have some experience with the printzine community. I have subscribed to the K/S Press for a year and a half, I borrow and read zines from their library (love many of them), have one zine published story, and have been to two KS Press parties at Shore Leave. So, not a long acquaintance, but some. Hopefully everyone reading this knows about ASCEM, so I'll just say that's my home away from home.

I'd recommend to everyone that being a part of both worlds is good.

I think that the two worlds clash, at times, for a number of reasons. For one thing, people who are in one world or the other (and not both) sometimes feel excluded from the camaraderie. Also many printfen aren't comfortable on-line and many on-line folks have no idea how to get to the zines (I remember being there not so long ago). Plus net fen are used to having their K/S (and other slash. I'm not involved in any non K/S off-line activities involving slash) easy to access, free or cheap, and with a public forum for commentary, feedback... Print folks are used to limited feedback at longer intervals, edited material, buying the zines (and keeping often well-produced zines for years), and being fairly well hidden from public view. I think print fans are afraid that the public access will be bad for them or for fandom, also that the net may make it hard for off-line fandom to survive. Net fen, OTOH, tend to want their 'fix' faster and not be quite so ready to accept an editor's choice in stories.

[2000]: My thoughts on the future of Slash on the Web? More than thoughts, statistics. 20% of American households now have Web access. In five years, it'll be 80%. Not just Slash, EVERYTHING will explode. Technology never runs over anyone who keeps their eyes open. There's the truck and its' coming this way. Get ready to hitch a ride or dodge!

[2000]:

There are lots of new writers, and now I am seeing people open up more, be willing to try different things, like they used to do in zines way back when. Right now zines seem to be in kind of a rut, mostly first times, mostly happy endings, etc. But I think that is cyclical and it will change again after a while. And on the Net, the sky's the limit. There are more male fans now, and just more open-mindedness. And eventually I think the zine world will come to its senses and relax. They've had their hard times, and they're still kind of in this circle the wagons mindset. But it's a great big Trekiverse and there's always possibilities. I am optimistic.

[...]

Like netfen, they are all kinds. There are some really spooky gunshy paranoid printfen, and some wonderful smutty-minded cheerful and outgoing printfen, and damn near everything else between. Me, I just laugh at the rude ones. Yeah, there are one or two who really are world-class arseholes. But hell, they're the ones who have to *live* in their skulls, I pity them more than anything. And some of the printfen have been very very kind and thoughtful and just plain wonderful to me, who they didn't know from Adam at first. If not for them I would never have made it to Friscon, and I've had more damn fun at that con. So I'd say, don't let the bastards grind ye down, and enjoy the cool fen. Because a lot of them really are pretty cool.

[2001]:

Zines have a certain prestige attached to them, since there's some editorial control over what is and isn't accepted. A good zine has a nice, polished, professional feel.

On the other hand, what I like about posting stories online is the immediate response. When you submit a story to a zine, it can be a year or two before it's published, and you rarely get more than a couple of comments. When you post a story to a newsgroup or e-zine, you get feedback within a day. Instant gratification...it's very nice.

Some Touchpoints and Players

Killashandra's Stories

Killashandra's long stories Turning Point (1995) and Full Circle (1997) were first posted to Usenet at alt.startrek.creative. These stories were very well-received and for some fans, were a bit of a bridge between the two worlds. Killashandra was also a moderating voice in discussions and fan conflicts, a spokesperson that tended to have listeners on both sides.

At least one fan felt that Killashandra's tolerances and alliances with printzine fans were flawed:

I wasn't suggesting that Killashandra is trying to perpetuate the myth of the Great Tradition of printzines (I know that she came into fandom through the net); at worst, I think she may have bought into it through her friendships with print fans. Or maybe all she meant to do was give the printfan perspective.

Courts of Honor

In 1988, the K/S novel, Courts of Honor by Syn Ferguson was finally released to a larger audience. It had had a lengthy and difficult road to availability was a very complicated one. Fans were upset about pre-orders being lost and misplaced, extensive delays in receiving copies of the zine, and whether the author selling the zine for profit, or not.

Although "Courts of Honor" was published (after four years) to generally positive acclaim, many fans were angry with the zine or felt it had garnered undue special attention in the fandom. (See Controversy).

The print zine, Courts of Honor, and its complicated journey to publication was mentioned by several netfans as an example of why print zines were bad news. In August 1999, Raku said:

... my understanding of the "Courts of Honor" scandal is exactly what creeps me out about the zine world.

Other fans pointed out that the problems behind this highly-visible zine were a rarity, and that netfans were treating it like a straw-man to prove their point. Judith Gran said in August 1999:

Actually, that was an isolated example of something that has happened very rarely even in zinedom, and the reality was quite a bit more complex than I think Mary Ellen managed to convey. I have more compassion with the participants in that scandal than I do with zineds who regularly, year after year, crank out volumes of schlock to earn a few bucks and feel like a Big Name Fan (BNF, a term that once had wide currency in print fandom, believe it or not).

It didn't help later that the first story presented in May 1999 as part of The Foresmutter's Project was Freedom is Standing in the Light, another story by Courts of Honor's author, Syn Ferguson. Several outspoken BNFs already assigned Ferguson as the role of a crook.

A BNF, Jungle Kitty, added fuel to the fire by complaining about Ferguson's stipulations for having her fiction posted to alt.startrek.creative:

I think this may be contradictory to the community spirit that we enjoy here. From private convo with Doc & Judith, I know that they had to *beg* the author of "Freedom Is Standing In the Light" to allow them to post it to the NG. If this person is so reluctant to participate in the NG and suspicious of what may happen here, why use up the bandwidth (esp. on ASCEM, which is limited to 50 posts a day) when the writer has no interest at all in response from the readers or in participating in the group at all? Lurking authors? A very strange concept.

The COCO CHANNEL Interviews

The COCO CHANNEL Interviews including COCO CHANNEL Interview with Killashandra (1999)

These interviews were conducted by Kharmen Ghia, a fan who did not like print zines and pulled no punches about this.

Kharmen included this question in many of their interviews:

Karmen Ghia: Me, I'm just a webizen so I know nothing of the printzine community, except for a brush or two with certain members. What is with those people? Are they really as uptight, narrow minded, hyper critical/sensitive and condescending as they seem or am I really just too fucked up to see their good points?

See some comments at What Did the Netfans Think of the Print Fans? Some Sample Comments at the COCO CHANNEL Interviews.

Judith Gran

Judith Gran, a BNF who had fanworks in both print and on the net, was a major player in the wars. While Gran wrote many long reviews of fiction in print zines, she was also was very outspoken in her criticism of print fandom in later years. Gran often jumped into conversations with lengthy, academic treatises about fan behavior, motivation, and alliances.

Gran considered Emily Adams (who published some netfan fiction as well as a conciliatory editorial in her final issue of KaleidoScope), Kathy Resch, and Dot Loang (who published some netfan fiction as well as a conciliatory editorial in her final issue of Amazing Grace) to be "enlightened" print zine editors, and therefore three of the "good guys."

See part of Adams's editorial here.

See part of Loang's editorial here.

Some Usenet BNFs

Kharmen Ghia, Raku, and Jungle Kitty were three BNF netfans who were blunt in their dislike of printzine fandom. They had outsized fannish voices, and this helped propel netfans' animosity towards print zines.

Some Print Zine BNFs

Shelley Butler, Jenna Sinclair, and Robin Hood, three BNFs who were outspoken and active in protecting printzine fandom.

The Foresmutter's Project

A project by Mary Ellen Curtin was The Foresmutters Project (May 1999-).

It was an attempt to preserve and educate K/S fans about some old classics in the print zine world.

When the "Foresmutter's Project" was first proposed, there was a flurry of comments from fans. Some of those comments, included below, were made during a six-day time period in May 1999 to alt.startrek.creative shortly after the first story Freedom is Standing in the Light by Syn Ferguson was posted to the newsgroup. This choice of story only flamed more complaints, as Ferguson was the author of Courts of Honor, another story in the netfan doghouse.

See many, many, MANY comments at alt.startrek.creative (the burden of history, access, control, status, and cocktail wienies...).

The first comment was by Jungle Kitty, which sets the tone:

<deep breath>

I am very uncomfortable with this whole thing. I freely admit that part of my discomfort is due to the less-than-pleasant experiences I've had among the citizens of the zine world. But one of the things I grew extremely sick of was having the Glorious History of K/S shoved in my face every time I turned around, which started up the minute I entered that forum.

I know Judith and Mary Ellen mean well with this, but I have to question the value of posting these stories to the NG. There is plenty of Trek fanfic on the web, and not all of it has appeared on ASC/EM. I certainly understand the value of sharing these stories, but why not do it on a webpage? You could post update notices to the group, as is frequently done by the owners of similar pages.

I think this may be contradictory to the community spirit that we enjoy here. From private convo with Doc & Judith, I know that they had to *beg* the author of "Freedom Is Standing In the Light" to allow them to post it to the NG. If this person is so reluctant to participate in the NG and suspicious of what may happen here, why use up the bandwidth (esp. on ASCEM, which is limited to 50 posts a day) when the writer has no interest at all in response from the readers or in participating in the group at all? Lurking authors? A very strange concept.

[...]

I welcome other opinions on this, but to me, it feels like our party has just been shut down. Someone has shouted, "Shut up, sit down, and listen to this! This is IMPORTANT!" And we are politely but sternly told not to try to contact the writer, so no discussion with hir (praise or crit) is possible. What's the point? If these people want to post the stories and join in the fun, great! Welcome aboard! But this feels like we've just been given a reading assignment. I get enough of that sort of thing in real life.

Another comment, this one by PB Wrapper:

Printzines need a market. People won't pay for what they can get for free, even if the free stuff is substandard. It's a trade dispute, isn't it? Print people are trying to protect their patch from substandard imports that will wreck their business. The recent 'foresmutters project' looked like an attempt to reposition their product in the market. They're telling the netizens that it isn't just good, it's a superb cultural treasure, and should be hedged around with controls to preserve it. Unfortunately, that's just not true. I can't think of a single printzine that's as good as the best of what's available on the web, and very few editors were utterly reliable purveyors of excellent material. I'm very pleased to see some of the old 'classics' available to everyone on the internet. They just don't look like classics any more. They look like what they always were: imaginative, amusing (not always intentionally) romance stories, well enough written, vastly overpriced and part of the fun of belonging to a secret society.

Forays: First Contact

From a print fan in 1997, alt.startrek.creative was an eye-opener:

One day I happened to look at a creative writing group, alt.startrek.creative, when a rather extraordinary writer had happened to post a wonderful story. Finding this gem finally got me hooked on the group enough to hang out long enough to discover how things worked. I had never seen fan fiction before. Realizing that other people thought up Star Trek stories was a revelation to me.

Sandy Herrold wrote in February 1997 about her experience at the 1996 Escapade convention:

I only heard a couple of people mention the unconnected/connect split at all. The New battle appeared to be between "Printfans With Modems"... vs. "Netfans": Stuff like, "They don't care about our traditions," "All net writing is barely readable crap", "If most of a show's fandom is online (like SAAB and Voyager, to name a couple), it proves that the show is crap and They're just writing porn." (And the classic, "print fans don't have beta readers; they have FRIENDS.")

From a fan in February 1997:

It seems that just in the last couple of months the number of Classic Trek (and K/S) fans on the net seems to have increased dramatically.

[...]

The alt.startrek.creative and alt.startrek.creative.erotica newsgroups provide a wonderful forum for getting instant reader feedback, and lots of it.

[...]

On the subject of mailing lists, chat rooms, and other group activities on the net... I think as our numbers increase we need to really be aware of the fact that the internet is a community just like any other, with unspoken rules and customs that must be learned and respected if we want the community to thrive. It's easy to feel anonymous and casual with net communications, because heck, you can have a dozen screen names, and it's just so darned easy to jot off a note and hit "send."

It's really important that we respect each other and the customs of our little community -- and that means treading softly if you're not sure of a particular group's customs.

In March 1997, a print zine fan wrote:

A lot of people have no access to the Internet. A lot who do may not, for several reasons, access alt.startrek.creative. I tried it twice; once I got seven eighths of a story - the remaining file (a middle one) never did surface - and the other time, what I got was complete, but so bad I've never touched .creative since; besides which, I like paper when I'm reading

Forays: Education Attempts

Amazing Grace: Special Edition

In 1998, Dot Loang published a special edition of her print zine, Amazing Grace. From that zine's editorial:

Welcome to what may be the first all 'Net K/S zine! Each of the stories in this zine was originally published on the Internet. The authors have given me permission to publish them for the first time in zine format. I call this a "sampler" because this is only a sampling of the many excellent K/S stories that have been posted online.

Each story in this zine was chosen for its distinctive narrative and intriguing approach. Some of the authors represented here have already had their work published in zines and are well known to print as well as online fandom. Others are making their zine debuts in AG, Best of Net KJS and have only been writing fiction for a few months. Arachnethe2 is not a native speaker of English, though it would be difficult to tell that from reading "But the Memories Remain." Some of the marvelous artists here have graced K/S zines, including past issues of Amazing Grace, with their gorgeous illos. For the first time, we have work by artists who found their way to zine fandom through the Internet. K/S fiction in the online newsgroups is not accompanied by art, so I sent out a request for artists. You can judge the results for yourselves.

KaleidoScope's Final Issue

In July 1998, Emily Adams, the editor of the print zine, KaleidoScope, had an upbeat conciliatory message in the final issue of that zine.

Ah, the Internet, source of infinite information: anything you want to know, it's out there somewhere. Well, as far as my experience goes, that's probably true, even to finding K/S stories.

For a long time many of us who bought and read zines thought that was all there was, and, I'm told, the people who published on the net were as unaware of us as we were of them. But now the two different media are opening up to each other, and for some reason this seems to be causing some consternation. The "zine" group seems to feel that it will be taken over by the other and eventually disappear.

I don't think we really have any cause to worry. There are so many advantages and disadvantages to both methods of publishing. There's nothing like the instant gratification of posting a story on the newsgroups and getting comments back right away. But there's also nothing like curling up with a nice paper book with its gorgeous artwork to drool over. Or like getting a nice LOC from someone who has just discovered K/S and has just read your story that you wrote five years ago and published in a zine.

Now that the two groups have become acquainted, writers from the net have begun to submit stories to zines, and some of the zine writers have started posting on the newsgroups. And we, as readers, can only reap the benefits. New writers, new plots and writing styles — I think it's encouraging and exciting.

In this issue of KaleidoScope I've included a number of stories by writers who have previously published on the net. Two of the stories were previously published there, the others are new. I'm delighted to welcome these gals (along with our "regulars", to whom I'm eternally grateful), and when you've read their stories I know you will too.

An Essay: Topic was "Turning Point" and "Full Circle"

In January 1999, Mary Ellen Curtin wrote an essay about Killashandra's fiction, and she received a lot of push back from it from the usual anti-print fans. This essay and the following comments are a strong example of the tensions between netfans and printfans defending their turf, teeth and nail, as well as the highly personal reality all fans bring to the table of concrit and review. One of the commenters (Karmen Ghia), had a history of being quite derisive of "older" K/S fiction , and states in their comments that they are "burnt out" on K/S fiction in general. Karmen Ghia also disliked the print zine community, and while "Turning Point" and "Full Circle" were posted online, they also appeared in the print zine, T'hy'la; this was something they were also pushing back against.

In essence, the comments below are about personalities, expectations, fannish power, BNFs, and turf wars. See On "Turning Point" and "Full Circle". From Karmen Ghia:

Part of my problem with your essay is that I have K/S burn out. That relationship has been so picked over by so many that it's lost most of its charm for me. There really isn't much you can do with Kirk and Spock anymore after they've fucked each other in every conceivable position. Not even the addition of McCoy, Chekov, Uhura or the entire engineering department rugby team can save them from being boring. All the suspense for me is in wondering if the writer put some new spin on it. Sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. I say we need more of a break from canon, new characters interacting with old in old and new places. Why not? It's not as if the canon police will cite us for it.

Shelley Butler's Outreach

In May 1998, Kimbuk3 wrote the editors of The K/S Press and said:

As someone with my feet firmly planted in both the zine world and the online world, I would like to make a comment on the issue of net and zine K/S. I really believe that in a short while, there will not be "a zine world" and "an online world". There will only be the K/S community, and it will have its electronic incarnation and its paper incarnation. Fans will read stories in both formats, and writers will write stories for both formats. And we will all be LOC'ing in both places.

There has been a longstanding concern that online K/S will supplant paper based K/S. But no one seems concerned that the larger and older zine culture will drag K/S people away from online. The underlying assumption seems to be that the net is in some way "better," and therefore a threat. Maybe because it's faster, or because it's (somewhat) free.

However, both "worlds" have positive and negative aspects. For instance, in my opinion, the online K/S world is too scattered and too shallow. And the zine based K/S world is too slow. But, the zine based K/S world has gorgeous art, lengthy LOCs and a fascinating 20 year history. The online world has spontaneity, fresh ideas and more diversity. They are both very different, and one will never completely replace the other.

However, in order for the One K/S community to develop, the two worlds must become more integrated. I think it's important to educate "online" people about the zine world. And it's equally important to educate "zine" people about net K/S.

Butler addressed fans in that same issue of the print letterzine:

I agree with Kim Adams that an ideal future will see the online and zine K/S worlds truly united, with fluidity between them. There are lots of good things to be said for both forums of expression. I’ve read some dynamite stories online, and I’ve read some dynamite stories in print. I don’t know that there is much good to be obtained by listing the merits of each community, or their faults either. I think human beings have the tendency to go with what is familiar, with what makes them comfortable. The unknown can be scary! What I know best is the world of print zines, and I definitely want them to continue, to prosper. I will do everything in my power to see that there are K/S zines published, including publishing my own zine. (I’m working on a project for next year — it’s a secret!) Print zines are what created K/S, what carried it into the future that is now. I see a whole lot of value in them. The way I look at K/S has been shaped by them. There is no doubt that online fans, who found their way to K/S and to this letterzine via the newsgroups, have changed and are changing the shape of K/S fandom. That can be good! Uncomfortable sometimes, maybe, but good! It could also be bad, if what is of value is lost in the transition. What I’d like to see is for both communities to truly know one another. I’m a lurker online, and I feel as if I have a pretty good idea of what’s going on there.

I’d like to think that folks whose gateway to the fandom was the Internet, and who are primarily “post it” sort of people, would also get to know the rich history and tradition that is K/S.

Emboldened and encouraged, Shelley Butler posted a message to alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated, and listed Kimbuk3 as a resource who could help answer questions and bridge both K/S communities.

On June 2, 1998, Shelley Butler attempted some outreach to online fans:

Hello to all you folks on ascem.

I'm Shelley Butler, and I've been lurking here for a while. I do K/S art for zines, and I adore K/S and everything about it!

I understand there have been some TSU lectures here recently about the history of K/S zine fandom, and I thought I'd add a short lecture on art in K/S zines. I'd like to explain about art in K/S, and show some of you out there who may not be familiar with zines or the artwork associated with them, an example of what the art looks like.

One of the big selling points about zines throughout the past like 20-some years has been the artwork in them. In the "olden" days, before VCRs and readily available episode tapes, the artists had only their imagination, memory and a stray photo or two, to use as source material to draw Kirk and Spock in all their compromising positions.

Sometimes it was very, very sucessful---as in the art of Gayle Feyrer, Southern Cross, Pat Stall or Marilyn Cole, DEW and a number of others. The drawings of these women are guaranteed to take your breath away. Othertimes, it was not so successful. You couldn't tell your Kirk from your any other human male, and you could tell your Spock, but only because of the ears (and maybe the double ridges!).

But although these artists may have been short on the source material or even the talent, they were long, long, long on love for K/S, and it comes through loud and clear. The old zines were often filled with art of all kinds, and even photos (pre-Paramount suing-the- pants-off-of-you-days), and adorned with beautiful graphics, borders and typefaces. Some of those zine are really gorgeous. Often we would buy a zine just because of its cover.

Today, we have way fewer zines and way fewer artists. But new zines usually have a fair amount of artwork inside them, and usually a dynamite cover. Robin Hood of Merry Men Press zines does a front (g-rated) cover and a matching back (explicit) cover. (You can also still collect the old zines, if you hunt at cons and such.)

Somehow, the interpretation of Kirk and Spock together in artwork really fuels the imagination more than any photograph---there's a powerful emotion behind every drawing! And there aren't any photos of them in some of the situations we put them in!!

[...]

Thanks a lot for letting me do a little adjunct lecture. I'm thrilled to see so many new K/S fans online, and I hope to see some of you over here in the zine world as well.

Aside from a "welcome to the internet" post by Greywolf the Wanderer , her post (at least in this public venue) was mostly ignored.

This was likely due to lack of support from the BNFs at alt.startrek.creative.erotica.moderated who felt that Butler was "the other" and likely bitter about Butler who they felt was a print fan BNF.

Topics

If Print Zines Aren't Supported, They and Their Community Will Die

The main reason I’m concerned that net-based K/S will supplant paper-based K/S is that, in some ways, the net-based K/S world is much more convenient. It’s faster and more immediate and less bother than a potentially embarrassing conversation with the unenlightened folks at the printer. And if you’re suffering from insomnia, it’s right there at three in the morning. Add to all of that the fact that, on the whole, younger people are probably more likely to enter the K/S world via the net, and I hope you can see why some of the print zine fans are worried. If new writers (and readers) think of the net as their one and only home, I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time before the print zines become extinct.

I think it is possible and even desirable for the two media to co-exist and complement one another, but I also think that in order for that to happen, everyone involved is going to have to make a special effort to keep the print zines alive.

Visibility: Leave Your Clothes Behind

In May 1998, a BNF print zine fan wrote about getting her head around this new thing called Usenet:

The trepidation of the print community is understandable. Our small, very guarded world has exploded, and we have absolutely no control over its expansion anymore. It used to be that only K/S fans read K/S stories (well, except for my husband. I stand over him sometimes and force him to critique something I’ve written. He grimaces, but out of love he does it, and he does have some very interesting comments to make, sometimes!) Now, we know that K/S is being read online by anybody who finds their way to the newsgroup, and of course by all the regular fans there who are addicts of Deep Space Nine, and Next Gen, and Voyager adult and slash stories. Do you see the problem there? It’s as if we’re suddenly told that nudity in the public schools is just fine, and parents, when you come to visit or volunteer in your kid’s classroom, please leave the clothing behind! This is hard to adjust to, and I understand those who feel supremely uncomfortable with it.

Who's the Underdog Now?

I think that the permanent, physical zine you hold in your hand creates a structure and hierarchy that cannot exist on the web. Physical zines have to be made, carted around to cons, packed, mailed, etc. Something that exists in this type of format would need a pretty solid structure to survive as long as zines have survived, if not become some kind of fetish object. And I'm sure they survived because they were the underground; they were the meeting place for ideas that were not shared by the dominant social group.

Now the internet is the underground, and more elusive and ephemeral temporary autonomous zone (TAZ) we might never find again.

Money Changing Hands?

For several years I myself was hoping the internet would go away. It seemed economically and technologically elitist; as Raku points out fan fic on the web is free if you can afford a $1,500 computer.

[...]

So now I have caved in like rotten fruit and am a big internet junkie.

...my understanding of the "Courts of Honor" scandal is exactly what creeps me out about the zine world.

See more about this complex topic at Fandom and Profit.

Originality and Derisiveness: Who Are the Bold Ones?

...the two stories I've read on the Foresmutters project have not exactly lit my fuse. I wonder why the writers are so restrained, why there's no graphic sex, why they take place in remote locations. Okay, I know this is my problem and I'm working on it. But what's the big deal with these stories? If the theory is that net fic evolved from the lineage of these two examples, I seriously wonder if there wasn't some kind of alien intervention around the late 80's. Please set me straight on this, I neeeeeeeeeed it.

No, I don't think the theory is that net fic evolved from this lineage. There have been many generations in print and I think the net owes very little to any of them. The early stuff is worth reading for other reasons, IMHO, one of them being that it was written when it was a lot riskier to one's fannish well-being to write K/S than it is now.

Yes, and who ever said that revolution has to be *serious*? I actually think that one of the problems with the current crop of K/S printfen is that K/S has become so respectable and bourgeoisified. There's little fan fic left in TOS print fandom that is *not* K/S. So K/S fen are not the underground any more, they are the mainstream. They are the nice straight housewives. There's no edge left there anymore. IMHO, that is one reason why printfen cringe in horror from the freewheeling diversity and gender-bending of the net culture. I'm toying with the idea of attending the next KSP party at Shore Leave dressed in black leather and an "Internet Bikers From Hell" T-shirt. Print fen make me feel that way these days.

[...]

I still buy most of the K/S zines that come out, but they seem bland and formulaic after the unfettered creativity of the web. And if it's editorial assistance you want, Web-style beta-reading is far more effective than the editing most zineds do (i.e. none at all, except for maybe gratuitously re-writing your tragic ending into a happy ending).

Lack of Interest in History

Net fans expressed a spectrum of interest in fan history and zines.

Some didn't think about it at all, others thought the topic was too much work, and others were outright hostile. It was rare for net fans to have curiosity or appreciation for the topic.

... It's not always hostility -- in some cases it's unbridgeable ignorance. I know there was lots of writing about K/S before I got going as a web writer, but I can't easily get at it, and now months/years after I've got involved in webfic, the moment has passed when I cared enough to do that kind of research.

Who Speaks for Who?

I truly don't think *all,* or even most, print fans feel that way. I agree that a few, very vocal fans have expressed those sentiments. However, most of them have *not* been in K/S fandom since "the time of the beginning," but became involved during the last ten years or less.

[Some comments] seem to assume that zine fandom is built on a deep, strong, monolithic tradition -- Killa did call it "years-deep." And, as a K/S fan who has been active in printfandom for the last 21 years, I just can't buy that. I will be up-front and say that I think that is a myth propagated by printfen who feel, shall we say, "challenged" by the internet.

[...]

K/S print fandom is not a single line of transmission from the Time of the Beginning to the present; it is a very wide river with many currents and eddies. Nor are the current crop of K/S printfen the lineal heirs of the K/S fen who gave birth to the genre approximately a quarter of a century ago. The current crop of K/S writers have been in fandom for less than a decade, if that. They came into fandom at a time when K/S was well-established and secure. Many of them have not even read the classic stories and novels of the early years of K/S. Those who have, seem to see little of value in the classic K/S works. For example, many of the current crop have not even read the novel "Courts of Honor" that many K/S fen consider the pinnacle of K/S writing. Some find it frankly unreadable because it is too complex, too full of ideas, too densely plotted.

It is true that 90% of the people I have met on the web who have roots in the print zine world have been wonderful folks. The other 10% have not been. Actually, that's a pretty damn good ratio, however, the 10% is like a splinter in the big toe of fanfic for me. I'm doing fairly well at ignoring it, but still, it's there.

Who Validates Who?

Print zine fans felt they were fighting for their very existence and desired validation and attention from online fans. Online fans, however, did not have the same fears or need for recognition from print zine fans; they had numbers on their side, and even then, online was seen as the future of everything, not just fandom.

Net fans feel as though they must compete for validation, and at the same time are resentful of the limitations imposed by a tradition they don't share.

Honestly, I have not seen much evidence that net fans desire validation from the printfan community. And I think net fans actually have little reason to need such validation. They are free to write what they want and either post it to the newsgroup or send it to a zine or both. Fan fic is pretty much a seller's market, after all.

Fiction That Straddled Both

From Susan Legge in 1996:

Thing is I've been asked to send Beside the Wells to the editor of a print zine and if I'd spent 20dollars plus on a zine I'd be pretty miffed to find it full of stuff I could have downloaded for free.

From Killa in February 1997 regarding Turning Point:

I posted a story on the net last year, never intending it for a zine. But an editor approached me after the fact and asked if she could have it. I said yes. Now I am writing a sequel, and I'm really stuck. I want to post the sequel on the net too, because I promised it to the internet audience months and months ago. But if I do so, I really need to repost the original story! I feel bad possibly taking sales away from the zine editor -- but I posted it to the net first. Now I'm wondering if, from now on, I should refrain from posting my stories on the net to avoid this happening again. Should I have said 'no' when the editor asked me? Do I have to choose? I know I'd be annoyed if I paid a lot of money for a zine full of stories I've read. On the other hand, the sheer numbers of responses you get from net readers are awfully nice. But the last thing I want is for zines to disappear! What's a net-savvy writer to do? Just fishing for opinions here. What does anybody think is the right solution?

Some Online Fiction Pulled for Print Zines

Fans at alt.startrek.creative and related platforms were familiar with the availability of fiction on [[Usenet]. Access could be erratic due to byzantine organization, parts of stories disappearing, different newsreaders skipping content, and more.

Killashandra was one fan who temporarily pulled her some of her fiction in order to publish it in a print zine. This was something that irked online fans, and added fuel to the fire of discontent.

No Need for Editors

A comment from a fan who considered edited stories and zines to be too much gatekeeping:

Now I'm such a junkie of unfiltered fanfic, I don't think I could deal with reading what an editor has picked out for me to read. Why should I have my experience mediated when there is always the immediacy of the web?

Meta

• Discouraging criticism has become a problem in K/S fan fiction. But I don't think the answer is to hold fan authors to lower standards. by Judith Gran (1997)
• I am frustrated by my own ability to understand why categorizing a story as K/S or not-K/S is important to some fans. by Judith Gran (January 1998)
• I feel the need to say again how important K/S print zines are. by Shelley Butler (1998)
• I sometimes wonder if my reluctance to fully embrace K/S on the net may just be a sign that I’m turning into an old fogy. by Shelley Butler (1998)
• Please don't interpret the rest of this as a dismissal of zines, because it isn't intended that way. by Jungle Kitty (1998)