In Praise Of Fanzines

Before blogs gave everyone a platform from which to scream their opinions on anything and everything, and forums gave everyone a chance to argue over said opinions in an increasingly inane manner, there were fanzines. Just the word is enough to invoke waves of nostalgia in people of a certain age, tales of how they were ‘there’ when ‘Sniffin’ Glue’ took off, or sepia-tinged memories of 1980s Liverpool and legendary mag ‘The End’.

It’s easy to presume that since the dawn of the internet, the fanzine has gone the way of glam metal and mullets – consigned to pages of history, usurped by superior successors. Of course, presumption is the mother of all mistakes, and mistaken you certainly would be. You don’t need to look far back to see how influential fanzines can still be; one particularly unsavoury incident saw a Manchester United fanzine confiscated for printing potentially racially-offensive images.

Far from being a venting space for fringe opinions however, fanzines have a clear rooting in artistic endeavour and individuality, containing more originality in their pages than 1,000 identikit blogs could dream of. Whilst not exactly commercially viable, fanzines provide the perfect opportunity to create a unique piece of memorabilia which should prove artistically satisfying.

There’s no doubt that creating your own fanzine can be a long process but it should be a labour of love. A well-designed fanzine-style publication can serve a range of purposes as well; the company newsletter, for example, is bound to catch employees’ eyes if it takes inspiration from retro amateur publications rather than a Microsoft Publisher template. Similarly, a ‘commemorative issue’-style fanzine for someone’s birthday containing articles about their life makes for a wonderful birthday gift that shows plenty of creativity and effort!

How do you go about creating your own fanzine, then? You’ll be pleased to know that scissors and glue are no longer essential tools; thanks to advances in design and printing technology, creating a fanzine is mess-free and easy!

First of all, make sure you’ve got a decent design package for creating magazine-style layouts. Adobe’s InDesign is fantastic for this sort of job – layouts are easy to create, with easy-to-follow grids and columns allowing you to create professional-standard layouts with relatively little fuss. Remember though, you don’t want to look too professional – you are taking influence from the amateurs, after all!

Secondly, the content. This will be entirely down to you and what you want to base your fanzine style publication on. Consider what images you want to use and, if you’re are creating a ‘zine about a band for example, make sure you have permission and give credit for images used. Consider the font you want to use and how long any articles need to be to fit across pages and templates.

Finally, and most importantly, the printing! If you’re looking to mass-produce a ‘zine, it may be cost-effective to shop around professional printing companies who often offer discounts on bulk orders. For a few copies however, your home printer will more than suffice.

Make sure your design is properly setup for printing; printing a magazine that you’ll have to fold and staple yourself is difficult and will undoubtedly take a couple of attempts before you figure out exactly what needs to be where for the right layout of pages! Practise on low-quality paper in black and white before going for the big final print – you’ll save yourself money, printer ink and costly paper!

With all the excitement of designing your own fanzine, it’s easy to overlook some important aspects such as the paper you’re going to print on. Whilst standard printer paper would suffice, going for paper with a glossy finish, or even just thicker than usual, will give your ‘zine a quality feel that’ll be more durable than if printed on standard paper.

Consider how you want to bind your fanzine as well. For a thin publication, stapling is a perfectly viable and cost effective method. For a bulkier ‘zine though, you may want to look at more advanced binding techniques such as saddle stitching. Whilst it is possible to do this yourself, we’d recommend taking it to a professional – you should find that a great deal of office supplies specialists will offer binding services for quite reasonable prices.

With that, your fanzine should be complete and how you distribute it is entirely up to you! If you want a mass audience, try handing it out to people on the street. For offices, put it in people’s pigeonholes or inboxes and for a loved one, leave it lying on a coffee table – the element of surprise should gain you even more credit in addition to that built up through your sheer artistic talent! Once it’s done, sit back and relax in the knowledge that you have created a real work of art.