Punk, Fanzines and DIY Cultures in a Global World

Fast, Furious and Xerox

Paula Guerra, Pedro Quintela, Paula Guerra, Pedro Quintela

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9783030288754
• eBook ISBN:
  9783030288761
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Storia sociale

Since the 1970 and 1980s, fanzines have constituted a zone of freedom of thought, of do-it-yourself creativity and of alternatives to conventional media. Along with bands, records and concerts, they became a vital part of the construction of punk 'scenes', actively contributing to the creation and consolidation of communities. This book moves beyond the usual focus on Anglophone punk scenes to consider fanzines in international contexts. The introduction offers a theoretical, chronological and thematic survey for understanding fanzines, considering their contemporary polyhedral vitality. It then moves to consider the distinct social, historical and geographic contexts in which fanzines were created. Covering the UK, Portugal, Greece, Canada, Germany, Argentina, France and Brazil, as well as a wide range of standpoints, this book contributes to a more global understanding of the fanzine phenomenon.

© The Author(s) 2020

P. Guerra, P. Quintela (eds.)Punk, Fanzines and DIY Cultures in a Global WorldPalgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Musichttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28876-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Fast, Furious and Xerox: Punk, Fanzines and Diy Cultures in a Global World

Paula Guerra¹ and Pedro Quintela²

(1)

University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

(2)

University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

Paula Guerra (Corresponding author)

Pedro Quintela

Keywords

FanzinesDIYTemporalitiesDefinition

End Abstract

An introduction to this book should begin with a definition of the essence and substance of fanzines, as independent and ‘alternative’ publications. What are fanzines? At the risk of reducing such complex objects to a few lines, we can say that they are homemade craft objects, produced individually or collectively, and that, in general, they have limited circulation. But if circulation is limited, the scope of the topics addressed in this medium of communication are not. As we shall see throughout this book, there are as many themes as there are zinesters—limited only by each author’s imagination (Guerra & Quintela, 2014, 2016). We can also establish a negative definition; that is: what a fanzine is not. Other paper media, newspapers and magazines, usually owned by companies, have a professional and paid copywriting body, and are distributed nationally (when not internationally). Fanzines, on the other hand, are roughly produced by amateurs or committed fans (l’amateur engagé) with a strong musical culture and who spend their free time in the production, editing and distribution of the fanzines (Hein, 2006: 88). Perhaps it is Samuel Étienne (2003: 8) who best synthesizes the logic of fanzines: ‘deprofessionalized, decapitalized and deinstitutionalized’.

When did this all emerge? Chris Atton (2006) placed the genesis of fanzines in the British tradition of the radical pamphlet; that is, a cheap and personal way of expressing opinions, and fostering discussion and political combat. One of the most prominent texts in the American War of Independence was ultimately a fanzine: small in size, incisive, revolutionary, and written anonymously. We are talking about the publication, in 1776, of the Common Sense pamphlet, by Thomas Paine.

It is usual to date the earliest fanzines to the 1920s–1930s, being associated with science fiction fans, who started publishing small magazines with their own stories, and the term ‘zine’ evolved from the term ‘fan magazine’ to ‘fan-mag’, and subsequently, with the growth in popularity, to fanzines or simply zines. In the decades 1940–1960, fanzines became increasingly popular in the realms of comics and music (Atton, 2002: 55–56; Triggs, 2010: 15–19). However, they also became politicized and one of the main vehicles of criticism against the political establishment. Because of a highly critical political stance, as well as the American political situation in those decades, marked by strong conservatism and anti-communism, the fanzines were quickly stigmatized as radical and deviant (Perkins, 1992).

The 1970s witnessed an explosion in the production, distribution and consumption of fanzines. This global relevance of fanzines is directly related to the emergence of the punk phenomenon in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA) during the 1970–1980s, which constituted a zone of freedom of thought, the creativity of do-it-yourself (DIY), and of alternatives to conventional media. There is an inescapable link between fanzines and the emergence and visibility of the punk scene, but we must not confuse the two issues. Atton (2006) has contested the idea that the fanzine is essentially a subcultural product, emancipating the fanzine culture through a symbolic agreement between the fanzine and human experiences and lifestyle. Going beyond the specificity of British punk fanzines, Atton opens up space for the analysis of a whole range of alternative media. According to Dick Hebdige (1979), the punk fanzines have sought to create an alternative space for expression, in contrast to the traditional media, which has tended to misrepresent or give a negative view of punk (see also Savage, 1991; The Subcultures Network, 2018). This is actually a common feature with most of the fanzines that preceded punk. In fact, from the outset, fanzines have been a very important part of the construction of punk ‘scenes’—along with bands, records and concerts—actively contributing to the creation and consolidation of a certain sense of community (Triggs, 2006, 2010).

Looking at the democratization of the Internet in the 1990s and the 2000s, we examined the use by zinesters of the potential for production and dissemination provided by the new medium. It is an era characterized by the emergence of forums, weblogs and e-zines . Guerra and Quintela (2016), analysing the Portuguese case, note that the fanzines linked to the various punk scenes have sought to take advantage of the Internet’s potential (in its various platforms), for a fast, easy and cheap dissemination of bands, records and relevant events within the national punk scenes (concerts, parties, record releases, etc.). Interestingly, there was no sudden migration from paper to digital. In fact, the ‘traditional’ fanzines, published on paper and distributed via underground circuits, continue to show a surprising resilience. Although it has specific characteristics associated with the punk scene, this resilience cannot be dissociated from a more comprehensive logic of valorization of ‘retro’, analog, ‘vintage’ and a certain aesthetic and ethical memory associated with particular cultural manifestations (Bennett, 2009; Lipovetsky & Serroy, 2014: 283–287; Reynolds, 2011; Roberts, 2014). In fact, and assuming a different pattern from the past, ‘traditional’ fanzines—published on paper—continue to act as a powerful space for affirmation of a certain DIY spirit inspired by punk culture, for the text and image contents of which there is still no space in other media.

As Julia Pine (2006) points out, fanzines are material forms of symbolic representation. They are voluntarily constructed objects that allow individuals who participate in the process of making fanzines to affirm their social existence, to integrate (sub)cultures, tribes or musical scenes, and to participate culturally; simultaneously, the fanzines emerge from a markedly youthful local movement of dynamization of an underground scene, facilitating the distribution of records, bands, concerts and stories. Fanzines are a fundamental element of the realization of tastes, affinities, social, political, ideological and cultural membership, lifestyles and music tastes. And the ‘take no prisoners’ approach of the fanzine can be summed up by the words of Le Bart (2000: 75): we are dealing with the speech of lovers, because ‘it is that you feel passionate to speak with others the language of passion’.

Punk, since its inception, has always been a dissident movement, a rupture with society, with the status quo, a movement of resistance and empowerment of its members which was guided by a set of strategies of (re)appropriation of objects and meanings (Guerra, 2013, 2016). More than that, it developed a specific praxis, a way of being one’s own, based on a vision of a future that goes beyond the TINA idea (There Is No Alternative). This is referred to by Augusto Santos Silva and Paula Guerra as:

A vision of the world, a position in the world and for the world that is, at the same time, aesthetic and ethical. Nonconformity with regard to the surrounding normative structure; the radical statement of difference, lived individually or within the ingroup; the defence and application of the motto ‘do it yourself’ and what is associated with it — the option for the underground and the contestation of the musical-industrial mainstream: all this composes a culture of strong counter-hegemonic orientation, that is, confronting the cultural establishment and its power directly. (Silva & Guerra, 2015: 170)

This, in other words, is a praxis which has as one of its main characteristics an untameable ability to imagine another world, another society based on another shape (Thompson, 2004). It is possible to understand how punk became a s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Front Matter
• 1. Fast, Furious and Xerox: Punk, Fanzines and Diy Cultures in a Global World
• 2. Punk, Politics and British (Fan)Zines (1976–1984)
• 3. Punk Fanzines in Portugal (1978–2013): A Critical Overview
• 4. Fanzines’ Network and the Punk Scene in Greece (1980–2015)
• 5. Underground Utopias: Strategies of Mediation and Resistance in the Brazilian Punk Fanzines Network (1981–1985)
• 6. Feel the Noise: The Promotional Allure of Punk Fanzines
• 7. Resistance Through Photocopies: An Analysis of the Argentine Fanzine Resistencia During the 1980s
• 8. The Queer Punk Visions of J.D.s
• 9. The Punk Scene and the National Music Press in France (1976–1978): ‘Dangerous Liaisons’?
• Back Matter