Fanzines – What are they?

Fanzines are created and published by fans. They are nonprofessional and nonofficial publications used to promote and discuss certain interests for the pleasure of others to read. The term ‘fanzine’ was created by Russ Chauvenet, who, in October 1940, decided to put together a Science Fiction Fanzine which became widely popular and, eventually, became adopted by others.

Science Fiction Fanzines were one of the earliest forms of fanzines, dating back to the early 1930’s. The first ever Science Fiction Fanzine was published in 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club, that was based in Chicago. This publication was called ‘The Comet’ and was created by Raymond Palmer and Walter Dennis. The Comet is widely acknowledged as the first ever Sci-Fi Fanzine by all of its fans and was very popular, causing other fanzines to develop, such as, ‘The Time Traveller’ and ‘Science Fiction’.

After the development of the Science Fiction Fanzine, many other fanzines followed suite and popped up into everyday life.

– Media fanzines

– Comics fanzines

– Horror Film fanzines

– Rock ‘n’ Roll fanzines

– Punk fanzines

– Mod fanzines

– Local music fanzines

– Role-playing-game fanzines

– Video gaming fanzines

– War-gaming fanzines

– Sports fanzines

Media fanzines appeared and were created by Sci-Fi fanatics who shared a similar interest in media and films. The first media fanzine was a Star Trek fan publication called ‘Spockanalia’, that was published in September 1967. After this fanzine was published and recognised, many other Star Trek zines started to appear, resulting in many other media sources cropping up, such as, Starsky and Hutch, Blake’s 7 etc. During the mid-1970’s, media zines became widely popular, adzines appeared so that they could advertise all of the media fanzines available.

Comics fanzine were discussed and mentioned during the late 1930’s within the Science Fiction community. ‘Superman’ was one of the first comics fanzines (portrayed as a bald-headed villain) and famously appeared in the third issue of a popular Sci-Fi fanzine, ‘Science Fiction’, that was published by Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster in 1933. After it was apparent that Comics fanzines were becoming recognised and popular, ‘The Comic Collector’s News’ was started by Malcolm Willits and Jim Bradley in 1947. From this point, comic fanzines become increasingly popular and are still being published today.

Just like comic and media fanzines, Horror Film fanzines grew from interest within the Sci-Fi community. Some of the earliest Horror Film fanzines were developed from Forrest J. Ackerman’s 1958 magazine ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ – Alex Soma’s ‘Horrors of the Screen’, Calvin T. Beck’s ‘Journal of Frankenstein and Gary Svehla’s ‘Gore Creatures’.  ‘Famous Monsters of Filmland’ is a genre-specific film magazine that was launched in 1958 but finished in 1983, however, in 1993, is was resurrected by New Jersey portrait photographer and monster movie fan, Ray Ferry. During 1997, Ackerman filed a lawsuit against Ferry for breach of contract and misrepresentation. In 2002, Ferry filed for bankruptcy. The magazine was then picked back up again in 2008 by Phillip Kim, who purchased the rights to the title and logo. The magazine is currently still being printed.

Rock ‘n’ Roll music fanzines appeared during the mid-1960’s. Several fans within the comic and Sci-Fi community realised their common interests in Rock ‘n’ Roll music, resulting in a fanzine. The most earliest and important Rock ‘n’ Roll fanzines are Paul William’s ‘Crawdaddy’ (1966) and Greg Shaw’s ‘Mojo Navigator’ (1966) and ‘Who Put the Bomp’ (1970). During the 1980’s, when many superstars arose, such as, Bruce Springsteen, a huge amount of home-grown Rock ‘n’ Roll fanzines started to emerge.

Punk fanzines became widely popular during the late 1970’s. The first best known UK based fanzine was ‘Sniffin Glue’ developed by Mark Perry in July 1976. The first issue was created following, and in response to, the debut of The Ramones. ‘Sniffin Glue’ ran for 12 photocopied issues and spearheaded a huge interest in fanzines within the punk culture. Many of the punk fanzines were locally based and printed in small quantities. However, each copy was shared by up to 30 fans who would pass it on from friend to friend, causing them to become widely acknowledged. These fanzines provided promotional values within the punk culture, sharing music, clothing and lifestyles within a punk community. Punk bands and independent record labels often sent in records to the fanzines for reviews, resulting in many of the people who started the fanzines to become critical connections for punk bands who were on tour.

Mod fanzines first emerged during 1979, when the Mod revival appeared in the United Kingdom. This revival brought with it a fresh burst of creativity within the fanzine communities, which inspired the production of many independent publications. The most notorious Mod fanzine was ‘Maximum Speed’ which successfully captured the world of the mod revival scene. This fanzine helped to promote bands such as, Secret Affair, Purple Hearts and The Chords, resulting in finding them in the UK charts. During 1981, the Mod scene started to die down, causing the mod revival to go underground where they successfully reinvented themselves through clubs, bands and fanzines that breathed new life into this genre.

Within the UK, there were also fanzines that were dedicated to popular local bands and music within a certain town or city. These fanzines mainly emerged during the 1970’s and 1980’s, and covered all genres of music. Local gig reviews and articles featured in these and were produced using typewriters and letraset – the technology of the time!

Role-playing-game fanzines also emerged, which allowed fans to publish their views and ideas on specific games and role-playing campaigns. As opposed to the game publishers, these fanzines allowed fans to communications during the 70’s and 80’s with complete control in the hands of the players. Many of the RPG pioneers got their starts within the Science Fiction community. These fanzines were generally typed and sold mostly in A5 format. They were illustrated with indifferent artwork as well.

Video gaming fanzines first emerged during the time when newsletters for computer user groups were not uncommon. The first published video gaming fanzine was called ‘Joystick Jolter’, however, later when desktop publishing tools became more accessible, there was a sudden increase in the production of video gaming fanzines. Typically, these fanzines either feature classic gaming or current gamins, but some even featured both types. These grew bigger and more popular when video gaming journalists starting using their own columns to publish reviews on the fanzines which, ultimately, introduced video gaming editors to each other and creating their very own fanzine scene.

During the time of the video gaming and RPG fanzines, several people found that they had a general interest in War-gaming. These fanzines weren’t as popular as the typical video gaming fanzines, however, there was a very successful international war-gaming fanzine called ‘Charge!’ This was exclusively for miniature war-gaming enthusiasts that took interest in the American Civil War period. Today, the majority of war-gaming fanzines support ‘Warhammer’ and other popular rules sets.

Finally, during the 1970’s, the first ever association football fanzine emerged in 1972 and continued being published until 1976. This fanzine was called ‘Foul’ and was published by Cambridge University students. Within the UK, most Premier League or popular Football League clubs had more than one fanzine which supplemented, opposed and complemented the match day programme or club’s official magazine. For these fanzines to have a guaranteed audience, they had to be reasonably priced. The longest selling football fanzine is ‘The City Gent’, which was produced by supporters of Bradford City FC. It first went on sale in 1984 and is now, still being published and in it’s 26th season. After these football associated fanzines started emerging, fans of other sports genres began to publish fanzines based on their interests, such as, rugby, cricket, basketball etc.