Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Whups! MORE email from Tiffany:

weblog addendum:

i posted that when i hadn't seen boingboing.net yet. duh! this seems very
much like something i could consistently read. i'm just skimmin' along,
following every fifth or sixth link, reading the results every 3rd or 4th
hit. that's a pretty good followthrough, for someone like me.

another thing i realised is that while some paper 'zines and some webzines
concern themselves with techie things and Internetty things as subject
matter, a great number of them do not. these weblogs i've been hitting
frequently link away to meta-Net or meta-tech things...  even blogs that
don't purport to be "about" that. the medium really is the message. what
if all print 'zines contained several pages of Odes to Paper?

i'm on nine solid years of staring at the frickin' computer screen waiting
for epiphanies to float down the modem. it's been great, but i'm burned
out. i like a bit of Nettime, and covering some cyberculture/crit is part
of Signum's deal. but otherwise, i guess i'm turned off by reading
personal musings mixed with Slashdot links and NTK references.

apparently i'm looking at the wrong weblogs & will continue nosing
around...
  

    
One of the major ways I've found weblogs to be like zines is in the quality
ration.  I could easily put 100 zines in front of you that would convince
you that there's simply nothing worth looking at, then show you one or two
that would send you off to sort through the next 100 in hopes of finding one
or two more.  Same with blogs, except that they're somewhat easier to get at
for most of us.

I just started paying attention to them a short time before this
conversation started, but now there are a few that are daily hits for me,
and a few more that I look at every week or so.  And dozens that I've
scanned and decided not to bother with.  And thousands, it seems, that I
haven't got to yet.

I've been pretty heavily involved with a music webzine for the last few
years, and the notion of doing something on paper is a matter of ongoing
discussion, in no small part because there are still people who refuse to
believe we're doing anything at all unless we have something to actually put
in their hands.
  

    
Oh, I'm harvesting!

BTW, I leave for 2.5 weeks holidays tomorrow, and won't be back until June
10. No computers where I'm going. No power! Costa Rica, here I come.
  

    
No computers? No power? Hey, say hi to Ticonet down there. Guess they
must all run on batteries.
  

    
Erm, I meant, of course, that where *I'm* going there are no computers (Cano
Rito de San Jorge de Upala, a 10km hike through a swamp past the end of the
last northernmost dirt road in the country, a couple clikcs from the
Nicaraguan border). Nor running water. Nor power. Nor phone lines. Nor,
indeed, roads.

But you shoulda known that, right?
  

    
It's all personal preference at the end of the day. When I looked at
boingboing.net I said, there's something I would definitely NOT read
regularly. I like a more commentary with my links - which is not pure
blog form, I know. My ideal blog would be a link accompanied by a
paragraph or two of original content. Maybe a Lockergnome with a more
serious bent?
  

    

Tiff writes

> another thing i realised is that while some paper 'zines and some 
> webzines concern themselves with techie things and Internetty 
> things as subject matter, a great number of them do not. these 
> weblogs i've been hitting frequently link away to meta-Net or meta-
> tech things...  even blogs that don't purport to be "about" that. 
> the medium really is the message. what if all print 'zines 
> contained several pages of Odes to Paper?

_The Match_ was big on the superiority of not just paper but offset
printing as well.

But, yeah, so much of web-anything is information about information
about information.
  

    
For me, the fact that weblogs are not conversations is precisely their
appeal.  I am attracted to very fringe interests; things and ideas and
people who are not very well represented in the mainstream.  Let me clarify
that: it's not that I like iconoclasm for the sake of iconoclasm, it's that
the things that happen to turn me on just happen to be things that I see
practically none of in the mainstream.

I've been on the WELL and have noodled through USENET and conferencing
systems and bulletin boards since the beginning; and of all of these sorts
of formats I've found the WELL to be the most interesting.  But even the
WELL, due to its very nature as an open "conversation", tends to self-
limit its topics (at least in many conferences), to subjects which can
be discussed by relative strangers logging in, scattered around the world.
Which is to say, there is a tendency in conversational formats to become
limited to some extent to the *intersection* of the interests and expertise
of the various vocal participants.  This has its value, and of course
there are those times when this sort of interchange is exceptionally
valuable and can go outside those boundaries.  Which is why I remain on the
WELL.

However, in the weblog world, quite simply, I find more diversity of
viewpoint.  I find people regularly talking about subjects which I almost
never see on any conferencing system, even the WELL, which is perhaps the
most intelligent one out there.  These are things I personally care about,
but I was sort of shocked to see that other people were willing to
brazenly talk about these things too, even in the face of their relative
obscurity and/or unpopularity in some circles.

In this respect I see a parallel with zines which is fairly obvious.

The weblogs I frequent rarely discuss technical matters.  I myself, though
very technical, almost never refer to anything technical in my weblog;
although funnily enough I just did a few days ago, if you read back through
my archives you'll see very few references to webtechsubjects.  This is
not particularly because I consciously avoid this, but it just happens to
be the case that despite my technical prowess I guess I'm just not that
interested in technology for its own sake.

The weblogs I like to read talk about cyberculture, but also about art,
architecture, society, time, mind, body, literature, culture, trends,
ideas, and on and on.  None of the ones I frequent talk about technology
very much if at all.  I'm aware that quite a few do, but...  who cares?
You don't have to read those.  That's the idea.
  

    
I was at a store today and saw a number of zines for sale, nearly all
seemed punk-centered. Are most zines punk-focused?

(Sorry for the very silly question - I was interested in getting a
zine to read, but kind of put off by the limited subject matter.)
  

    

One 'zine that has grown larger from its beginnings and also has a pretty
good corresponding website, though it's not a blog, is Giant Robot, which
centers around things Asian/Pac Rim.
  

    

Here are some zine-related links from the web:


The zine resource start page:
<http://www.zinebook.com/main.html>

The zines read by some of the leading zine editors:
<http://www.zinebook.com/recom.html>

Big List o' Zines:
(with mailing addresses and some links)
<http://www.zinebook.com/rec-ord.html>

Interviews with various zine editors (contributors to The Book of Zines)
<http://www.zinebook.com/interv/index.html>

Zine store of Giant Robot:
<http://www.giantrobot.com/grstore/grstorezines.html>

Braincase Collective Zine Catalog:
<http://www.olywa.net/braincase/zine%20catalog/zinecatalog.htm>

South  Chicago ABC Zine Distro catalog:
(anarchy, political, prison, art, miscellaneous)
<http://members.nbci.com/thoughtbombs/zinecat.html>

Broken Pencil - the guide to alternative culture in Canada
(zine reviews section)
<http://www.brokenpencil.com/reviews.shtml>

The Zinemart's See Hear Web Catalog
<http://www.zinemart.com/cgi-sys/cgiwrap/zinemart/order.seehear>

Fanzines Explained
(by Jim Romenesko - 1993 - Published in the American Journalism Review)
<http://www.primenet.com/~obscure/zinesajr.html>
  

    
Thanks, Jim - hot links!
  

    
I should also note that there is an element of conversation that goes on in
weblogs --- similar to the "conversation" that happens with zines or even
just in the literary world, but much faster (so it's sort of halfway between
a conferencing system like the WELL and regular literature), which is when
weblogs "talk" to each other, respond to each other's posts.  I do this
fairly often myself, and other weblogs do this to me, which I read.  So
there is a community feeling without things tending to get semi-homogenized
to a group voice.  Individuality within community.

I should also mention that zines are far from dead where I live, Portland,
they're still pretty alive and cooking.  Our local zine/obscure books/small
press store, Reading Frenzy, has tons of zines produced up to the minute,
and it's always fun to browse in there.  They're affiliated with the
Independent Publishing Resource Center, http://iprc.org, which offers self-
publishing help to the local community (similar to a place in Olympia with a
similar mission, Community Print, I've actually helped a friend typeset once
there on their old ink-based printing presses --- though they're now
learning Photoshop and Pagemaker and stuff, too.)
  

    
Tara, while most zines are not about punk rock these days, one of the
healthiest subsets of zinemaking is indeed music zines. Since its emergence
in the late '70s, punk rock has fueled itself via zines... and while there
are many Web sites dedicated to punk, the zines remain one of the best ways
to enter this community of interest and practice.

(Sidenote: When I say "healthiest," I don't mean "best," but perhaps "most
visible." Doing music zines is relatively easy. Doing GOOD music zines is
slightly more challenging than doing good non-music zines.)

No longer a sidenote: Why is that? Largely format, I'd wager. Look at some
of the biggest music zines today. Jersey Beat, Tail Spins, MRR, Hit List,
HeartAttack, etc. all follow the same basic format -- columns, interviews,
reviews. Punk Planet has shaken that up a bit, but for the most part, most
punk -- most music -- zines follow the same format, largely riffing off MRR.
In fact, in MRR's case, the direct descendents and lineage is clear. Kent
McClard started HeartAttack while a columnist at MRR -- Tim Yo started
dictating what "punk" was, and he started his own zine to have his own say.
Ditto for Hit List -- Jeff Bale, again an MRR columnist, tired of MRR's
dictums and started his more-inclusive zine in response.

This might be one reason why I'm tired of music zines... punk zines even
moreso... and not overly interested in blogs. If people are creating blogs
using the same one or two or three tool sets -- and modeling the same format
and basic behavior, don't they quickly become the same? I miss old Web
journal sites a la Justin' Links -- which is still up -- and Geek Cereal.
Doubtless, they're not blogs, but they were navigational and formatting
innovations -- somethings that's rare in zines and blogs alike.

Jimwich dropped Giant Robot. Full disclosure: I'm friends with Eric, Martin
and the gang, a GR Foundation supporter, and an occasional contributor (look
for several Haruki Murakami reviews in the upcoming issue -- by yours
truly!). But GR has prided itself on design innovation. If you look at their
Web site -- http://www.giantrobot.com -- it's not your usual Webzine. And if
you recall their previous redesign, you'll know that they took some real
design risks, some that didn't work so well, hence their retraction to a
more staid design sensibility.

What zines and blogs are pushing the envelope and buttons in terms of
design, format, and innovative content? Farm Pulp remains one of my
favorites. Sam Pratt's old Ersatz rocked the boat. Cardhouse --
http://www.cardhouse.com/ -- continues to funk things up. As does
McSweeney's -- http://www.mcsweeneys.net -- in its journal AND Web forms.

Any other groundbreakers not riffing on the Sniffin' Glue cut-and-paste or
Raygun typographic-hell dynamics? (Or the MRR columns-interviews-reviews
1-2-3?)
  

    
More, yep.

Re: Mark's #99, the best and last two issues of Karma Lapel were made this
way -- printout, waxing, clipart. I'd do another zine in this fashion in a
minute.

Re: #107 on The Match. Fred Woodworth, publisher of the Match, is an offset
printer. His almost-Luddite Zerzan-styled takes on printing technology
fascinate me, but his productivity and sharp thinking fascinate me more.
Since 1969, Woodworth has been practicing what he preaches -- and preaching
what he practices. He's who Doug Holland went to when he wanted to start
publishing Zine World.

While searching for Match references, I stumbled across Jim Romenesko's take
on discovering zines -- http://www.poynter.org/centerpiece/060700.htm might
make for an interesting read.
  

    
Anyway, isn't this scheduled to end tomorrow? If so -- and if I'm unable to
get online to participate while I travel to Louisville, Kentucky -- let me
just say that I've enjoyed this discussion, appreciate the ideas and
involvement of everyone who joined this conversation, and encourage us all
to continue this in the magazines.ind or media conferences here on the Well.
Or hop over to alt.zines or something. It's been fun to think these thinks.
  

    

Hey Kalel, it's been great having you!  We'll be wrapping up on Friday in
time for the new interviews - we will be having our first-ever
double-header.
  

    
And it's okay to keep this conversation going forever, like the Neil
Gaiman topics...
  

    
E-mail from Jeff Potter:

Bye everyone! Thanks for putting up with me and my lack of witty, punchy
brief posts like all you expert Netizens put up! I'll keep looking into
these blog things.

As for Tara's remark about finding zines at zinestores: she summed it up.
The best of zining was always a MAIL ART thing. That underground Boy Scout
camp counselor newsletter we talked about was probably never sold on a
newstand. I do see the newstand emphasis on kiddy-punk zines as part of the
decline in zining. When zining was big, Doug at Tower pushed my outdoor
culture (bike) zine globally. The new Tower guy won't even stock
it...probably coz it ain't about kiddy-punk. Well, maybe that's who buys
from newstands. Except my zine always sold just fine. Oh well, who knows!
Go mail, go real! All work hung as received! Talk about peer review... : )

Oh, one last thing: another resource that helped launch hardcore zining was
"Anarchy" mag. It's really a zine itself. A one-man no-ads show. Thanks,
Jason McQuinn! Their stable now also includes "Alternative Press Review."
Their tiny team has always published good stuff steadily. They've been a
good base. They've always had thoughtful reviews of diverse zines. Hmmm,
but they don't review kiddy-punk zines. Maybe something about standards?

See ya'll---JP

Jeff Potter
  ****
*Great Lakes Press * http://www.glpbooks.com
   (#1 publisher of engineering license reviews & discounts on techbooks)
*Out Your Backdoor * http://www.outyourbackdoor.com
   (friendly zine of modern folkways and cultural rescue...with bikes)