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Zines!
Venus Envy by Patty Winter
Zines are non-commercial, small circulation “Do It Yourself” (DIY) magazines. They provide the
public with a space for open discussion on issues of importance to our democracy. UCF students
in Theory and Criticism in the Visual Arts and Aesthetics have engaged in making zines about
a topic of interest to them. In doing so, they become zinsters, engaged in the act of developing
and inexpensively distributing ideas and social critiques through images and text. These publications
can be chaotic, disturbing, uncomfortable, sensual, complex, loud, and confrontational.
The Little Joker by Sara Sartor
Historians trace the origination of the word to the science fiction fanzines that arose in the
1930s, when the Science Correspondence Club founded an amateur publication in which people could
publish stories and respond to science fiction. During the 1960s and 1970s the popular and mass
culture orientation of zines merged with the political orientation of pamphlets. At that time
zines were largely focused on social revolution and the Vietnam War. Due, in part, to the convenience
and availability of quick copy technologies, zines are flourishing today, expanding in content
to include feminist perspectives through the impetus of groups like the riot grrrls and cyberpunk.
Besides being passed out in hard copies, zines are also distributed on the WWW and on CD-ROMs.
Art in the Age of AIDS by Jennifer Collier
Zines are written and illustrated through pastiche, parody, irony, and bricolage. Fragmentation
and discontinuity are the norm. Narratives and authorship can be ambiguous, simultaneous, self-conscious,
and/or anonymous. Reflecting the world we now live in, UCF zinsters have explored disjointed
narrative, complicated ways of seeing the world, and issues of ownership. Making zines allows
students to participate in contemporary debates while they clarify their own visions.
