THE ZINE SCENE
D.I.Y MAGAZINES
In the days before the internet, fanzines were at the heart of pop culture. Richard Molesworth looks back at some of the most memorable British genre efforts…
In October 2020, a copy of the very first issue of the Doctor Who fanzine Celestial Toyroom sold on ebay for a whopping £460.00. First published in June 1976, Celestial Toyroom was – and indeed still is – the monthly newsletter/magazine of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, and has been running for just over 45 years. Fanzines are not just the purview of Doctor Who fandom, but this example may well have set the record for highest price ever paid for one.
What is a fanzine? Well, as the name suggests, it’s a magazine put together by fans for fans of a certain –usually very specific -subject. And one of the delights of fanzines is the subcultures that they dwell in. Football teams, musical genres and bands, even craft beers have had copious closely-typed A5 pages devoted to the minutiae of their specialised subjects. Most fanzines usually last just a couple of issues, before dying off due to reader apathy and/or editorial disenfranchisement. But those that manage to get more than halfa-dozen issues to their name are usually worth tracking down.
FIRST NOTABLE FORAYS
Science fiction fanzines can be dated back to the 1920s, and were usually vehicles for budding writers to test their early forays into short story fiction. It took many decades until fanzines branched out into the world of popular culture, with the first notable forays into fan publishing by the fledgling Star Trek community in America in the late 1960s. Star Trek fandom at the time was predominantly female-led, and whilst a lot of the published content was episode reviews and explorations of the themes of the series, there was also a high amount of what is now termed ‘slash fiction’ revolving around the characters of Kirk and Spock.
For those not familiar with the term, slash fiction is erotic (or downright pornographic) short stories, usually, but not exclusively revolving around same-sex relationships, and can be found around the edges of most fandoms, from Blake’s 7, Doctor Who, Star Wars, and for all I know Crime Traveller and On the Buses. If it’s your thing, then good for you, but if it’s not, then it can be hard to avoid at times.