Zines are the O.G. blog

In short, zines are the middle finger to glossies. They were all the rage during the ’60s and well into the punk-infused ’70s.

Aesthetically, they were rough around the edges and showed every Xerox flaw with pride. Zines were a DIY piece of counterculture and each of them honed in on a particular niche. From pulp fiction to science fiction to politics – they were self-made pamphlets of personality and were a cult phenomenon distributed amongst a small group. Essentially, they were the original blog – but a lot cooler and a lot more character.

I am basically degrading what I am doing right now.

Lucky for us in the SF Bay Area, Rock Paper Scissors Collective partnered with the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive for Zine Mart, a special pop up shop of ‘zines.

Through Nov. 22, an archive of these self-produced publications and will also feature instructional videos and contributions from other ‘zine collectives in the Bay Area. Specially commissioned ‘zines and multiples will also be available from Ari Marcopoulos, Bozidar Brazda, Kamao Patton, Marc Arthur, Vanessa Albury, Tammy Rae Carland, Taravat Talepasand, Joseph Akel, Isaac Valdez, Nick DeMarco and others.

This past Friday, I went through the Transbay tunnel to pay a visit the opening and was quite impressed, if not inspired.

There’s a gritty sensibility with zines that make them appealing. The gamut of zines ranged from raunchy gay publications to quirky subject matter (i.e. an entire book on candid apologies). Morrisey even had his own zine:

What made the event even more fun, was when I saw Tabitha Soren. I had immediate flashbacks of MTV News briefs circa 1990. Do you remember those? It was the period of time when MTV was relevant.

The cut & paste & Xerox appeal had me in a state of nostalgic excitement. I never had the chance to write or create my own zine back in the day because I wasn’t cool enough. That said, don’t be surprised if you see a zine by the title of “the finer dandy” laying about in various hip spots around the city.

Sure, I still won’t be cool enough, but hopefully the cool zine kids will let me play.