Zines Never Left. You Did.
Inside the photocopied scene keeping independent writing alive.
Zines never disappeared; they simply continued where trend reports stopped looking. On folding tables, bedroom floors and borrowed photocopiers, small publications kept documenting scenes too local or unruly for larger outlets.
Their power comes from directness. A crooked staple, uneven ink or handwritten correction carries evidence of a person making choices without waiting for institutional permission.
Distribution remains part of the form. A zine passed after a show or traded through the post creates a relationship that an endlessly scrolling feed rarely asks us to maintain.
The renewed attention is welcome, but the culture does not need rescuing. It needs readers willing to pay creators, preserve copies and contribute something of their own.
Collector of strange images and forgotten scenes. Believes art is a way of questioning the world, not decorating it.