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Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture

door Stephen Duncombe

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Slug & Lettuce, Pathetic Life, I Hate Brenda, Dishwasher, Punk and Destroy, Sweet Jesus, Scrambled Eggs, Maximunrocknroll—these are among the thousands of publications which circulate in a subterranean world rarely illuminated by the searchlights of mainstream media commentary. In this multifarious underground, Pynchonesque misfits rant and rave, fans eulogize, hobbyists obsess. Together they form a low-tech publishing network of extraordinary richness and variety. Welcome to the realm of zines. In this, the first comprehensive study of zine publishing, Stephen Duncombe describes their origins in early-twentieth-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. While Notes from Underground pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital web of popular culture, it also notes the shortcomings of their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Duncombe's book raises the larger questionof whether it is possible to rebel culturally within a consumer society that eats up cultural rebellion. Packed with extracts and illustrations from a wide array of publications, past and present, Notes from Underground is the first book to explore the full range of zine culture and provides a definitive portrait of the contemporary underground in all its splendor and misery.… (meer)
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Toon 3 van 3
Fascinating history of zines and "alternative" culture as well as a thorough critique; the updated Conclusion, with its discussion of internet publishing and the difference between that and true DIY, is revelatory. ( )
  eenerd | Sep 29, 2015 |
absolutely one of the best and most up to date books written on the subject of zines. this book expounds upon zine history, politics, communities, and more in order to get a clearer picture of who and what is involved in this (now archaic) medium. though this is an academic look at zines, the language is not impenetrable and the book is accessible to someone reading about zines for the first time or the veteran zinester.

there are a lot of great scholarly journal articles about certain individual parts of zine communities, but for an overall look, this book is great at contextualizing and concisely telling the story of zines. ( )
1 stem superblue | Mar 6, 2010 |
Notes from Underground provides a brief evolutionary history of the modern zine. Zines come about as a response when dominant culture is found lacking or just straight up wrong by an individual. Stephen Duncombe cites the pamphlet press of associations in colonial America and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense as early examples. The most commonly accepted origin of the ‘fanzine’, as it is known today, occurred in the 1930’s. Science fiction fans created publications that included critique of fiction, short stories, and space for forming sci-fi communities. In the 1970’s with the rise of the punk music and lifestyle, came another wave of zinesters. The 80’s saw the creation of whole zines dedicated to only reviews of other zines. These review zines included all genres, and the most famous is Factsheet Five. The importance of zines like Factsheet Five is that it connects and creates a greater zine community of authors and readers. This coalescing of zinesters forms an underground alternative zine culture.
Two of the main incentives- cited by Duncombe- for publishing zines are, the rejection of dominant culture and the lack of a community. Zines authors are often self-proclaimed losers or freaks, people who feel alienated from- or refuse to accept- mainstream society, politics, and media. Zines are a response to alienation that remains underground; they are not acknowledged or distributed by mainstream press. “Although the world of zines operates on the margins of society, its concerns are common to all: how to count as an individual, how to build a supportive community, how to have a meaningful life, how to create something that is yours.” (Pg 15) This struggle is highly personal, tangible form of creation and expression.
In zines the personal is political, they allow publishers to manufacture and label themselves. “In an era when every conceivable identity has been catalogued or packaged, yet ordinary people have little to say in this process, zines offer a way for their publishers to ‘package’ the complexity of themselves and share it with others.” (Pg. 38) The expression of a complex authentic self is contaminated, however, when dominant culture “discovers” and labels zines as “cool”. The seizure of zines, punk, riot grrl, and leftist politics by popular culture, only to be sold back to the masses as a fashion trend, is the direct opposite of alternative underground culture. However, “it won’t be repression that forces zines out of the light and back underground…it will be lack of interest…” (Pg. 172) Once zines have their fifteen minutes of fame and become passé, then the underground may reclaim them and the cycle of fringe culture and co-optation continues.
Duncombe labels alternative culture as “…counterhegemonic…: a culture arising out of dissent and providing a countervision of society.” The complexity of this counter-vision’s existence is one of the major themes of Notes. Zines are the creation of the very society they are negating, “…the only defining image of the underground is a camera obscura reflection of the dominant culture; its identity is an anti-identity. While this negation is an asset in rebelling, it quickly becomes a liability in building.” (Pg. 184) The anti-identity that zine publishers are creating dies with the negation of dominant culture, and nothing positive is left to build from. It is easier to label the problem rather than create a solution, easier to have a revolution rather than build a new society. While the dominant relies on the alternative for originality, the underground -in order to remain opposed to dominant culture- becomes restricted and shackled by its own rules. This is the catch 22 that Duncombe comes back to again and again; without dominant culture the underground alternative would not exist. And I believe, without the underground alternative the dominant would be uninspired and boring.
There is no mass revolution on the horizon, just a new way of saying the same thing over and over again. Given enough time the “revolution” only becomes cool and given even more time, dominant culture looses interest. A “new” alternative culture arises underground and the cycle continues. Zines (the physical product and the time-consuming act) are pre-political- the thought before the action. Duncombe goes as far as to call them a lie; “Zines and the underground culture from which they come are a lie that gives direction and sustenance, solidarity and a sense of accomplishment. Against a world dragging you back they keep you moving forward.” (Pg. 195) The cycle of alternative culture is where small but meaningful changes have the potential to be made reality. Notes from Underground concludes that zines are a free space in which survival happens; a space in which fun, creativity and self-expression can take place without feeling fake, or consumer-driven. Zines are a free space in which the networking of individuals makes political change and solidarity possible. ( )
  angellreads | Dec 16, 2007 |
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Slug & Lettuce, Pathetic Life, I Hate Brenda, Dishwasher, Punk and Destroy, Sweet Jesus, Scrambled Eggs, Maximunrocknroll—these are among the thousands of publications which circulate in a subterranean world rarely illuminated by the searchlights of mainstream media commentary. In this multifarious underground, Pynchonesque misfits rant and rave, fans eulogize, hobbyists obsess. Together they form a low-tech publishing network of extraordinary richness and variety. Welcome to the realm of zines. In this, the first comprehensive study of zine publishing, Stephen Duncombe describes their origins in early-twentieth-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. While Notes from Underground pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital web of popular culture, it also notes the shortcomings of their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Duncombe's book raises the larger questionof whether it is possible to rebel culturally within a consumer society that eats up cultural rebellion. Packed with extracts and illustrations from a wide array of publications, past and present, Notes from Underground is the first book to explore the full range of zine culture and provides a definitive portrait of the contemporary underground in all its splendor and misery.

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