What would a zine coop look like? Love this question. Some ideas... A sliding scale membership. A collaborative governing structure. Mentorships or small groups for mutual support. Curated zine bundles. An annual conference, now I'm getting really ambitious. An online catalogue.
It's thrilling and surreal to witness the rebirth of zines. From age 12-18, I published a zine called Top Hat that sold at Quimby's in Chicago and other underground bookstores around the US. I was too young to actually enter most of these stores myself. The aroma of hot copier ink still lingers vividly in my memory.
I think we’re all craving connection and something real—something to literally hold onto and experience IRL, especially when the online world feels so chaotic and unreliable. An underground zine network to discover like minds.
I wonder if there’d be any benefits to a “consumer coop”-type structure (like grocery coops or REI, etc.). Maybe a small annual membership fee gets you one free zine or a small discount on zines included in the directory. Or a joint producer-consumer structure would be awesome, if potentially complicated. There are some physical bookstores that are both consumer and producer-owner coops.
I really love this idea. I make zines and would love to have some kind of co-op that increases not only distribution but accessibility for others to make zines.
Much like I mentioned at The Luncheonette this week - how do we come together, when it's so expensive to do so? A Zine Co-op is going to look like raising funds from folks and businesses that believe in equity, and long term investment; coupled by those of us that want to save the physical third places - staffing, managing and building community programming.
Sticky Institute in Melbourne is a great example of this succeeding. Over 20 years in and many near scrapes with closing, the zine festival they run gets bigger and bigger every year. It can be done!
So fun stumbling across this! One of my goals this year is to create one. I'm saying year as I am writing in a broader theme across the year and then planning to pull things into a zine. I was aiming for printed simply because it is tactile and I personally love reading this way. Unsure about a great response to your question though lol I personally like browsing them, and was sad to see my local independent book shop didn't have them.
What would a zine coop look like? Love this question. Some ideas... A sliding scale membership. A collaborative governing structure. Mentorships or small groups for mutual support. Curated zine bundles. An annual conference, now I'm getting really ambitious. An online catalogue.
Here is my first ever zine that I made over the weekend :) : https://leanimation.substack.com/p/sunday-spread-week-4-the-stick
Planning on writing some zines this year for sure!
Fuckin love zines
It's thrilling and surreal to witness the rebirth of zines. From age 12-18, I published a zine called Top Hat that sold at Quimby's in Chicago and other underground bookstores around the US. I was too young to actually enter most of these stores myself. The aroma of hot copier ink still lingers vividly in my memory.
I've been thinking about this too. Will snail mail and subversive physical publications make a comeback in the current political climate? 🤔
I think we’re all craving connection and something real—something to literally hold onto and experience IRL, especially when the online world feels so chaotic and unreliable. An underground zine network to discover like minds.
I definitely think so. Print media has always been revolutionary and it creates connections in communities. Let's make more zines!
thanks for the shout out!
Not sure if you would consider The Void a zine—I call it a journal—but it’s got all the characterists that make zines so appealing: independent publishing, (occasionally!) political content, and (IMO) cool-as-shit photography/design. https://open.substack.com/pub/areasonabledoubt/p/the-void-quarterly-journal?r=4zwti&utm_medium=ios
Yay for more zines of Substack. Thanks for sharing a roundup. Excited to dig deeper into each piece.
This rocks!
I wonder if there’d be any benefits to a “consumer coop”-type structure (like grocery coops or REI, etc.). Maybe a small annual membership fee gets you one free zine or a small discount on zines included in the directory. Or a joint producer-consumer structure would be awesome, if potentially complicated. There are some physical bookstores that are both consumer and producer-owner coops.
I really love this idea. I make zines and would love to have some kind of co-op that increases not only distribution but accessibility for others to make zines.
So fun! I recently made my first (!) physical zine and have become obsessed with the practice. So happy this community exists. Here’s a link! https://kaylanoeljohnson.substack.com/p/a-mini-puzzle-zine
Hell yeah zines!
Much like I mentioned at The Luncheonette this week - how do we come together, when it's so expensive to do so? A Zine Co-op is going to look like raising funds from folks and businesses that believe in equity, and long term investment; coupled by those of us that want to save the physical third places - staffing, managing and building community programming.
Sticky Institute in Melbourne is a great example of this succeeding. Over 20 years in and many near scrapes with closing, the zine festival they run gets bigger and bigger every year. It can be done!
So fun stumbling across this! One of my goals this year is to create one. I'm saying year as I am writing in a broader theme across the year and then planning to pull things into a zine. I was aiming for printed simply because it is tactile and I personally love reading this way. Unsure about a great response to your question though lol I personally like browsing them, and was sad to see my local independent book shop didn't have them.
cool! thanks so much for sharing!
Fuckin love this