The zine
Russ Chauvenet was a chess champion and one of the founders of science fiction fandom. In October 1940, Russ himself coined the term fanzine in one of the issues of his fanzine publication titled Detours.1
A zine is a self-published work of text and images to distribute original or appropriated content. In December 2018, I bought a monochrome, two-sided, A4 laser printer and a long-arm stapler to produce A5 zines in-house.2 You can print on regular paper or, as I'm in love with, on recycled 80-grams paper, which makes zines look like a paperback publication with the right typeface and layout.
Thousands of years ago—well before the invention of the printing press—civilizations used stamps and presses to reproduce documents. Today, home printers, copy machines, and publishing software are widely available.1
I print my writing drafts to review and edit away from the screen. The experience is closer to reading a physical book than to that of reading an article online. Gifting a physical booklet is a great way to share my writing instead of sending a digital version to somebody's busy inbox.3
I bought the simple and robust Brother HLL2375DW printer and a Rapesco 790 stapler. ↩
As a curiosity, in the 1920s, science fiction magazines would publish readers' addresses in a column so readers would be able to exchange letters. ↩
