when did perzines become so popular?

[kitty magic]

when did perzines become so popular?
i wouldnt know, but hav they always been the favourite kind of zine for most ppl?
kami, do yoo know? coz you've been zine-ing for 20 years, right?
havent fanzines been around for a long long time? not just music fanzines.
why do you, members of this fanzine group, make a fanzine and not a perzine?
id really like to know.

[kami]

when i started doing zines it was mainly music - inspired by the punk scene - perzines werent really around at all - of course, the music zines still had personal details, i mean most punks were fuckups and losers :) so there was plenty of personal stuff within but it seems to have been the gen that discovered grunge or there after that have started the spread of the perzine (actually prob later than that now i think about it). it was usually music and politics (and film/fan stuff) back in the mid 80s. and historically kitty, the first mention ive found of fan mags/zines was the sci fi era of the fifties... then movies, then music. misery didnt love company til the new millenium.

[kitty magic]

omg there are some REALLY great e-zines out there that cover awesome music that i luv!!!! and ive noticed that the people that review the sort of music i like all write for websites or their blogs!!!! so annoying!!!

[Shotgun Seamstress]

i make a zine about Black punks, feminists, queers, artists & musicians. the first issue had somewhat personal writing in it, but i never had a desire to divulge extremely personal details in a public medium. it's just not my style. i think it's more interesting to have conversations with people so i do lots of interviews. also i like to shed light on other artists & musicians and help other people learn about them. it's true that most fanzine-like writing has gone to blogs but it's also true that lots of personal, diary-style writing has been a popular online phenomenon for a while. remember livejournal? so i'm not sure why there are so few print fanzines while there are still tons of print perzines. I tend to blame Cometbus for popularizing perzines & travel zines (not that I have a problem with Cometbus at all, it's just that his zine became really famous and might have helped make the perzine itself more popular.) Also, the feminist "the personal is political" thing gave rise to lots of personal feminist zines about body image, eating disorders, being a survivor, etc. Those types of zines have always been really important to me and definitely serve a therapeutic purpose for the writer. At this point, though, perzines are definitely over-done and I'd love to see more variety. I love reading zines where people nerd out about things that excite them whether it's movies, music, books or whatever. I also love zines where people write about what's happening in their own scene or community. There's a zine called SO NAILS from hawaii that you should check out. you'll learn all about the scene over there. how interesting is that?

[kitty magic]

Shotgun Seamstress said:

I love reading zines where people nerd out about things that excite them whether it's movies, music, books or whatever. I also love zines where people write about what's happening in their own scene or community. There's a zine called SO NAILS from hawaii that you should check out. you'll learn all about the scene over there. how interesting is that?

yes!! that IS cool