Chip Rowe, Chip's Closet Cleaner interviewed by jenny boe ZINES HOME INTERVIEWS: Seth Friedman, Factsheet Five Paul Lukas, Beer Frame Chip Rowe, The Book Of Zines REVIEWS: Lisa Carver's Rollerderby and Dancing Queen Seth Friedman's Factsheet Five Zine Reader Paul Lukas' Inconspicuous Consumption V. Vale's Zines! Vol. I ZINESTERS TALK IT UP: Personal Media Conference Call CALL TO ARMS: Zine Books I'd Like to See NOW YOU: Survey: What zine books would you like to see? Join Tripod's Media Savvy Conference: members click here others click here

Chip Rowe's new book, The Book Of Zines: Readings From The Fringe (due out in May, 1997), contains selections from many of the finest zines around. It also features interviews with zine writers and advice for doing your own zine. A companion Web site is at www.zinebook.com; in addition, Chip maintains his own Web site with an overwhelming amount of zine information at thetransom/chip/zines/. Tripod: What inspired you to do this book? Were you approached by a publisher, or did you approach them? Chip Rowe: I've been reading zines for just about as long as I've been doing my own, Chip's Closet Cleaner, which I started in 1989 after graduating from college. I'm a bit anal retentive (witness my 660-entry "This is the Spinal Tap Zine" or my three-month index to the Weekly World News), so over the years I saved articles that struck my fancy in these tottering piles. These were the sorts of articles to which I had one of two reactions: I would look around instinctively for someone to share it with, as in "Get a load of this!" or I would feel slightly envious and think, "Damn! Why didn't I think of that?" Or it might just be a piece that was so well-written or well-researched that it made me excited about the craft of writing. I think of John Marr's "Death at Disneyland" as a prime example of that, but there are many, many others. In 1995 I started seeing more articles about zines in the mainstream press and thought that perhaps zines were well-known enough in publishing circles that it wouldn't be as difficult to pitch an anthology of great zine writing. That is, half the proposal wouldn't be taken up explaining what zines are and why they're so important to alternative culture. It took a few months, but by the spring the idea was sold and I got to work. Tripod: Why do you think so many zine books are coming out right now? It seems like your book has a similar overall idea to Seth Friedman's Zine Reader and other zine anthologies that are supposedly on the way. Is there room for all the zine books? Do you feel any pressure or competition? CR: I don't know much about Seth's book or the others that are coming out, to be honest. I'm hoping my anthology will be well received both because of the range of selections it includes and the great writing within. I hope anyone who isn't familiar with zines who reads it says to themself, "Holy shit! I can't believe I've been missing this!" and wraps up a bunch of dollar bills in envelopes and orders a bunch of zines for themselves. I think every zine writer in the book deserves a wider audience. At the same time, as much as I love zines, I also make the point in the book that 90 percent of them are crap. The value I see in this anthology is that it includes some of the ten percent of zines that are awesome and directs people in the right direction so they can start with the best of what's out there. For readers who are more familiar with zines, I tried to include selections that they might not have seen, and I also interviewed each of the 60-plus contributors about why they do zines and scattered their comments throughout the book. In many cases the selections were also updated and edited, but the contributors had final approval over any changes. I also am hoping that librarians will appreciate the book and see it as a way to introduce the idea of zines to their collections. I included an index to entice them! Tripod: What do you think of Web zines? Are they analogous to regular zines, or a totally different concept? CR: I have to say I'm not as familiar with Web zines, although as you know I'm doing a Web site to supplement the book that will include links to a lot of Web zines and zine sites. It's a paradox. I'm sort of addicted to the Net and also have a huge Web site of my own, but I still prefer paper zines. Maybe it's because I use the Web a lot for research as part of my job and so my eyes are bugging out by the time I have a minute to surf for pleasure. But I'm sure there are some excellent Web zines out there. The one disadvantage I've found with Web zines and my own site is that you can update it constantly. So I'm always fiddling. With paper zines, you have to commit at some point and print it. The occasional typo or crooked headline tells you that this is a zine, done on the fly or at least without ten people going over every cranny of it, whereas the Web stuff is always pristine — the lines are always straight. So in the end the Web stuff I maintain is much more time-consuming and demanding than my paper zines, which I eventually have to finish. On the other hand, I just put my Spinal Tap zine online after selling out the paper versions and I'm happy with doing that rather than having to update it and print another batch. This way I can update it piecemeal and it never goes out of style. Spinal Tap as a band has been out of style since it formed, of course, so I'm bucking the trend. Tripod: Can you describe your zine Chip's Closet Cleaner? How did you start doing it? CR: Every summer during college, I'd return to my basement bedroom and stare at the term papers, clippings, and loose-leaf jottings piled in my closet. With the words of Henry David Thoreau echoing in my brain ("Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!"), I'd dive in to collate. I set aside the campiest stuff I could find, pasted it on paper, copied the paper, folded it in half, affixed stamps, and sent it off to friends. After I graduated, I used the Cleaner as an excuse to write articles I wasn't sure anyone would want, and to print articles for which that premise had been confirmed. After years of cleaning out my closet, it's now full of zines. (How does that work?) The first issue was eight xeroxed pages in 1989, and it's grown to be 68 pages in 1997. The audience has grown enough that I send it to a printer. Each issue takes me about two years to put together, and I keep telling myself I'll go back to doing the Kinko's version and make it smaller. It's full of humor, pop culture, trivia, and fun, as I like to say. Basically anything that interests me. The early issues were more clippings, the latter have become clippings and articles I research about topics that catch my interest, like CD clubs or the Six Million Dollar Man or people with famous people's names. Tripod: Do you have any other zine or book-related projects planned? CR: No, I'm resting. Tripod: What other zine books would you like to see? CR: Well, I was happy to see Bill Brent did a book called Make a Zine, which I think comes out this month or next. That was really needed, and he's somebody who knows the topic — although you could argue that half the fun of doing a zine is making mistakes and learning from them. But the "how to find a printer" or "background on distributors" sort of thing would have been very helpful to me in the past. There are plenty of zines that would make good books. Pathetic Life and Nancy's Magazine come to mind. Jenny Boe grew up in Berkeley and now lives in Seattle, where she writes, temps, and maintains a Tripod homepage. She has recently rediscovered the joys of the International House of Pancakes. © 1997 Tripod, Inc. All Rights Reserved.