by jenny boe 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?

Everywhere I look these days, I see a new zine book. Books about zines, books that sample zines, books that compile one zine, books of new writings by zine creators, and books on how to put out your own zine. (Still to come: Books about how to make your zine a book?). Seth Friedman's The Factsheet Five Zine Reader and Chip Rowe's The Book of Zines are due out shortly: Each presents a smorgasbord of excerpts from zines. Zines! Vol. 1 from V/Search Press came out last year, featuring interviews with a variety of zinesters; Volume 2 is due in July. Paul Lukas' Inconspicuous Consumption is taken from his zine Beer Frame, and Lisa Carver's Rollerderby: The Book collects material from her zine of the same name. Dancing Queen, Lisa's other book, is another type of zine book — a collection of new essays (some of which began as zine articles) from a well-known zine publisher. Publicized on zine hype, of course. Though these books all spring from the zine world, it would be wrong to think they represent some kind of unified, homogenous group. "This is a movement without leaders or spokespersons," writes V. Vale in Zines! Vol. 1. Just look at Rollerderby and Beer Frame — both have been anthologized into books, yet the zines could not be more different. So why are so many of these books coming out now? Most of it comes down to the fact that some great writing has been published in zines, and publishers are catching on (or having it shoved in their faces!). I'd like to think that was all there is to it, but there's undeniably a hip factor involved as well: As zines get more well-known in the mainstream, they have taken on a cool, underground cachet (Dancing Queen's back cover blurb boastfully describes Rollerderby as "a phenomenal counterculture sensation"). And publishers, eager to establish themselves some "generation next" cred, are cashing in. More zine books are on the way. Al Hoff has a book called Thrift Score coming out in the fall; she publishes a great thrifting zine by the same name. Make A Zine! is due out this month from Bill Brent, with all kinds of practical information for would-be zine publishers. Veronika Kalmar has a similar book in the works. And Francesca Lia Block (author of Weetzie Bat) is working on a zine-related book. There's no reason why great books that have their roots in zines shouldn't be coming forth indefinitely; as zines proliferate, more great zine writing will undoubtedly make its way into book form. And perhaps the how-to books will inspire more would-be zinesters to get their feet wet. A few zine-related books have been out for a while. The World Of Zines by Mike Gunderloy (the original publisher of Factsheet Five) and Cari Goldberg Janice was released by Penguin in 1992 (but is now pretty much unavailable). Pagan Kennedy's book 'Zine (reprints of her zine Pagan's Head interspersed with commentary written after the fact) came out in 1995. Though the zine material in 'Zine is often hilarious, it's tainted somewhat by Pagan's dismissing notes, as if the zine work is somehow less "real" than her other writing, and is only valuable as a step in her personal development and emergence from "the underground." In contrast, the zine book authors mentioned above all express pride in their zine roots; they rightly don't feel it necessary to justify or explain away zine publishing. But the material in these books is not worthwhile because it made it into book form. Although it's kind of convenient to have the content pre-selected and nicely bound, this is certainly not the only zine writing worth checking out! Zines themselves remain a vital and virtually unquantifiable publishing force; while some people may see the books as giving the zines legitimacy, this misses the point of what zines are all about. As Paul Lukas writes in Zines! Vol. 1, "What I'm doing should be judged on what it is, not on how major media institutions have chosen to interact with it. It doesn't need that kind of validation." There are plenty of quality zines out there which "major media institutions" haven't picked up on (yet). The concept of "personal media" works both ways: You can create media that represents your personal view, and you can select your personal picks from the vastness of what's out there. These books and authors are just a sampling of the glorious diversity that exists in zine publishing today. 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.