What are fanzines?  Do the words sound familiar? It should.  The mathematical formula for fanzines is fan + magazines = FANZINES!  Still, what are fanzines?  Fanzines are articles written by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share the same interest.  The first fanzine ever created was a science fiction fanzine written by Russ Chauvenet in October 1940.  Usually all fanzine writers never do it for money, its always about sharing information about the interest or to spread the interest. Back in the 70’s and late 60’s fanzines were written with hectographs, and mimeograph machines. Since fans never saw the articles of what interested them in popular magazines, they self-published their own articles.

Fanzines can be about almost anything. The most popular topics were usually science fiction, literacy, horror films, comics and rock & roll.  They would usually start by publishing their own fanzines and give them to their friends, and their friends would give them to their friends, and it would spread and become popular.  Once the fanzine became popular, (locally) many people from around the country would hear about them over time (remember there was no internet back then, so after months of searching for fanzines of your interest, you would finally find them).  KISS fanzines were a global phenomenon, there were fanzines made anywhere from U.S. to Australia, to even Japan.  There were so many fans subscribed to the fanzines that so many became official magazines.  Fans could range from a few hundred to a few thousands.

Fanzines were usually were the only way to get word of what you liked, and it could take months for those news to arrive.  Sadly, most fanzines would only last a couple of years, usually ended because of printing costs, or lost of interest.  But most died because of something we use so much today….the internet.  Those fanzines that survived adapted to the new way of communication and became e-zines.  Fanzines were a very important  way of communication.