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Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture
Slug & Lettuce , Pathetic Life , I Hate Brenda , Dishwasher , Punk and Destroy , Sweet Jesus , Scrambled Eggs , Maximunrocknroll —these are among the thousands of publications which circulate in a subterranean world rarely illuminated by the searchlights of mainstream media commentary. In this multifarious underground, Pynchonesque misfits rant and rave, fans eulogize, hobbyists obsess. Together they form a low-tech publishing network of extraordinary richness and variety. Welcome to the realm of zines.
In this, the first comprehensive study of zine publishing, Stephen Duncombe describes their origins in early-twentieth-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. While Notes from Underground pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital web of popular culture, it also notes the shortcomings of their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Duncombe’s book raises the larger questionof whether it is possible to rebel culturally within a consumer society that eats up cultural rebellion.
Packed with extracts and illustrations from a wide array of publications, past and present, Notes from Underground is the first book to explore the full range of zine culture and provides a definitive portrait of the contemporary underground in all its splendor and misery.
In this, the first comprehensive study of zine publishing, Stephen Duncombe describes their origins in early-twentieth-century science fiction cults, their more proximate roots in 60s counter-culture and their rapid proliferation in the wake of punk rock. While Notes from Underground pays full due to the political importance of zines as a vital web of popular culture, it also notes the shortcomings of their utopian and escapist outlook in achieving fundamental social change. Duncombe’s book raises the larger questionof whether it is possible to rebel culturally within a consumer society that eats up cultural rebellion.
Packed with extracts and illustrations from a wide array of publications, past and present, Notes from Underground is the first book to explore the full range of zine culture and provides a definitive portrait of the contemporary underground in all its splendor and misery.
240 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 1997
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
March 27, 2023
i had to read this for class but i actually found it so interesting and inspirational!! zines and the alternative culture of the 80s and 90s are fascinating topics, and Duncombe introduces you to it in an entertaining way :)
July 8, 2024
Fascinating!
February 27, 2012
The only full academic treatment of zines to date. There have been a few good studies of girls' zines since, but Duncombe is still the only one to do a book-length study of the entire zine phenomenon. This was in 1997, when zines as a fad had just peaked and waned in the mainstream consciousness and before online self-publishing became so influential that most people assumed zines were a thing of the past. So Duncombe's book comes off as a bit dated today, but you can't hold that against him.
He does a great job of showing what zines are and why they're important. They empower the powerless to speak their own message and tell their own story alongside and against the stories that others would tell about them.
But this isn't just a book about zines. It's also about the dynamics of underground culture, defining itself negatively against the dominance of a mainstream culture that will always gobble up and assimilate its alternatives. Duncombe deftly analyzes the space between the underground and the mainstream, the constantly shifting boundaries and the issues at stake when a subculture seeks to preserve its identity against louder voices that would drown it out. Duncombe's main concern is that even though the underground truly wants to effect change in the world, it's desires are hampered by fears about identity loss and assimilation. Using zines as a case study, he argues that these fears have to be put to one side, in part, in order to make progress toward the change that all of the diverse voices behind the zine movement want to see.
Issues of race and gender are largely absent from Duncombe's study. He addresses both in passing, but not at the level one would expect given that both have been a huge part of zines and a huge issue in underground culture during the years he's looking at (80s and 90s). Another point, and not so much a criticism, is that Duncombe predicts the future of zines is on the Internet, which just turned out to be wrong. Yes, a lot of zinemakers in the late 90s tried to create an online presence for their zines, or took their self-publication activity completely online, but today there is a pretty deep divide between what a zine is and what a blog is. Print is still important to the zine community, and I won't get in to why right now, but it is. What would be great is a second edition of this book that updates the study to take the print/digital divide into account - why is it meaningful to continue to publish print zines? Why is the digital realm insufficient or maybe even suspicious?
He does a great job of showing what zines are and why they're important. They empower the powerless to speak their own message and tell their own story alongside and against the stories that others would tell about them.
But this isn't just a book about zines. It's also about the dynamics of underground culture, defining itself negatively against the dominance of a mainstream culture that will always gobble up and assimilate its alternatives. Duncombe deftly analyzes the space between the underground and the mainstream, the constantly shifting boundaries and the issues at stake when a subculture seeks to preserve its identity against louder voices that would drown it out. Duncombe's main concern is that even though the underground truly wants to effect change in the world, it's desires are hampered by fears about identity loss and assimilation. Using zines as a case study, he argues that these fears have to be put to one side, in part, in order to make progress toward the change that all of the diverse voices behind the zine movement want to see.
Issues of race and gender are largely absent from Duncombe's study. He addresses both in passing, but not at the level one would expect given that both have been a huge part of zines and a huge issue in underground culture during the years he's looking at (80s and 90s). Another point, and not so much a criticism, is that Duncombe predicts the future of zines is on the Internet, which just turned out to be wrong. Yes, a lot of zinemakers in the late 90s tried to create an online presence for their zines, or took their self-publication activity completely online, but today there is a pretty deep divide between what a zine is and what a blog is. Print is still important to the zine community, and I won't get in to why right now, but it is. What would be great is a second edition of this book that updates the study to take the print/digital divide into account - why is it meaningful to continue to publish print zines? Why is the digital realm insufficient or maybe even suspicious?
July 4, 2023
really truly slay
November 8, 2019
Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture offers a look at the underground community of people who created self-published zines. The author explains what zines are, the categories of zines that are created (and the categories of people that create zines), and why zines had become so popular. He breaks the book into ten parts and attempts to explain the entire world under which zines were created and flourished.
The book was written at the height of zine popularity in the Underground scene, so the information provided is accurate and relevant, and, at the time provided a very good insight into what was happening. He discusses many zines that were popular then, and how the creators make them--how they put hours of work into something they will not make a profit off of, and how this reveals who they are as members of society. However, the book has become dated over time. The author states that the thinks that the zine community will move into an online space, which has not happened in the 22 years since the book was published.
The author gives a very extensive look into different types of zines created and how the community was formed, but he also often contradicts himself: stating first that zines are "vast and any effort to classify and codify them immediately reveals shortcomings" but then classifying and categorizing them in the following paragraphs. He also often sounds overly pretentious when writing, stating that "it was a vernacular radicalism, an indigenous strain of utopian thought". This statement can be hard to understand, and the entire book is written in this way, which often muddles what the author is trying to say. Many times, he could have easily replaced complicated, obscure words with simpler ones and still have had the same effect.
The book was written at the height of zine popularity in the Underground scene, so the information provided is accurate and relevant, and, at the time provided a very good insight into what was happening. He discusses many zines that were popular then, and how the creators make them--how they put hours of work into something they will not make a profit off of, and how this reveals who they are as members of society. However, the book has become dated over time. The author states that the thinks that the zine community will move into an online space, which has not happened in the 22 years since the book was published.
The author gives a very extensive look into different types of zines created and how the community was formed, but he also often contradicts himself: stating first that zines are "vast and any effort to classify and codify them immediately reveals shortcomings" but then classifying and categorizing them in the following paragraphs. He also often sounds overly pretentious when writing, stating that "it was a vernacular radicalism, an indigenous strain of utopian thought". This statement can be hard to understand, and the entire book is written in this way, which often muddles what the author is trying to say. Many times, he could have easily replaced complicated, obscure words with simpler ones and still have had the same effect.
October 27, 2022
Political and music zines were big at one time, this a history of those zines and the movements associated with them. Not covered were things like fan, gaming or hobby zines. I was unfamiliar with most of these, just another example of the fragmentation of the left. I know of a few gaming zines still being published, Alaurums and Excursions is one but looks like the zines covered by this book are extinct. Mostly online now is the author's and my thoughts on the subject.
January 18, 2025
i love love love that this book emphasizes that while zine (and alternative) culture can be radicalizing, these cultures are not inherently making direct action in a material way. subcultures are a starting point for radical change, not the end.
February 16, 2026
Nice, non-hagiographic look at the 'zine scene. The section on "Factsheet Five" reminded me of how some open source projects wind up becoming a burden on their creators, end up in the hands of others, and tragically lose their original mission.
March 15, 2026
Overall good, an academic love letter to zines and underground culture. I annotated a fair amount. However! It said a lot of similar things a lot of similar ways. So much so that I think this could’ve been cut down by like 100 pages. Still overall very good
May 13, 2026
I gobbled this up during some commutes. I'm currently working on developing a zine collection for our library and bought this on impulse when I saw it at a local book store (Another Story Bookshop--AMAZING!) and also bought some zines of course.
May 2, 2020
Read for research.
A really good introduction to zine culture and the politics surrounding it.
A really good introduction to zine culture and the politics surrounding it.
March 27, 2024
really great until it started repeating itself loads over the last 50+ pages
January 3, 2026
nenutte ma pisat review na tuto knihu, uz som ho raz musela pisat na dve strany a vycerpala som slova
April 9, 2016
Duncombe has written a quasi-academic approach to the meaning of zines, but his topic is so broad that a lot of what he writes doesn't really have much meaning.
Zines (short for fanzine) are self-produced, amateur writings that usually associated with punk rock scenes, though not exclusively. The zine heyday was right around when this book was published--1997, before the internet had fully arrived to offer easier access to the navel gazing of the masses.
Like most mediums, there were some excellent zines published (I was partial to Combetbus when I was growing up) but also the majority of the product was not so good. Still, zines didn't have the screening process of professionally produced media, meaning both that there was no quality control but also that there were more opportunities for expression of non-mainstream ideas and basically no barriers to entry for the enterprising high school wannabe writer.
But to ask the question "what is the significance of zines" which is the question that Duncombe seems to want to ask, is pretty much impossible to satisfactorily answer. You might well ask what is the meaning of music? What is the meaning of poetry? What is the meaning of theater?
Obviously, there is no one meaning. There is an ethos; there are certain schools of thought; there are certain standout publications. Duncombe discusses this sort of, but always feels like he is chasing the One Big Statement about zines that just isn't there. And his book is too short to really be a history of the art form exactly. Instead, too often it is just excerpts from zines that the author likes attached to vague philosophical sentiments about the meaning of alternative culture and its failure to truly challenge mainstream culture, whatever that is.
It's all a little frustrating because I agree with Duncombe's politics and am sympathetic to his subject matter, but Notes from Underground felt like less than the sum of its parts. It's not a bad book, but one that feels like an early draft that could be improved.
Zines (short for fanzine) are self-produced, amateur writings that usually associated with punk rock scenes, though not exclusively. The zine heyday was right around when this book was published--1997, before the internet had fully arrived to offer easier access to the navel gazing of the masses.
Like most mediums, there were some excellent zines published (I was partial to Combetbus when I was growing up) but also the majority of the product was not so good. Still, zines didn't have the screening process of professionally produced media, meaning both that there was no quality control but also that there were more opportunities for expression of non-mainstream ideas and basically no barriers to entry for the enterprising high school wannabe writer.
But to ask the question "what is the significance of zines" which is the question that Duncombe seems to want to ask, is pretty much impossible to satisfactorily answer. You might well ask what is the meaning of music? What is the meaning of poetry? What is the meaning of theater?
Obviously, there is no one meaning. There is an ethos; there are certain schools of thought; there are certain standout publications. Duncombe discusses this sort of, but always feels like he is chasing the One Big Statement about zines that just isn't there. And his book is too short to really be a history of the art form exactly. Instead, too often it is just excerpts from zines that the author likes attached to vague philosophical sentiments about the meaning of alternative culture and its failure to truly challenge mainstream culture, whatever that is.
It's all a little frustrating because I agree with Duncombe's politics and am sympathetic to his subject matter, but Notes from Underground felt like less than the sum of its parts. It's not a bad book, but one that feels like an early draft that could be improved.
May 29, 2009
Duncombe's bias toward his subject matter ultimately forecloses some of the (in my opinion) most significant offerings this book might make regarding zines as both a medium and a practice. I refer not to the fact that Duncombe is invested in his subject matter, but rather to the fact that he feels zines' greatest potential was in their makers' attempts to entirely overthrow mainstream culture (including our contemporary system of capitalism). Since this unlikely goal was never achieved by the politically prevalent zine movement that Duncombe both profiles and was a part of, he all but deems the contributions of zines a failure, without recognizing other meanings might emerge from other aspects of their production and consumption. More self consciousness regarding his own biases may have resulted in a less mixed message. As it is, his book manages to be instructive without quite succeeding at being theoretically substantial or uniformly argued.
October 11, 2013
Highly absorbing and thorough investigation into zine culture as a DIY experiment in carving out new ideals and resisting mainstream thinking. As both a zinester and academic, Stephen Duncombe does an admirable job of highlighting common themes and aspirations among zine creators, while honestly showing the potential and limitations of this still flourishing medium. This book (latest edition, 2008) has helped me better articulate why zines remain more promising avenues than blogs and social media—in Duncombe's words, "Self-publishing may have been democratized with the rise of the Internet, but within the zine scene Do-It-Yourself is more than just a publishing practice, it is an entire way of thinking, being and creating; a shared ideal of what culture, community, and creativity could be." My moral imagination senses are tingling!
April 14, 2014
A well-written and fascinating history and cultural critique of zine publishing. Exhaustively researched and filled with first person interviews, Stephen Duncombe writes with passion and clarity. As a zine creator and members of the underground, Duncombe write from personal experience. I don't know if their is another discussion of zine culture as through a this, by if ha to be on o th best.
February 5, 2017
Duncombe provides an in-depth look at zines -- from culture to philosophy to tension[s]. I'm really satisfied with his critical approach, juxtaposing theory with excerpts from major players in the zine community.
I recommend that you read the part on Zines/Underground Movements and Politics (that's Chapter 8).
I recommend that you read the part on Zines/Underground Movements and Politics (that's Chapter 8).
March 3, 2015
a lot of thought provoking questions that were fun to think about but I didn't like the authors analysis much at all. I also felt like the book was aimed at a very mixed audiance so some parts were more relavent to my interests than others
December 2, 2013
Fascinating history of zines and "alternative" culture as well as a thorough critique; the updated Conclusion, with its discussion of internet publishing and the difference between that and true DIY, is revelatory.
February 9, 2008
Academic writing that's fun to read and inspiring.
October 5, 2011
Interesting but pretty scattered. Didn't like the lay out.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews