'Zine

by Pagan Kennedy

Back in print for the first time in a decade, this is the hilarious autobiography of a pioneer of the 1990s zine movement. A young woman named Pagan, having just graduated from a writing program at a very prestigious university, is left with a single burning question: Now what? She then takes an unusual step by deciding to invent her new self—the one the public will know—by starting her own magazine, one that will be written, created, and star none other than herself.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Essays, Graphic Novels, Autobiography, Art

181 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 1995

About the author

Pagan Kennedy is a regular contributor to the New York Times and author of eleven books. A biography titled Black Livingstone made the NewYork Times Notable list and earned Massachusetts Book Award honors. She also has been the recipient of a Barnes and Noble Discover Award, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction, and a Smithsonian Fellowship for science writing. Visit her online at www.pagankennedy.net.

"

Reviews

[Megan]

I read this years ago, probably when it first came out. I picked it up in the small books section of Tower Records in East Lansing, MI (a good hour and a half drive from where I grew up, but the closest place to find "cool" stuff when I was a teenager) because the cover looked rad, and I wanted to make a 'zine of my own. Which I did, later.

I recently found old copies of my high school 'zine and it's a bit embarrassing how much this book clearly influenced me at the time; at how much I wanted to *be* this person. Reading about someone who basically invented a persona for themselves and made themselves cool by writing about that persona as if it were true made me think that could be possible for me, also, and that stuck with me beyond high school and on into college, and my weird book reading blog of the early 2000s, and maybe (for better or worse) beyond.

But, it's also better written than I really remember being capable of - especially at age, what, 16? - so that's kinda cool.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit that I had a 'zine in high school. But mine was nowhere near as cool as Pagan's Head, the 'zine Pagan Kennedy wrote during her MFA years and which she documents in this book. Not only is her 'zine one of the most entertaining and well-written 'zines I've ever seen, but her writing about it in retrospect is incredibly insightful and hilarious. She talks about all the reasons she wanted to have a 'zine, and what exactly she got out of it, with clarity and humor. This is worth reading for anyone who has ever tried on a different identity or wished they were someone a little bit cooler than they are, as well as writers and creative folks of all kinds.

***re-read in 2022***

[Phil Ford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast and furious read of one of the forerunners of zine culture in the 1990s. Each chapter is a flash-pan biography of her work in writing and zines, broken up wonderfully by actual reprints of her Zine. Delightful, engaging hilarious stuff, especially for anyone that has been involved in creating one of their one little masterpieces. You really can see yourself in some ways in her. It really is fascinating to see the growth of zine culture from her perspective, and comparing it to "real" publishing. A lot of what went on in the 90s with zine culture can be seen today in the localization of small presses, music, everything - D.I.Y.baby!. Fascinating to think about. Some complain that this work is too self-absorbed, they missed the point. My only complaint is that those reprints are so TINY in the words they can't be read easily.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great little journey through the life of a zine from a writer who received her MFA, then decided to go off the beaten path artistically. I never saw Pagan Kennedy's zines when they first came out in the nineties, but I thoroughly enjoyed flipping through the issues (reprinted in this book) and reading Kennedy's commentary on their creation. Would have loved more commentary to balance out the zine material, as I'm always interested in a writer's motivations and processes, but this is overall a fun read for anyone who loves to create things.

[Kate Sweeney · Rating 4 out of 5]

God, I was obsessed with this book. This might've been The book that got my high school friend and me to start our own 'zine, or maybe that came first, but at any rate, it crystallized the idea of what writing and publishing for yourself could look like--and what fun it could be. Snarky humor! Photocopied pictures! Whited-out text! Hand-drawn comics!
God, it's still what creativity is to me.

Thank you, Pagan Kennedy.

[Ocean · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is the book that started it all! i read in 8th grade & i've been a zinester ever since. it was the first thing that made me realize that there was more to life than having a job, working all day & being miserable. it opened up so many goddamn possibilities in my mind & i probably wouldn't be the same person today without it, honestly.

[Dorothea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to read this zine in the 90's. Loved her!

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

The eight chapters of this book correspond to the eight issues of a zine that Pagan Kennedy put out between the ages of 25 and 31 (she wrote this book when she was 32), and each chapter consists mostly of b&w reproductions of an issue of the zine itself, preceded by an introductory essay. As it turns out, I liked Kennedy's persona for the essays (which is more self-reflective) more than her persona for the zine (which was intentionally self-parodic). My interest in the zines was also not helped by the fact that Kennedy's cultural touchstones are (mostly) quite different from mine: at one point in one of the intro essays she talks about reading a lot as a kid, and loving books that I loved, too: "the Narnia series, Alice in Wonderland, The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time" (26). But those books don't come up in the zine: the childhood thing that comes up the most is her love of the Partridge Family. (I don't think I've ever seen an episode of that show, so references to the characters and the actors who played them were lost on me.)

I did enjoy reading about Kennedy's experiences as a writer—how she loved being in a graduate writing program with writers who were as neurotic/obsessive as she was, her perception that "The New Yorker seemed to publish story after story about people getting divorced in Westchester," how her "fanzine was a fuck-you to The New Yorker and the University of Iowa and the Bread Loaf writers' colony and Ticknor & Fields and Raymond Carver and agents named Bitsy and John Updike and the twenty-two-year-old novelists that Newsweek told me hung out in the hottest clubs and English Comp jobs" (7, 9). I also liked various autobiographical comics in the zine: there's one about a favorite pair of green sneakers, and another about a best friend who moved away, and another about a health problem and the difficulties of navigating the medical system. And one issue is mostly about a road trip across the US, and includes some really pleasing writing, like this description of a Halloween on the road: "Then I drove us through the swamps of Louisiana, along a highway flanked by burned-out cars and the twisted outlines of trees. A heavy mist swirled on the road in front of us, scudding and eddying on the asphalt and disappearing in tendrils all around the car." (95-96)

[Petty Lisbon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Did you watch Reality Bites and think "this was okay, but I wish it was just about Janeane Garofalo's character"? Fret no more! This is the perfect book for you.
This book is about an author's experiences writing a zine about herself as she decides what kind of professional path she wants to go down. It includes excerpts of the zines themselves and little pieces about her life at the time of each zine. The zines themselves were generally eh, but it was just a goofy inside joke she did in her 20's for her friends, so I just skimmed them (imagine if someone turned their Tumblr into a book? What a nightmare) but the writing was always strong.
The last part was really strong (you'll know what I refer to as "the last part" when you reach it). At first I just thought she was kind of rambling without a point or any personal growth but then wham, it hits you.
I thought she did a really great part at explaining how her health and losing her dad changed her. It definitely was a 180 from how goofy the early zines were.

[Ezra · Rating 3 out of 5]

A compilation of 1990s zine pioneer Pagan Kennedy's Pagan's Head zines, interspersed with commentary on the background context about various events in her life and how they were represented in/affected each included issue of her zine. This is the second time I've tried to read this book in two years, but this time I actually finished it (with quite a bit of skimming - of the zines, mostly - to be fair).

I didn't find myself all that interested in the zines or their content themselves, and began to find myself bored about a quarter of the way through reading; however, I did particularly enjoy the introductory and first chapters, in which she wrote about what led her to create zines and zinemaking in the 1990s. I do wish she'd gone into more detail about her creative and publishing processes, but ah well!

[Dominque Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book, It was so good!! I'd read it over and over again.

[Blake Fraina · Rating 3 out of 5]

In many ways, reading Pagan Kennedy’s Zine was like a trip down memory lane. The author and I are the same age and I fondly remember the 1980’s as a time when my friends and I all had vaguely artsy ambitions. I even tried my hand at quasi-feminist collage art pieces that I sent out anonymously to total strangers in an attempt at mail art. And while I never created my own zine, I was certainly a fan of the genre, frequenting Untitled, a shop in NYC’s Soho, to pick up home-made chapbooks, illustrated periodicals (my favorite being the postage stamp sized Public Illumination), underground comix and zeroxed zines.

So it’s definitely cool that this book includes the entire run of Kennedy’s zine, Pagan’s Head. Issues of the zine itself (in all its amateurish glory) alternate with chapters describing what was going on in her life at the time, offering some fascinating insights into how some of her more depressing experiences manifested themselves in the work. Ultimately I found myself more interested in the expository material written specifically for the book, which is much more personal and less cloyingly glib than the zine itself. Groovy as it was as the time, a lot of that stuff hasn’t really aged all that well.

Early on, Kennedy claims that the zine-writer Pagan was a persona who wore madcap outfits and enjoyed being the center of attention everywhere she went, as opposed to the “real” Pagan who was more reserved and mundane. But over time, it seems like the two versions of Pagan came closer together as the zine begins to focus less on quirky, arcane subjects (like her teenaged obsession with The Partridge Family) and more on her real-life experience of burgeoning celebrity. The ultimate convergence between the two different Pagans occurs when she devotes an entire issue, in the style of a graphic novel, to a personal medical misfortune. Pretty heavy stuff indeed.

Zine was originally put together, in the exact same format, when Kennedy was only 32 years old – a mere year after the final issue of Pagan’s Head. This is a re-issue of the same book. My only disappointment, in an otherwise engaging and fun book, is that the current publisher didn’t opt to include a final Epilogue written by the now 50+ author. I think it would have added an extra dimension if the reader could get an insight into her feelings about the work with a twenty year perspective. But still an entertaining (and frankly, envy-provoking) read.

[Kimm · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this much more than expected. I liked the introduction preceding each zine which explains what was going on behind the scenes in Pagan's life and helped to enrich each issue. Due to her style of writing, and despite the fact that the zines themselves were reproduced in excruciatingly tiny print, I often found myself unaware of whether I was reading an intro or a zine. She captivates. My copy has many page corners turned because something she wrote about was so striking that I wanted to read it again and tell others about it: her thoughts about her slave-owning ancestors, her father's battle with cancer, her own battle with healthcare, and, yes, the feminist popcorn recipe! My favorite entry was Tearing Up the Highway which is lengthy but ended much too soon. Although a zine, it rivals any "across America" travelogue, one of my favorite genres. I now have several other Pagan Kennedy books on my wishlist.

[Lo · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend gave this book to me a long time ago right before it went out of print. I remember devouring it one afternoon and being surprised at how little advice it gave about zines or perspective. I've reread it and enjoyed it much more for being a collection of one person's zinelife and that makes it valuable.

[Elyssa · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun and entertaining book that was written before blogs existed. It also serves as an inspiration for creating "old school" cut and paste 'zines.

[Violet · Rating 5 out of 5]

an early influence on me

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am pretty sure I read this book, but I don't remember if I liked it or not

[Blue Mountains Library]

a fun chronicle of underground writing and zine culture.

N.O

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this book and the zines it contained, made me want to find more zine written like Pagans.

[Bea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as compelling as Cecilia Perez’ Ofrenda zine anthology. Still, Kennedy is a prominent figure in the world of perzines. Recommended for collectors.

[Julie Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nostalgic read

It is an interesting read. I like the behind the scenes write up best. Even better if you lived through the late 80s-90s

[tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super quick read. I'm using this as reference for a school project but it made me want to make zines again an maybe perzines give perzines a try.

[Fiona]

zines rule 4eva