With ’90s nostalgia — from Doc Martens to Winona Ryder — rampant, it’s no surprise that zines are making a comeback. Zines are homemade magazines, usually cut and pasted and sold in small print runs. They’re currently thriving in New York, following this summer’s Zine Fest in Brooklyn and as a prominent element in the Younger Than Jesus show at the New Museum earlier this year.
The Lower East Side shop ANYthing has started to sponsor zine nights, where customers can make their own creations. The New York Public Library, Barnard and Pratt all have their own collections. Jenna Freedman, the zine librarian at Barnard, thinks that part of the allure is a reaction to our digital age. “People are overwhelmed by the online world, and retreating to something more manageable and tangible like print feels soothing.”
Ayun Halliday started her zine, “The East Village Inky,” in 1998 and resisted the pressure to switch to a blog. “I’m a paper fetishist,” says the 44-year-old mom of two who lives in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. “I like to think of someone discovering an issue in an attic or a dusty bookstore 20, 50 or 100 years from now.” Her latest project is a Zinester’s Guide to NYC.
New York’s zine scene is a mix of Gen X veterans, like Halliday, who never stopped publishing, and younger enthusiasts. Freedman has had prospective students who have no memory of life before blogs request tours of the zine library during campus visits.
Aaron Lake Smith, 26, a journalist, is the author of several zines, including one on Joan Didion and his most recent, “Unemployment,” which was written during a jobless period last winter. He started doing a zine one summer when none of his friends were around.
These days, zines don’t have to be strictly photocopied affairs. Brooklyn artist Brian Faucette, 26, of Bushwick, created an audio zine for sale by subscription at the Chinatown pop-up shop Two Bridges Trading. The mix CD includes everything from Jay-Z to Phillip Glass and each edition comes with a printed component as well.
The fashion world is also courting the zine scene. Interiors blog The Selby has a limited-edition zine sold at Colette in Paris and London-based POP magazine tapped White Lightning blogger Elizabeth Spiridakis to make a zine supplement to its September issue.
Spiridakis, a 31-year-old Chelsea resident, had a zine in high school called “Unshaft.” She is thinking of going back to her roots and starting a new zine: “The more entrenched I get in the Internet, the more I appreciate making something that you can hold in your hand.”