Man Is The Media.
DIY Zine Culture Goes Digital
March 10th, 2009 by Martin
I was asked to talk a bit about Issuu by Zine Arcade, who really liked the possibilities to publish online. Here are a few bits of it (the least promoting parts):
Issuu is the ideal platform for the zine community. I myself have been very inspired by the old b/w DIY culture, and that movement is now flourishing online in all sorts of colors and formats. What I thought was interesting about the Issuu project when I joined, was that all the fantastic but hidden zines and weirdly interesting publications out there would be collected in one place, in a digital format that gives credit to the content it presents.
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To me the zine-culture is all about not caring to go through the established channels where talent often is streamlined too much anyway: You do what you have to do, right here and now with whatever means you have available. It’s a very entrepreneurial spirit that I admire. With Issuu publishing is finally something anyone can do, and I see that as the perfect digital extension for the wast undergrowth of important subcultural movements anywhere in the world.
I also make mention of the excellent blog, Punks Is Hippies (sic) that uses Issuu to re-publish old b/w punk zines. And with great success so far, as over 287,000 people have viewed these truly unique publications. Stuff like this is exactly what I had hoped for would happen if only online publishing was made free and easy to do, while maintaining the original format on screen. There’s an example embedded below to show you what I mean. Where else would you find a 19995 copy of Belgian Hate 8000 Zine #3, featuring the great band Ringworm.
Please check out the full interview, with additional comments from Paul O’Connell (The Sound of Drowning), Steven Gregor (Gym Class), and Wes White (Attack!!!!).
