Research for Fanzine Project

1. Fanzine Research
Charlie Atkin

2. Existing Product
Front cover Double Page Spread

3. Existing Product
The Trainspotting fanzine that I have looked at is more of a newer approach to the famous
“Choose life” speech from the 1996 film Trainspotting.
The content in the fanzine is parts of the speech separated into smaller singular quotes
that take up the centre stage of one of the pages with a image that links to the quote, the
style of the fanzine is very minimalistic and there isn't much to the actual design of the
magazine. It is very simplistic and this works in its favour as the speech is meant to be
straight to the point so the simplistic style is very effective. A lot of the pages use a similar
background which is like a paper background with marks on it which gives it a rough look
which fits with the films themes. The main majority of the magazine is black and white and
it uses yellow to highlight and cross out elements of the magazine such as on the page
with “low cholesterol and dental insurance“, in the fanzine the author uses the yellow to
highlight and draw a line through some of the text to help to show the ideas of the film
such as the line through low in low cholesterol and a line through insurance in dental
insurance as these do not fit with the themes of the film as the film is about taking risks
and living life on the edge, so crossing out those words helps to reinforce the points of the
movie.

4. Existing Product
The fanzine is from a very different point of view from when the movie was originally released in 1996.
Since the movie was released it has become a cult hit that has been delved deeper into by the movie
watching community.
The fanzine uses a black, white and yellow colour scheme that works really well as the colours work
really well together as the black and white and very simple and then the yellow contrasts the bland
colours of black and white. The yellow is very eye-catching and works well with black and white. The
images in the fanzine are a mixture of drawings and pictures from real life, these images work very
well together as parts of the magazine have a more realistic look to them and some of the slides are
meant to exaggerate the truth and the drawings help to illustrate this point.
The text to picture ratio in this fanzine usually the centre of one page filled with a quote and then the
other half of the page taken up by an image that relates to the quote. But on some of the pages with a
larger amount of text from the speech the quote is sometimes split up by images that link into the
quote such as on Page 14-15.
The author of the fanzine has used different fonts and different strokes to emphasize different words
such as on page 16-17 where the author uses a serif font instead of the blocky sans serif font that has
been used a lot through the fanzine, this change of font helps to put across that the font is nicer and
therefore better and good compared to the blocky font.

5. Existing Product
The fanzine that I have researched is covering Trainspotting, a 1996 comedy film based on
the book of the same name. The film explores the story of a group of heroin addicts and
their lives in the urban poverty in a “culturally rich” Edinburgh. The fanzine takes the
speech from the intro of the film and splits up the entire speech into smaller more
manageable sized quotes.
The fanzine was created in the context of trying to show the speech in a different light and
trying to give a new meaning to the speech by using images and drawings to illustrate the
ideas put forward by the speech in a more visual way.
This fanzine was produced in 2012 which is a sort of weird time for it to be released as a
lot of the cultural relevance of the movies was around the time that movie was released in
the late 90’s to the early 2000’s. This fanzine shows that after 16 years the movie is still
relevant and culturally relevant to some people. This is also a weird time for this to be
released as just 5 years later there was a sequel released for the film.

6. Existing Product
Front cover Double Page Spread

7. Existing Product
The magazine that I am researching is The Best of Alter Ego, this fanzine is a deep dive into
comics and their original roots. This fanzine likes to delve deep into the “Golden Age” of
comics and have a look at how these characters were made and the stories behind them.
This fanzine reviews the origins of these comic and likes to interview the people who
created them so that we can see how experiences have influenced their stories that they
tell. The fanzine was founded in 1961 and liked to focus on comics from the 1930’s to the
late 1960’s. The original run of the comics lasted 11 Issues that was spread over 17 years,
10 issues were released between 1961 and 1969 with issues #11 following 9 years later in
1978. In 1997 at a comic fan reunion the editor for the fanzine and a friend met with
TwoMorrows Publishing and agreed to bring back Alter Ego as a part of their Comic Book
Artist magazine. A large portion of the fanzine is dedicated to interviews with comic book
writers and artists, this is very interesting as a lot of these writers draw from their lives to
bring these stories to life and to learn about their lives is interesting. The fanzine is very
formal in its layout and the writing of the fanzine is very formal as well and this reflects the
time that the magazine was produced, a lot of the content from the 1960s was very formal
as this was the time that America began to become more commercial and industrial.

8. Existing Product
The sketches on the front cover are homages to the original products created by the
people who are discussed in the magazines. The colours of the magazine are very
contrasting and this is a very iconic look as it is very simplistic but works very well. The art
style of the magazine is very reminiscent of the so called “Golden Age” of comics, as these
were the times when the comics just started and they are known as the classics. This style
is very iconic as at the time the artists didn’t use shadow and different colour to show
lighting they just drew the characters. The picture to text ratio in this fanzine is very
minimal as this fanzine has a much more formal than the typical magazine so there is a lot
less pictures when compared to the amount of text, the text dominates the page as it is
more of an informative fanzine instead of being more like a picture book.

9. Existing Product
Front cover Double Page Spread

10. Existing Product
The Kilobyte fanzine is about retro/vintage gaming and 8 Bit enthusiasts. The front cover
for the fanzine is very retro and features styles, colours and fonts that are very similar and
remind me of a more retro time in video games and games such as Hotline Miami which is
a top down 8 bit shooter, this is a theme that can be seen in some of the older games such
as the original Grand Theft Auto. The fanzine focuses on many different things in the retro
gaming community such as retro game reviews, and guides and quick tips. In this issue of
the fanzine the focus seems to be around floppy disks and games on floppy disk.
A lot of the images in the fanzine are pictures taken in the real world or they are
screenshots from actual gameplay of the game, this works in the fanzine’s favour as all of
the images look very good and crisp as well as looking life like. All of this combined with
the authors care and dedication to the fanzine makes this fanzine very effective in its
production and reading.

11. Research summary
• Summarise what you have learned about
fanzines.
To summarise, I have found that these fanzines
take great dedication to what they are about
and they are what the author personally cares
about, not what someone told them to write
about. I feel like to make an effective fanzine I
will have to discuss something that I am
personally tied to and have a passion for.

12. Initial Ideas

13. Idea 1 – The Art Of Classics
I think that I had for this fanzine is a fanzine that explores classic items and works. I like this
idea as it gives me a bigger front to appeal to more people, as in this fanzine I can look at
things such as cars, music, comics and other art forms. The reason I am looking at this is
because I really enjoy classic cars and classic comics. I think that this fanzine would be more
of a review style as I could look at these products and look deeper at the product and see if
there is a deeper meaning or idea behind the product.
I think that for this fanzine I would go for a more formal look for the layout and the font as it
is more about the older side of the culture. I think that the formal layout would work for this
fanzine as the audience would probably be older than the usual target audience of
teenagers, I think that the average age of this audience is going to be late 20’s to early 30’s
so I would have to be more formal in the way that I approach these.
The art of classics

14. Idea 2 – Video Games
I think that if I were to make this fanzine I would have to choose between some of the
different ideas that I had for a fanzine based around video games. I would have to
choose between the retro style of video games or the more recent shift in video
games that has gone more towards the competitive scene with big companies like Red
Bull who have been known for some of their more extreme sports teams have started
their own E-sports gaming team. But I feel like if I was to make a video game fanzine I
would want the style of a retro fanzine as the retro gaming experience is something I
really enjoy but I also really enjoy the more modern games as well as some of the E-
sports content that is being published at the moment.

15. Idea 3 - Transport
This idea is more of a last option in my idea but it could be very effective as it is
something that I have an interest in electric vehicles and new modes of transport in
the modern ages such as electric bikes and skateboards. As these vehicles are taking
over in the more urban cities such as New York and Los Angeles, but these items can
seem like a big investment at the first time but they can be much more cost effective
than traditional vehicles. This fanzine would have a very lively and modern design
which is something that I am interested in as well as the content as it could be a good
idea but the creation of the magazine might have been difficult as I wouldn’t have
been able to get my hands on the products and the fanzine would have probably
ended up looking more like a commercial magazine than a fanzine.

16. Bibliography

17. Bibliography
1. Yura Nunes. (2012). Trainspotting #1 Fanzine. Available:
https://issuu.com/yura-nunes/docs/trainspotting. Last accessed
10/09/2018.
2. TwoMorrows Publishing. (2013). Best of Alter Ego, Volume 2 . Available:
https://issuu.com/twomorrows/docs/bestofae2preview. Last accessed
10/09/2018.
3. KilobyteMagazine. (2018). Kilobyte Magazine 1/2018 . Available:
https://issuu.com/kilobytemagazine/docs/kilobytemagazine2018-1. Last
accessed 10/09/2018.