3. Ideas:
• Board games
• Numerous topics to talk about, such as “Are they still fun in 2021?”, “What makes for a good board
game?”.
• I am aware of a YouTube group that I can potentially talk about it with – No Rolls Barred.
• My interest in board games is slightly limited/not as strong as other potential subjects.
• Video games
• Have lots of topics to talk about – “Does video game violence provoke violence in society?”, “Is the
video gaming market evolving for the better or worse?”.
• Huge interest in video games – mostly affiliated with Sonic the Hedgehog, Guitar Hero, FIFA, WWE,
generally platformers and racing games.
• I know plenty of people who has interest in gaming, and work in the gaming industry that I could
potentially talk to about the subject matter.
• Music
• Know people personally who create music – would be able to ask them to contribute.
• Could be too broad a subject – in terms of genre, popularity levels, cultures – to ask just one
person. Maybe needs a niche question.
• Sport (specifically football, tennis, darts)
• Would need to be a niche topic – the subject of sport in general is very broad to ask a simple
question.
4. Video game fanzine
• Subject matter: “Is the gaming industry actually evolving, or stagnating?”
• Have multiple opportunities to ask people questions based around the subject matter –
friends and people who work within the gaming industry itself, such as individual
developers, marketing managers, or even YouTubers that tend to keep up with events in
the gaming industry and create gaming content at a professional level.
• The basis for this question is that throughout the decades, whilst there has been plenty
of video game series’ that have managed to stick around, a lot of video game series have
also come and gone despite many fans remaining loyal to them. In my personal opinion,
gaming today is less about the quality and quantity of games being released, and more
about the quality of the consoles, in regards to how well their performance is, how good
it looks, and how much content can be stored on them. Video games have, ironically,
become somewhat of a lesser focus for the gaming industry – series’ that people loved
during the late-90s to mid-2000s gaming boom, and are still loyal towards today, such as
Guitar Hero/Rock Band, Metroid, and F-Zero being left ignored for years, whilst others
such as Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon, and MediEvil only recently being revived
after years of being left defunct (lest I mention the Grand Theft Auto 5 situation).
• It’s completely fair to say that video games are still important for a console’s success,
Playstation Showcase received plenty of positive outlook for the upcoming games to be
released for their consoles.
7. This first example is of an online football fanzine, True Faith, based on Newcastle United. Football has always
been a good subject for fanzines since they were introduced during the 1980s, when club football in England
was in a period of deterioration. Even today, fanzines are still a good method to transmit information and
opinions across a club’s fanbase, particularly in regards to the form and politics going on within clubs.
Newcastle fans are one of the more notorious (in recent times especially) to criticise their owner, in their case
Mike Ashley, under whom they have suffered two relegations in his 14 years as owner, as well as generally
stagnating in league position. True Faith acts as a good method of Newcastle fans sharing their grievances over
all of these issues.
Although the matters of what football fanzines contain have somewhat remained the same over the years,
how they’re produced has changed. With the rise of social technology, fanzines have also taken to broaden
their production. Though some of them continue to be sold outside the stadium, most are either sold online or
shared online exclusively. True Faith is a fanzine that is circulated online. Moreover, it has been produced by
means of computer software, most likely photoshop, to edit the photos and arrange the type, (as can be seen
on pages 4 and 14 on the right) rather than going for a handwritten style. This makes the fanzine look
professional, almost like an actual magazine made by an official company, and using three columns to separate
passages of the text makes it simpler for its audience to read through, and also going for a 2:1 ratio of text to
image to fill out the page.
In continuation of the photo editing, the front cover (on the slide previous) depicts Mo Diame (Newcastle
midfielder at the time of this issue), layered on top of the Senegalese flag (he’s from Senegal), all in a cel-
shaded art style. This keeps to the tradition of the front covers of football fanzines being done with a comic
book art direction (other examples include United We Stand), though in this case it has been done through a
computer – older examples would have likely been drawn by hand. A different type of art direction has been
used for the Belgium article (page 14, shown on the right), with a red background being used to contrast the
yellow and black copy, as well as a red/yellow filter being used on the footballers (left to right: Mats Sels,
Aleksandar Mitrovic, and Chancel Mbemba) – not necessarily all Belgian footballers, but they each signed for
Newcastle from the Belgian leagues, as the article ensues with talking about whether it’s a common factor for
them struggling in adapting to playing for Newcastle in the English Premier League.
Page 4
Page 14
9. The second example, MaximumRocknRoll (all one word) was a music-based fanzine, geared
specifically towards the 1980s punk rock sub-culture and based in San Fransisco. Punk rock
fanzines are often christened as the birthplace of fanzines, with some dating as far back as
the 1970s. MaximumRocknRoll dates back to 1982 and continued circulation up until 2019
(and even then, their website and radio show are still running and reviewing contemporary
punk music). This example is the very first issue, featuring a photograph of Jello Biafra, lead
singer of the Dead Kennedys at the time, as the forefront of the cover. Given the Dead
Kennedys were among the most popular of punk bands of 1982, it made sense to have their
frontman as the main cover figure, so as to attract the largest possible audience of punk
rock fans to their initial production.
Continuing with the picture of Biafra, everything in this fanzine has been done in black and
white due to printing limitations at the time, which also indicates that it was printed onto
paper and not drawn or edited by hand. Pages with copy on are clearly typed out as can be seen by the organised
columns, and the font that has been used being processed, possibly from a typewriter. Despite this, there is
actually some copy and symbols that have been handwritten on, which have been used to caption the diagrams
on the fan letters page (page 4, on the right). Not only is there some incorrect grammar and spelling in places, but
the styling of the handwritten text is jagged and sketchy. This is likely to be a genre-influenced choice, as the punk
sub-culture was about defying what was the norm and standing up to being alternative – an ideology that
MaxRnR were supporting to an extreme level – and the sketchy handwriting that contrasts the formal font text
could be considered a microcosm of this alternative, defiant ideology. You can even see the lines on page 4 that
have been used to separate the columns are actually a little wonky in places, suggested they could have been
drawn on as well.
Furthermore, the page with the album artwork (page 15) are promoting records by Crass, Social Unrest, The
Lewd, and more. The artwork is once again printed on in black and white – assumably directly from the record
artwork that was unable to be printed in full colour, once again because of the printing limitations of 1982. The
album art themselves use anti-government imagery, such as highlighting homelessness on The Lewd’s “American
Wino” cover, war for the Eastern Front compilation album with various artists, and a satirical view of anti-
establishment displayed on Dead Kennedys’ “Bleed For Me” single cover (double page spread on the previous
slide), as the two politicians have a thought bubble with the single’s title – the element of satire was common
throughout the Dead Kennedys’ work.
Page 15
Pages 4-5
11. The third example is of Grrl Gang Berlin (it’s written in English), a feminist zine that is
seen as a contemporary example of fanzines with such feminist ideology, as well as
the riot grrl sub-culture that peaked during the 1990s – which itself was a feminist
take on the 1970 punk rock sub-culture. Particular elements that Grrl Gang Berlin
takes that is derived from 90s riot grrl fanzines include a collage style of art, similar to
zines of old, though it looks to have been made so through photoshop as opposed to
the traditional way – the pictures used throughout the fanzine are done in a way that
makes it seem they’re cut out of magazines and other books and glued onto their
zine, like it’s a diary book. Among these are plenty of motivational quotes, such as
“sometimes it’s the strongest among us that need the most help” – feminist ideology
is has a quite strong sense of looking out for and protection of one another, and this
zine seems to be making a point of reinforcing this message to its audience.
Another stylistic convention this zine adopts is a consistent colour scheme. Including
the front cover and the double page spread (on the previous slide), as well as pages 6-
7 on this slide, there is a constant presence of a light, greyish shade of purple (a mix
between lavender and lilac) mixed with the maire shade of black and off-white, all of
this makes for an easy, relaxing experience for the consumer to read the text.
Additionally, the different shades of purples used throughout these pages tends to
represent a variety of things, such as femininity, youthfulness, innocence, and
elegance – all of these greet the zine’s audience with a comfort and relaxing
welcoming.
With this being a feminist publication, the content that is being spoken of in this zine
involves the fact that it is their first issue, and so it starts off with introducing itself as
a text producer and an homage regarding how well other zines have been at covering
topics regarding underrepresented people in the past; such as “people with
disabilities, the LGBTQIA+ community, persecuted religious groups, and people with
limited economic resources” (taken from page 7) as well as feminists too – this is
letting the audience know that they want to be treated as a respectful publication,
and hope to receive some respect back from them.
Pages 6-7
Pages 14-15
12. Comparison
True Faith MaximumRocknRoll Grrl Gang Berlin
Genre: Football Music (punk rock) Feminist
Visual style: Varied – complex mixture, from
the Senegalese flag colours of the
front cover, to the red and yellow
of the Belgium page.
Pictures used are a variation of
unedited photos from the crowd
at football matches, or edited
through photoshop (e.g. Mo
Diame on the front cover).
Black and white – due to the
limitations of printed material of
the time, little colour throughout
the zine.
Photographs appear realistic,
either taken from actual concerts
(e.g. Biafra on the front cover), or
album covers printed onto the
paper.
Consistent – similar shades of a
lilac/lavender purple to contrast
the black and white, relaxing and
welcoming.
Pictures seems to be of a collage
style – like they’ve been taken
out of a magazine and stuck onto
the page (homage to older zines).
Techniques: Formally organised – a general
2:1 text-to-picture ratio for each
page, or vice-versa. Text aligned
into columns of 3 for clear
reading.
Varied organisation patterns –
each page is mostly dominated
by a lot of text or a lot of
photography, rare to mix the two
on the same page.
Varied organisation patterns –
general mix of photos and text on
the same pages, longer chunks of
writing often split into 2 columns,
written pages first, before a
multitude of photo-dominated
pages.
Audience: Quite clearly dedicated to
football fans – focuses on topics
to interest Newcastle fans and
uses football-related jargon lexis.
Clearly for punk rock fans – use of
elitist language and rebellious
content stereotyped with that
genre is easy to gather.
More general than the others –
clear indication of being more
directed at women/feminist
supporters, but general enough
for anyone with interest to read.
13. Fanzines in summary
• Fanzines are generally made by amateurs who have a high enough level of interest in particular
subjects or topics, that they like to share their interests with others that are part of the same, or
similar, communities.
• Historically, fanzines have been produced and distributed by football fans, as well as the punk
rock, grrl punk and feminist communities.
• The ones I researched all had varying levels of artistic styles delivered, such as True Faith
organising the layout with a text-to-picture ratio of 2:1, MaxRnR covering their pages almost
completely in full text or with only pictures and photography, and Grrl Gang Berlin organising
their pages to varying degrees of omitting photography and text.
• The stylistic choices each fanzine made wasn’t always made with free will – for example, MaxRnR
was a computer-processed product, however this meant that the producers had to settle for black
and white photography and colours because of the limitations of printed products at the time
(1982). The two more contemporary products have entirely free reign over their colour scheme
and stylistic choices due to how photo editing is so vast and easier to access now, with software
such as Photoshop and PicsArt existing. Despite this, Grrl Gang Berlin still adopts a more
traditional style of art, using magazine cut-outs to create collages for their artwork (although it’s
still likely this was done on a photo editing software app), possibly for familiarity’s sake regarding
what their audience would look for in a fanzine of that particular genre.
14. Bibliography
1. Hurst, A. (2018). True Faith Issue 138. Available: https://issuu.com/truefaith1892/docs/true_faith_138.
Last accessed 17th Sept 2021.
2. Bale, J. (1982). MaximumRocknRoll Issue 1. Available: https://issuu.com/pprmexico/docs/mrr_001w. Last
accessed 17th Sept 2021.
3. Phillips, A. (2021). Grrl Gang Berlin Issue 1. Available:
https://issuu.com/grrlgangberlin/docs/grrlgang_zine_issue01-final. Last accessed 17th Sept 2021.
