That abyss of pure creativity is the Zine Revolution. Friends and I started Lost Armadillos in Heat in1991 and quickly learned that doityourself publishing sucks away free time and money, results in frightening correspondence from crazed loners, convinces old friends that you're either "artsy," funny, or a crazed loner yourself, and ends up read by at most a few hundred people.
One rainy weekend in Chicago we found out that we were not alone. More than 300 zine editors, poets, small press moguls, cartoonists, fanatics and even a few academics gathered on the DePaul University campus to discuss, inspect, and trade a steady spew of words, words, words. The first Underground Press Conference ironically coincided with the 25th anniversary of Woodstock, one of the most overhyped defining moments of counterculture.
"This is the new Woodstock. We didn't have this technology 25 years ago," said Ted Anton, an English professor at DePaul who seemed genuinely surprised at what he had fallen into.
That technology is home computers, copy machines and modems�the basic tools that allow anyone with the time and the ego to put their ideas into print.
Murray, the Lost Armadillos in Heat cartoonist, and I arrived Friday night and climbed aboard the El for our first subway rides. We got off in a neighborhood of brownstones that looked at once seedy and collegiate. In the dorm we met the first of a crowd of Yankees who would stare at us with that paranoid look that said "where the hell are their cowboy boots?" or "are these guys narcs?" But Gina, a cute chick from New Jersey, laughed her ass off at our advide column, "Ask Misti," so we relaxed.
The conference opened early the next morning. A blonde woman with a shaved head and a tiny blue ponytail talked about the frustrations of self publishing while across the room a white-haired man wearing a "Subvert the Dominant Paradigm" t-shirt scarfed down free doughnuts.
Goatees and faded All Star high-tops were everywhere. Someone was even wearing a tie. Suddenly a fire alarm went off and the building was cleared. Outside, Mary Panza, a member of Sluts on Acid, an Albany,
N.Y., writers collective, offered me a hickey in exchange for my zine. I foolishly declined.
Batya Goldman, a Chicago small press founder and poet, conceived the conference with Gabriele Stohschen, a native of East Germany and the publisher of Wisdom Magazine, over drinks a year and a half ago.
"There's a lot of crap out there," Goldman said of the zine world. "We need to find the jewels."
The crap and very few jewels overflowed from tables in the entryway. Most of the best publications�like Lost Armadillos in Heat�have such small press (or copier) runs that they'd wait until the next day's
underground lit sale to bring in cash or trade for their hard work.
The important thing to know about the small press world is that most people enter it blindly. Murray and I had talked about starting a humor magazine for years and finally just did it. We aimed it at former Austinites who wanted to return but couldn't handle low wages and high rents.
Remembering our own shaky start, I chose as my first session a panel discussion on making zines and poetry chap books. The panel included the president of a small publishing company in search of clients; a guy
from the Illinois Arts Council; the editor of an academic journal; C.J. Laity, the editor of Letter eX , a Chicago poetry zine with a circulation of 6,000; and Alfred Vitale, the New York City editor of Rant Magazine.
The audience wanted to know how to get distributors, whether to buy a computer, how to make money, how to scrimp on production costs. "My distributor is the backseat of my car," Laity said. "It pays to know
your community. I do it all myself." Vitale laid out the cold, hard facts: "Anybody who thinks they're going to make money on a zine should shoot themselves in the head."
The sense of creating a whole product is the major headache and the one joy of zines. I produce Lost Armadillos in Heat by begging for submissions, then painstakingly laying out each page. I deliver the
zine by hand to Austin stores. I've never made a cent off of it. "The best zines I've seen don't make money," Laity said. "You have an idea and you just do it."
Between sessions we returned to our DePaul dormitory room. The Underground Press Conference was sharing sleeping space there with the Chainlink Crocheters, a knitting group whose members probably thought we were communists. Two New Yorkers who looked like a mix between the Proclaimers and Maynard G. Krebs walked out into the hall rubbing their eyes. "What did we miss?" they asked. They had been up all night photocopying their miniature zine, Cute Alien, a transcription of a 45-minute, chemically altered discussion among friends. It was among my favorite zines of the weekend.
The afternoon session turned into an attempt to define what truly is "underground." Luigi-Bob of Taproot Reviews said the "underground" concept may have less to do with production values and circulation and more to do with how a publication approaches its audience. "Instead of 'we're going to get you to buy this,' there's a community building. It is singularly pluralistic. If you can find 100 people in the world who like the same poetry that you do, then you've created a community. That's the importance of gatherings like this. There's a realization that there's a lot of us, and it's fun. You're not alone."
That is the truth about the Zine Revolution. Suddenly CNN and Rolling Stone are reporting on the small publications cropping up everywhere. You've got music mags, fanzines, sex zines, cross-dresser zines, humor
zines, lit zines, poetry zines, personal zines that are similar to diaries, mail art, rants, political zines.
That's the story. Now stare into my eyes. You are getting very sleepy. Must run out out to a local book store or head shop and buy Lost Armadillos in Heat.. Your eyelids are closing. Must buy Lost Armadillos in Heat�