Monstrous Memos

The printing press is invented in 1454.

“The printing press, invented in 1454, dramatically changed the way by which literate populations were able to circulate information.” Witchcraft zines were the very first circulated “zines” and self-published work in existence. Passed between hands of the marginalized, the healers. Zines often included old world ways of healing people, astrology, potion recipes, and/or instruction on spells that could assist the people a part of their homes.

“Lay healers of all genders often worked in isolated communities, creating herbal remedies, consulting astrology and other magical means as a way of diagnosing and treating illness, and creating amulets and protection against harmful, unexplainable forces.”

(Source: Women’s Museum of California)

Martin Luther’s ’95 Theses’ VS The Church

Self-publishing has always been a means to spread your own message, and that includes religious messages too. Martin Luther produced his ’95 Theses’ as a means of challenging the Pope and the entire Roman Catholic Church over their corrupt practice of selling indulgences. This means that they were providing “advance forgiveness for sins.” To gain an understanding of why this is bad, consider the fact that “The famous crusaders of the 1500s took advantage of indulgences and pillaged villages, killed men and raped women. After all, they had received their advance forgiveness and letters of pardon.”

Martin Luther famously posted his self-published protest of such practices on the door of a church one day. The way in which this upset people began to spark the Protestant Reformation. Prior, people has spoken these thoughts aloud about the Church but the first person to put them into print format as a means of calling it out was Martin Luther. He later assisted with the development of Protestantism which was influenced by many of his ideas. The point he wanted to make, is that it didn’t make sense to not “stick to sound bibiblical doctrine” which was to be expected of the Roman Catholic Church by the peasants they led and eventually took advantage of.

Self-publishing leads to reformation in this case, and justice. (Source: History.com Editors)

“Poor Richard’s Almanac”
by Ben Franklin

Almanacs have existed since around the 1600s, and took off in the early 1700s when the ability to self-publish spread to more and more people. As almanacs were cheaper than books to publish, many put out their own takes on an almanac. This is why in modern day we have ‘The Farmers Almanac’ and ‘Old Farmers Almanac’ and they are two separate entities. There are many takes on the idea of an almanac. Ben Franklin was one of those many people who took the helm of putting out their own almanac. ‘Poor Richard’s Almanac’ was the title Ben Franklin published under. His specific almanac ran from 1732-1759. The Almanac in general remains a revolutionary tool that brings people together, especially rural communities. (Source: Addison Rizer for BookRiot)

‘The Federalist Papers’ by the founding fathers Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay

Part of the American Revolution continuing forward was ‘The Federalist Papers’ – also like ‘Common Sense’ the papers were published anonymously under the pen name “Publius” in a multitude of state newspapers available at the time. These being ‘The New York Packet’ and ‘The Independent Journal’ primarily and reprinted in others later on. There were 85 total essays issued of ‘The Federalist Papers’ that were written and originally published between October 1787 and May 1788.

The papers, later on, formally became our constitution. Each portion of ‘The Federalist Papers’ defined what our government would be and what was expected of the people of a functioning government – from taxation to economy to militia procedures, it’s all there. Self-publishing can lead to revolutions that birth new countries and governments. In light of that, this ‘proto-zine’ series of issues lies at the very heart of America’s independence. We don’t intend to commit the sin of supporting American exceptionalism but rather want to highlight the deep roots that self-publishing has within The United States of America and it’s revolutionary birth. (Source: Library of Congress)

“Published By the Author” / Self-Publishing & Black Liberation

Due to blatant racism and the exclusionary practices of the ‘mainstream’ white print culture, Black authors turned to self-publishing as a means of survival and having their voices heard – in truth, without fear of upsetting any editors or publishers involved. Black authors perservered and their “works were printed with the letters “s.n.,” or sine nominee. No name, no publisher.” “Published by the Author” was another common sight on books written by Black authors pre-1840. This was to protect themselves in the case of telling the truth in their work from any violent backlash.

Many Black authors wrote about their experiences in slavery, because the racist slavers of the white community’s attempt to control the narrative at the time, often insisting that Black Americans were not capable of leading full lives independently and “needed slavery” to live their lives fully. They would not be erased, and many slave narratives were self-published documentations of the true history of the 19th century.

“The rise of the abolition movement opened new doors, but it also made self-publishing more attractive for authors like Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.”
(Source: Tim Brinkhof for JSTOR)

Frederick Douglass self-published ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass’ 1845, a memoir detailing his time in Lynn, Massachusetts as an enslaved man. He created 3 more: ‘My Bondage & My Freedom’ (1855) and ‘Life and Times of Frederick Douglass’ (1881, revised 1892)

The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Over in Europe, the first and most systematic attempt to codify a more widely consumable educational material covering the history of existing society and it’s history of class struggles. In detailing the difference between the social classes, these classes are determined by where you are in relation to the means of production. In an easier to understand way, where do you fall in the line of producing things in a country? Are you the working class? Or are you the richer class scooping up all the profit? Communism is the political system in which there is a classless society, where we all benefit from communal efforts to better the world and provide people what they need without “profit” being the thing at the top of people’s mind the most. The Communist Manifesto came at a time during the 1848 European revolutions and was one of the best things a common working class person could read at the time, promising them a better future if they work together with their fellow proletariat (working class, wage workers) in their society. Self-published, the Communist Manifesto is the groundwork laid that spread far outside of Europe and into the rest of the world establishing Socialist, Communist, and Marxist groups that still fight together for worker’s rights in today’s unjust world. Additionally, I would argue that The Communist Manifesto is one of the MOST reprinted self-published material on the face of the Earth itself.

(Source: Wikipedia)

The Suffragist Movement & Its Newsletters

The first wave of feminists in America were brave women who were working hard for the vote. To spread their cause and further educate fellow women of the times, there were a plethora of women’s liberation newspapers being printed, self-published, and distributed among the country. A non-exhaustive list includes:

– Church League For Women’s Suffrage
– Common Cause
– Conservative and Unionist Women’s Franchise Review
– Free Church Suffrage Times
– The International Woman Suffrage News
– The Irish Citizen
– The Suffragette/Britannia
– The Vote
– Votes For Women
– Woman’s Dreadnought
– Woman’s Signal
– Women’s Franchise
– Women’s Suffrage Record

Not all women who led these movements included Black women or any women of color in the fight for the vote, however, which led to a lot of discrimination and many of the first wave of American feminists were blatantly racist and only working for the white woman’s vote.

Even though the 19th amendment was won in the year 1919 and passed for all women (later ratified in 1920), many polling places still imposed a poll tax and worse like intimidating and forbidding women of color from voting, along with men of color.

The early suffragists still took to self-publishing to get their messages out there building political power for the first wave of feminism’s fight. The Suffragist itself started publishing in 1913.

(Source: The Social History Archive)

FIRE!! Short-Lived but Impactful

“Fire!! was conceived to express the Black American experience in a modern and realistic fashion, using literature as a vehicle. The magazine’s founders included Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Wallace Thurman. They wanted to express the changing attitudes of younger African Americans and explore contemporary issues such as homosexuality, interracial relationships, promiscuity, prostitution, and color prejudice. Hughes wrote that the name was intended to symbolize their goal “to burn up a lot of the old, dead conventional Negro-white ideas of the past … into a realization of the existence of the younger Negro writers and artists, and provide us with an outlet for publication not available in the limited pages of the small Negro magazines then existing.”

There was not a whole lot produced, and the remaining stock of the first print-run were literally burnt in a basement fire later in the same year of production.

There was only one issue and one print-run ever created. You can learn more about FIRE!! through The Smithsonian which holds some original copies in it’s collection. You can also purchase reprintings on Amazon too.

The Great Depression & Sci-Fi Fan-Zines

During the Great Depression and hard times of the 1930’s, science-fiction was an increasingly popular genre that had many fans aching for more accurate and well-written sci-fi media. Due to the lack of accessibility to send their nitpicky letters to the authors themselves, many fans worked together to start mailing each other letters featuring their reviews of sci-fi novels, stories, etc. containing criticism or praise. Often, it grew into the creation of their own written fanfiction. Eventually, people wanted to get this work out there to others via snail mail. So, turning to the mimmeograph – a type of duplicating machine we had before copy machines or the ‘Xerox’ – people created their own self-dubbed ‘fan-zines’ of the 1930’s. This started a huge boom of sci-fi review zines and more throughout the decade. Fandom, fanfiction and fan culture as we know it, stems from this practice and this decade.

Lisa Ben & The First Lesbian Newsletter: Vice Versa

Reproduced and sent out widely via her boss’s mimmeograph technology, ‘Lisa Ben’ is a pen name that is a play on the word “lesbian.” Lisa Ben is credited as the very first lesbian periodical newsletter. She created “VICE VERSA” a newsletter she, in her own words started: “twice each month typed out five carvons and one original of Vice Versa. She recalled being told by her boss that he didn’t care what she was typing, but he wanted her to “look busy” so people as the studio would think he was important. She described the intention of the magazine being to create “a medium through which we may express our thoughts, our emotions, our opinions – as long as material was ‘within the bounds of good taste.'” Nine issues followed after the initial “VICE VERSA” which led to Lisa Ben creating a forum for lesbians to connect and communicate with one another via readers’ letters, personal essays, short fiction and poetry. The first issue was 15 pages long and subsequent issues ranged from 9 to 20 pages long.
(r/VintageLesbians SubReddit, u/XSaraXPoeX)

You can read EVERY ISSUE of Vice Versa here, by Lisa Ben, archived by ONE Archives of USC Libraries.

‘TRANSVESTIA’ – The First Trans Zine

“In 1960, Virginia Prince founded Transvestia magazine. Published six times a year in Los Angeles by Chevalier Publications, 1980-1986, it was edited by Prince until 1980, and then sold to Carol Beecroft, who acted as editor until 1986. Transvestia was the first widely-distributed magazine focused on the crossdressing community. In time, it expanded to include content about the larger trans community. In an era before the internet, the publication became a major life-line for its readers. In Transvestia, trans people could openly write about their experiences, challenges, and successes. Subscribers to the publication were able to network and connect with each other by way of articles, ads, and by personally writing to the editors.”
(via The Internet Archive, read EVERY ISSUE of Transvestia here!)

The Black Panther Party & Their Newspaper’s Role in the Fight for Black Liberation

The Black Panther Party establishes itself as a Marxist-Leninist (Communist) and Black power political and mutual aid organization headed by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale from 1966 to 1982. They follow a 10 Point Program that is their platform. They spearheaded the criticism of Black civil rights movement leaders for their moderate positions and commitment to incremental change. This is a commonplace struggle even in today’s age, where the Democrats as a functioning party also favor playing by the rules and making incremental change from within the systems pre-established. The Black Panther Party fed people directly with Free Breakfast Programs for kids which the USA government later stole the idea from after the pressure was mounting from the Black Panther Party’s efforts becoming more well known and enjoyed by the public. Ultimately, the Black Panther Party was a militant group seeking to demand better, more humane and communistic treatment of their people, especially the vulnerable children.

From 1968-1971 The Black Panther Party Newspaper was the #1 Black newspaper in the country selling 300,000 copies weekly which was totally self-published and printed. The newspaper contained a cultural reset in the space where media takes up our mind. It provided access to a community that helped solve one’s problems, and art created in-house by artists depicting *everyday people* which was an uncommon departure from the standard white mainstream media at the time. One of the most important parts of The Black Panther Party Newspaper was the fact that they insisted through their worldview and visuals: “You are worthy as a human being. You have rights, that are inalieable.” For the Black community, the BPP provided the much needed wedge against the injustices enacted by the United States government. Some deem this time as the “Second Reconstruction” era. The power of the BPP was feared by the government.

“The early days of Nixon’s presidency were tumultuous. There were several situations that raised alarm within the government, but nothing sounded louder than the Black Panther Party.

Hoover called the Black Panther Party and its leaders “the greatest threat to the internal security of the United States.” (Juno Rylee Schultz)

Find the ENTIRE ARCHIVE of The Black Panther Party’s self-published work here.

The Rise of Kinko’s Copy Shop & More Accessible Zine-Making

“In September 1970, Paul Orfalea, a man of Lebanese ancestry, just out of college, borrowed enough money to open his first photocopy shop in Isla Vista, the campus community of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Instead of calling it “Paul’s Copies,” he called it “Kinko’s” after the nickname given to him by his college buddies because of his curly, reddish hair.

The first store was located in the corner of a building that also housed a taco stand (which later proved advantageous when Paul cut a hole in the connecting wall, allowing him to order lunch without leaving the store).

This tiny Kinko’s was 100 square feet and featured a single copier, offset press, film processing and a small selection of stationery and school supplies. As the store grew, so did the number of machines.”

“By the mid-1970s Kinko’s was providing custom publishing materials for colleges, an innovation extremely popular with college professors. The company had 80 stores, averaging 400 square feet in space and located primarily near colleges and universities, by the end of the decade.”
(Kinko’s History)

Counterculture: Punk Music Scene & Zines As A Way of Taking Up Space

“Legendary artist, activist, and creator, the divine Ms. Davis christened herself and her style as “terrorist drag” in the heteronormative Los Angeles punk scene of the 1970s. Experimenting with and hacking away at gender norms, she became part of the burgeoning queercore movement, an essential ingredient of which was zinemaking. Perhaps her most famous creation among many is the deliciously gossipy and dissident Fertile La Toyah Jackson Magazine.

As a student at UCLA in the late 1980s, Vaginal Davis worked in the university’s career counseling office and used their Xerox machine to produce FTLJM. It became one of the most influential zines of the time.”
(via THEM.US article)

Her friends included other popular zine-makers of history, including…

• J.D.’S, out of Toronto, Canada, a queer anarcho-punk zine by G.B. Jones & Bruce LaBruce
• HOMOCORE out of San Francisco, California, USA, by Tom Jennings and Deke Nihilson, one of the very first explicitly queer zines.

Learn all about what “QUEERCORE” is and means, and how it serves as a response to assimilationist queer existence. We can learn a LOT from our QUEERCORE elders and ancestors, because assimilating to be “normal” and “just like the straight people” has only made us more vulnerable.

ACT UP & Their Fight For A Cure Using Art & Self-Published Political Agitprops

Amid the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, frequent death, and a seemingly incurable illness predominantly harming the LGBTQ+ community “rose Gran Fury, an activist art collective that played an instrumental role in bringing attention to the AIDS crisis. Gran Fury, an offshoot of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP), harnessed the power of visual media to embolden the voices of the LGBT community. They eschewed subtlety for pointed, provocative messages designed to infiltrate public consciousness through posters, billboards, and other forms of guerrilla art.

Gran Fury’s work often employed stark, iconic imagery to underscore the urgency and gravity of the epidemic. Campaigns such as “Silence = Death” and “Kissing Doesn’t Kill: Greed and Indifference Do” became rallying cries, symbolizing not only the literal struggle for survival against the disease but also a fight against societal apathy and governmental inaction.

The controversial nature of activist art during the AIDS crisis cannot be understated. Gran Fury’s direct and confrontational approach often incited debates on public funding, censorship, and the boundaries of artistic expression. Their works sparked significant public discourse, with some factions praising their bold stance and others decrying what they saw as inappropriate or offensive depictions.

Despite facing resistance, the personal narratives and collective voices within Gran Fury created a powerful, indomitable force. Each member brought unique motivations and experiences, often deeply personal, which fueled their passionate activism. For many, the work transcended art; it was a lifeline and a call to solidarity in an era of widespread loss and grief.

The story of Gran Fury is not just a chronicle of art and activism; it is a testament to the enduring power of collective action in the face of adversity. As we reflect on this pivotal era, we are reminded of the indomitable spirit of those who dared to blend art with activism, challenging norms and inspiring societal transformation.”

View the living archive of everything ACT UP NY did at their official website.

The Origins of the RIOT GRRRL Movement & Third-Wave Feminism

Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill, one of the most important feminist DIY queercore punk bands in existence, started making zines in her home of Seattle, Washington and released the very first RIOT GRRRL zine in 1991 after moving to Washington, D.C. for the purpose of founding this movement that eventually through the underground scene became a revival of feminist values and redefinition that included sex workers, queer people, dykes, and rejected the status quo and any form of assimilation. The Riot GRRRL Movement birthed Third-Wave Feminism which greatly encourages girls and women to take up space in places people don’t expect to see women: the punk music scene was where this started initially.

The sisterhood formed through the Riot GRRRL Movement aided women in many ways along with being intersectional in values held by riot grrrls. “Slut-shaming” and being against it started in this wave of feminism. Women were encouraged to liberate themselves sexually and embrace who they were; not as sex objects for male desire, but as free people who deserved the right to say no, OR yes!

Read EVERY SINGLE RIOT GRRRL ZINE ever made in the ‘Riot Grrrl Collection’ by Lisa Darms, Johanna Fateman and Kathleen Hanna at The Internet Archive’s free copy.

The Queer Zine Archive Project (QZAP) is Born, Starting the Dawn of the Digital Archives

“QZAP was founded in November 2003 by Milo Miller and Chris Wilde. It has since maintained a physical collection in Milwaukee and a free online archive of digitized zines.” (via Wikipedia) QZAP is an immeasurably important aspect of the overall zine culture of the United States, and it is accessible worldwide. This zine archive project started after the initial years of the QUEERCORE moment from 1970s – 2000’s. As an effort to capture all of what went on during that blooming era of zine-making, the archive opened up to keep track of queer zines and the impact they have made over the years. QZAP is doing the hard work of maintaining our legacies as queer people, so younger queers can see their ancestors and what they have made years before they even existed. Their work is essential for maintaining an understanding of our history. We recommend visiting them today!

VISIT THE QUEER ZINE ARCHIVE PROJECT (QZAP)

Anti-Fascist Zines & The E-Zine

With the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the shifting tides continued to steer towards total fascist takeover in the volatile country of the United States. People started turning to zines almost right away, with many people working together to proclaim their thoughts in the form of zines, a favorite is the “Our Vendetta: Witches VS Fascists” by Yerbamala Collective from DT’s first presidency, still valuable in today’s world where we face down the last two years (hopefully) of DT’s second disastrous and painful second presidency.

Read “OUR VENDETTA” here in our anti-fascist zines collection!

ZineMap.com is Established, Connecting Hundreds of Zinesters Worldwide

In July of 2025, for International Zine Month a zinester going by CJ established ZineMap.com a functional collaborative map of the global zine scene! As of October 1st, 2026, the zine map has 1,000 members across 40 countries helping contribute to building out a map of the zine scenes worldwide. We highly recommend joining this website and adding your knowledge about the zine scene or connecting to other zinesters near you who want to collaborate! Find places to send your zines to, access the “zine economy” of sorts and trade things with cool people from afar!

Make a zine friend today via ZineMap.com!