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About Fanzines:

A fanzine is a generic term used to describe most amatuer publications in the science fiction and fantasy field. Most fanzines are published by fans who generally operate at a loss. Individual fanzines often pick a specific theme and focus most of the content on that theme. This could be a television show, a movie, an author, or other area of interest.

Fanzines are often categorized by the general flavor of their content. A perzine has content mostly personal in nature, a genzine is of general content, and generally other categories as defined by the editor which can often be puzzled out or assigned by the reader. The science fiction community has developed quite a history and vocabulary regarding fanzines. Some of them are fairly clear such as fanac for fannish activity to Nydahl's Disease which refers to putting together a really large and interesting fanzine only to end up in GAFIA (getting away from it all) due to burnout.

Perhaps the most interesting concept in fanzines is the usual. The fanzine community operates largely on a barter system (with the exception of some media based zines). Generally fanzines are exchanged for other commodities. To receive someone's fanzine you should either trade for your fanzine, send in a letter of comment (LOC) on a previous issue, some artwork, or an article. In the case where this isn't practical most editors will send you a single copy if you send them a few dollars ($2 - $5) is common.

The pinnacle of success in the science fiction and fantasy community is the Hugo Award named for Hugo Gernsback (one of the first science fiction editors) which is voted on by the attendees at the annual World Science Fiction Convention. There are three separate awards given to the best fanzine, writer, and artist.

The Knarley Knews:
TKKIssue 53

The Knarley Knews is the science fiction based fanzine that I have published bi-monthly for over ten years. It is generally a perzine in that most of the material is either written by myself or my wife and the rest is in the LOC column which dominates the fanzine.
The typical issue is 16-24 pages of 10 point type in length (8.5 x 11). Individual copies can be obtained for US$1.50, but I prefer to receive LOCs, artwork, or contributions. To remain on my mailing list you must initiate contact with me every third issue (6 months). This may be as simple as a postcard or short e-mail or through the contribution of written or drawn material or a LOC.
I look forward to hearing from you.

Recent Issues

Created using Adobe Acrobat format; you can download the Acrobat reader if you have not already installed it. The issues range in size from 500 kB to 9 MB.