My career in publishing started with zines, way back when I was in high school. My first one was created on a typewriter, but then I moved on to the limited desktop publishing options available via my Commodore 64 computer. But still, everything had to be xeroxed and sent out to readers by snail-mail.
I know. They were barbaric times, the 1980s.
But someone’s still doing this, some crazy Doctor Who fans in the U.K. And it’s not like they’ve been doing it for decades: they just started. I repeat: Fans are still making actual fanzines, actual magazines on paper lovingly crafted by hand and carried to a post box encased in stamped envelopes.
Madness, I tell ya.
Fish Fingers and Custard has just published its second issue, which is currently available only on paper delivered to your mailbox: that’s the place where unwanted catalogues and supermarket flyers still arrive. But you can read Issue One, from June, online, or download it as a PDF. That first issue includes news, interviews, fiction, a convention review, and more. It really is just like the zines of old. And it’s rather charmingly like the zines of old, too: chatty, informal, more than a little goofy, but bursting with fannish love.
Enjoy.
(If you stumble across a cool Doctor Who thing, feel free to email me with a link.)
