Zine

(Did you mean a fanzine by John Nielsen Hall?)

The word zine (originally ’zine with an apostrophe) is an abbreviation credited to Sarge Saturn in a fanzine review column he wrote for Startling Stories.

It typically means fanzine, but has been known to apply to the proz or mundane amateur magazines. The term herein will always apply to publications that come from the sf microcosm or one of its off-shoots.

The word spread into mundania as a term for self-published magazines, once called "little magazines," that came out of the Factsheet Five phenomenon. The difference between a fanzine and one of these may not be easily distinguishable, given that our fanzines don't need to be about sf or fandom; it has to do with the publisher's sense of being part of fandom.

When spelled zeen, it almost always refers to a mundane publication. (However, Earl Evers used zEEn as the title for his sf fanzine; the title emphasized his initials.)

From Fancyclopedia 2, ca. 1959

Magazine, dummkopf.

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Fanspeak

1940s—

This is a fanspeak page. Please extend it by adding information about when and by whom it was coined, whether it’s still in use, etc.