Back in April Warren Ellis referenced the Republic of Letters to talk about email newsletters, a Republic of Newsletters.
The next 18 months will see a small explosion of print zines — a Republic of Zines — about “the Weird”, including @RitualsZine which I’m working on myself. No, that’s not a prophecy - it’s what I’ve heard from various people who are putting them together.
These zines will not be in competition with each other, but rather I see it as another version of the Republic of Letters, an open conversation that will be a public wealth. @weirdwalk started it in May.
Zines have, of course, been around for decades, but we'll see a surge in these tangible yet ephemeral artifacts. Some will be one-offs, some will be short-lived or deliberately limited runs, some will continue for some time. Collect them all.
Cite this post
Because no one can ever remember how to cite a blog post:
MLA 8 & 9
Watson, Paul. “The Republic of Zines.” The Artist’s Notebook , 3 Aug. 2019,
https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/the-republic-of-zines. Accessed 06 Mar. 2026.
APA 6
Watson, P. (2019, August 3). The Republic of Zines. Retrieved March 06, 2026, from
The Artist’s Notebook website: https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/the-republic-of-zines
APA 7
Watson, P. (2019, August 3). The Republic of Zines. The Artist’s Notebook .
https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/the-republic-of-zines
Chicago
Watson, Paul. “The Republic of Zines.” The Artist’s Notebook (blog), August 3, 2019.
https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/the-republic-of-zines.
Harvard
Watson, P. (2019). The Republic of Zines. The Artist’s Notebook . Available at:
https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/the-republic-of-zines [Accessed 06 Mar. 2026].
Vancouver
Watson P. The Republic of Zines [Internet]. The Artist’s Notebook. 2019 [cited 2026 Mar 06].
Available from: https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/the-republic-of-zines
MHRA
Watson, Paul. 2019. ‘The Republic of Zines’,
The Artist’s Notebook
<https://www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk/blogs/artists-notebook/posts/the-republic-of-zines> [accessed 06 March 2026]
Subscribe by RSS , Email, or ActivityPub
By Email
Get new blog posts by email
By ActivityPub
You can follow this blog in an ActivityPub app/site such as Mastodon by following @artists-notebook@www.lazaruscorporation.co.uk
By RSS /Atom/JSON Feeds
Or use one of these one-click links to subscribe on popular feed readers:
Copyright © 2019
Paul Watson
The text of the blog post The Republic of Zines
by Paul Watson is published under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence .
Permissions for use outside the scope of the above licence should be sought by contacting us .
Images, videos, or other media used in this blog post, whether as creative works discussed by the text or for illustrative purposes, are not covered by this licence and may be subject to different licences or restrictions. Please contact the copyright holder.
