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.
Paul Watson
The Artist’s Notebook
3rd August 2019
Subscribe:
By ActivityPub
You can follow this blog in an ActivityPub app/site such as Mastodon.
Search and follow @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:
×
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 10 Dec. 2025.
APA 6
Watson, P. (2019, August 3). The Republic of Zines. Retrieved December 10, 2025, 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 10 Dec. 2025].
Vancouver
Watson P. The Republic of Zines [Internet]. The Artist’s Notebook. 2019 [cited 2025 Dec 10].
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 10 December 2025]
Cite this post
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 initially be sought through the contact form .
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.
