And those who think anyone is making Big Money from zine books doesn't quite understand the economics of publishing. There's just not much money in it. The books are now coming out. And that's the beginning and end of this particular zine revolution. Contrary to the popular perception, most zines are decidedly unrevolutionary in substance and style.
Most zine writing is dreadful, sloppy and self-indulgent.
If you want to know about drugs, you'd do better with Thomas De Quincy than Jim Hogshire. In an age in which anyone with a decent computer and a rudimentary sense of design can put out something that looks nearly as slick as most stuff on the newsstands, there's something oddly charming about the sloppy anachronism of most zines. The trouble with zine culture, from the point of view of mainstream publishers, is that it's just too damn labor-intensive. If someone could figure out a way to farm the dull shitwork of zinemaking out to sweatshop workers in the Philippines, then we could really talk about sell-out. David Futrelle is a regular contributor to Salon.