BOBC

The article is focused on the issue of fanzines, i.e. magazines published on their own by fans and persons committed in the area of underground culture. Fanzine (pol.: fanzin or zin; eng. fan + magazine) is a low-edited journal/magazine which has been published in different environments since 1970’s. Publishing environments of fanzines are different. They can be connected to the hard-core or punk scene, other genres of popular or underground music, science fiction fans, ecologists, etc. Such journals or magazines (sometimes books or brochures) are usually made with a simple typographic techniques, in the past usually by photocopying, now by the computer and computer print outs. They spread outside the official market, as a rule at meetings, concerts, happenings, privately or by post. Even though they are published and offered outside the official current, they are still an important part of the official and underground culture. It happens quite often that persons, who have been engaged in the act of creation and publishing fanzines, later, as adults, have a strong impact on the so-called official culture. Even though such matter seems to be quite important for culture, there are no collections of fanzines in Polish libraries.
My focus is to present this problem in my article exemplifying the issue by examples of Polish fanzines published in the comics environment, and stressing their absence in Polish research libraries. I try to address the question whether fanzines should be collected and whether they have any influence on the official culture. Examples of foreign libraries gathering fanzines are presented as well.