Fever Zine

Last updated
Fever Zine Issue 1 cover Feverzineissue1.jpg
Fever Zine Issue 1 cover

Fever Zine was a quarterly zine based in London, United Kingdom.

Contents

Its contents focus mainly on music, art, DIY culture, trends and e-culture, with fashion, music videos and other zines also featuring heavily.

The zine was created, and is edited, by British music and arts journalist Alex Zamora with design by graphic designer Simon Whybray.

According to its MySpace profile the publication is available at a variety of cultural hotspots in London such as the Institute of Contemporary Arts, as well as around the United Kingdom.

Appearance

Printed in black and white on A4 paper, its front and back covers are pink while the inside pages are white. It uses distinctive hand-drawn typography on its cover and on its article titles.

In an interview with Italian magazine Beautiful Freaks, it was revealed that Issue 1's cover was purposefully left blank, with only the logo present. According to Zamora this was done to establish the zine's logo and identity with readers and maintain curiosity about its content.

The cover of Issue 2 was drawn by acclaimed British illustrator Andy Council and is based on the Spinosaurus from the movie Jurassic Park 3 . According to his website, Council has nicknamed it "Feversaurus".

Content and contributors

Fever Zine contains original writing, photography and illustration by a variety of contributors, all of whom are listed on its MySpace profile.

According to an article in the November 2007 issue of Grafik magazine, its contributors are wholly drawn from MySpace and range from art students to creative professionals, from the U.K, Europe and the rest of the world.

Interviews in Issue 1 include Hot Club De Paris and Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly.

Issue 2 interviews include Pop Levi, Ladytron and acclaimed music video director Nima Nourizadeh.

Issue 3 features interviews with Sarah McCrory of independent publishing fair Publish And Be Damned, RESFest founder Jonathan Wells, Pancake Mountain creator Scott Stuckey and Liverpool band To My Boy.

Press coverage

Fever Zine has newspaper, magazine and online coverage, most of which concentrates on the publication's content and especially on its use of social networking.

In an article published on the Media section of The Guardian website on 7 January 2008, [1] journalist Jemima Kiss detailed a report highlighting individuals and entities in the creative industries with strong followings on MySpace, singling out Fever Zine for its unique use of social networking;

"The underground, hand-photocopied magazine Fever Zine coordinates contributors and subscribers through its MySpace page.

Fever Zine has 5,000 friends and a cult following; editor Alex Zamora said MySpace was essential to help find the new talent that he wants to feature in the lo-fi publication."

March 2008 saw the zine further championed by leading German culture and arts magazine Lodown in their 60th issue. Picked as the only British publication in their print review section, Fever Zine was lauded as offering up "healthy brainfood" for its readers.

An online interview with Zamora for Swindle Magazine [2] by editor Anne Keehn, posted on 19 March 2007, revealed MySpace's "seminal" role in the zine's success:

"The Internet, and MySpace in particular, played a seminal role, allowing us to disseminate images, stockist information and of course sell the zine online. Quite simply without it there’d be no Fever Zine."

Issues

Issue 1 was first published in early 2007 and, according to the Grafik article, created using Microsoft Word, a scanner, a fineliner and Adobe Photoshop while Issue 2, designed by Whybray, was created using Adobe InDesign.

Issue 2 was featured in an article by journalist Helen Sumpter in Time Out London on the 23rd of July. It was picked as one of the zines to look out for at 2007's Publish And Be Damned independent publishing fair.

Issue 3 debuted at the London Zine Symposium 2008 on 27 April.

Issue 5 is due to be released in 2014.

Events

Fever Zine took part in 2008's London Zine Symposium at East London's Rag Factory venue on 27 April. This followed its participation at the previous year's event which took place on 21 April at the Horse Hospital in Bloomsbury, London. [3]

According to independent publishing fair Publish And Be Damned's website, the publication took part in the 2007 fair in London on 29 July and is due to return on 3 August for 2008's event.

Fever Zine also took part in the 2008 V&A Village Fete at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London on 25 and 26 July. [4]

Related Research Articles

A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and first popularized within science fiction fandom, and from there it was adopted by other communities.

Zine Collection of self-published work reproduced by photocopying

A zine is a small-circulation self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images, usually reproduced via a copy machine. Zines are the product of either a single person or of a very small group, and are popularly photocopied into physical prints for circulation. A fanzine is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and popularized within science fiction fandom, entering the Oxford English Dictionary in 1949.

Vanity Fair is a monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.

Maximumrocknroll, often written as Maximum Rocknroll and usually abbreviated as MRR, is a not-for-profit monthly zine of punk subculture. Based in San Francisco, MRR focuses on punk rock and hardcore music, and primarily features artist interviews and music reviews. Op/ed columns and news roundups are regular features as well, including submissions from international contributors. By 1990, it "had become the de facto bible of the scene". MRR is considered to be one of the most important zines in punk, not only because of its wide-ranging coverage, but because it has been a consistent and influential presence in the ever-changing punk community for over three decades. From 1992 to 2011, it published a guide called Book Your Own Fuckin' Life.

Punk Planet was a 16,000 print run punk zine, based in Chicago, Illinois, that focused most of its energy on looking at punk subculture rather than punk as simply another genre of music to which teenagers listen. In addition to covering music, Punk Planet also covered visual arts and a wide variety of progressive issues — including media criticism, feminism, and labor issues.

Donna J. Kossy is a US writer, zine publisher, and online used book dealer based in Portland, Oregon. Specializing in the history of "forgotten, discredited and extreme ideas", which she calls "crackpotology and kookology", she is better known for her books Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief and Strange Creations: Aberrant Ideas of Human Origins from Ancient Astronauts to Aquatic Apes (2001). Kossy was also the founder and curator of the Kooks Museum, and the editor-publisher of the magazine Book Happy.

Ben Is Dead was a Los Angeles-based zine published from 1988 through 1999. Its creator, Deborah "Darby" Romeo, got its name from a dream she had about her husband Ben, a Frenchman she divorced not long into the magazine's run. Romeo would later write that during the magazine's early days Ben found the title amusing, and would introduce himself to people as "Ben, from Ben is Dead."

<i>Fantasy Advertiser</i>

Fantasy Advertiser, later abbreviated to FA, was a British fanzine focused on comic books, founded in 1965 by Frank Dobson, the "Godfather of British Fandom." Starting out as an adzine focused on the sale of primarily second-hand comics, it eventually transitioned into a true comics fanzine. FA now operates as a comics webzine.

Perfect Sound Forever is one of the longest-running online-only music magazines. Along with Michael Goldberg's Addicted to Noise, it is one of the first publications to post recurring, feature-length music journalism online.

Publish And Be Damned was an annual independent publishing fair that was held in 2004–2013 in London. The fair showcased self-published work and works form publishers "outside the mainstream."

Swindle was a bi-monthly arts and culture publication founded in 2004 by artist Shepard Fairey. The magazine has not been published since 2009.

Alternative Press Review is a libertarian American magazine established in 1993 as a sister periodical to Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed. The first issue was published in Fall 1993. As of 2002, its editorial collective consisted of Jason McQuinn (Anarchy), Chuck Munson (Infoshop.org) and Thomas Wheeler. Munson was co-editor and reviewer from 1997 to 2003, when he was replaced by Allan Antliff. The magazine was first published by C.A.L. Press and then by AAL Press.

<i>Arty</i> (magazine)

Arty is an independent British art fanzine started by the artist Cathy Lomax in 2001. Lomax is also the editor. Arty is for art fans written by artists themselves and published by Transition Gallery's editions department, the artist-run space in East London.

The Rebel is an independent British art magazine established by artist Harry Pye in 1985. It features interviews, reviews with artists, and parodies of features from other publications. Often the cover of the magazine features an image of a rebel from history such as Jesus, Karl Marx, Valerie Solanas, or Van Gogh. In December 2007 The Rebel made fun of ArtReview's annual list of the most powerful people in the art world. In August 2008 an entire issue of The Rebel was dedicated to the number four.

Jemima Goldsmith British journalist and producer

Jemima Marcelle Goldsmith is a British screenwriter, television, film and documentary producer and the founder of Instinct Productions, a television production company. She was formerly a journalist and associate editor of The New Statesman, a British political and cultural magazine, and served as the European editor-at-large for the American magazine Vanity Fair.

Grafik was a specialist London-based magazine on graphic design and visual culture.

Louis Paradis is a Canadian comics artist, writer and illustrator from Montmagny, Quebec, Canada.

Donald Joseph Turnbull was a journalist, editor, games designer, and an accomplished piano and pinball player. He was particularly instrumental in introducing Dungeons & Dragons into the UK, both as the managing director of TSR UK Ltd and as the editor of the Fiend Folio.

Gaylaxy is an Indian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) magazine. The magazine is based in Kolkata.

8-Ball Community is a New York City-based artist collective that operates a zine library, online radio station, and online public-access television station.

References

  1. Jemima Kiss, "Online rise of cheemos and rudettes", The Guardian, 7 January 2008.
  2. "Fever Zine and the World Wide Web - SWINDLE Magazine". Archived from the original on 2008-03-27. Retrieved 2008-03-29.
  3. londonzinesymposium.org.uk
  4. "VILLAGE FETE - Victoria and Albert Museum". Archived from the original on 2008-07-27. Retrieved 2008-07-28.