Here's a piece by me on Fanzines versus Blogs in The Guardian, for whom I'll be blogging on a regular basis, starting this Friday.

As a bonus, seeing how the interviews with zinesters (some of whose names will be familiar to frequenters of this bloghood) were so interesting and informative, I've put the full Q&As up here.

As a bonus bonus, some juvenilia of mine: two early pieces on fanzines in the Eighties. As mentioned in the Guardian piece, the "critique of fanzine culture by yours truly" that appeared in the debut issue of Monitor in 1984 (that one to be read with a kindly, indulgent eye). (Chris Scott wrote a superb riposte to that piece for the next issue of Monitor, defending fanzines's ethos and aesthetic of non-professionalism, so I might ask him I can scan that up, although it's vast, about twice the length of mine). And then there's a much better-written and more balanced feature on fanzines I did for Melody Maker in early 1987, featuring micro-interviews with The Legend and John Robb of The Rox. (Chris Scott, by that point a cutie/C86 godstar in Talulah Gosh, actually pops up as an interviewee too).

As a extra bonus bonus, if you go to the very end of this Rip It Up footnote, there's a Face profile from 1980 of Joly and his Better Badges empire.