Perverts, Punks, and Queers: a Tribute to the Zine Underground

McInnes and Goldstein both started in zines. The underground DIY magazine culture of the 80s and 90s. Zines were homemade photocopied pamphlets about anything and everything. As long as you had paper, glue, staples, maybe a few shitty drawings, and you could sneak access to a photocopier, you could publish your own zine.

Nobody went viral, nobody made money, no one was an influencer, but thousands of people devoted heart and soul to making their own zines. And when they did, well, who even cared? Who even noticed when some teenager shouted into the void? Broken Pencil noticed. Broken Pencil cared. For 30 years Broken Pencil was the magazine about zines and BP reviewed over 10,000 zines. 

And then last year Broken Pencil founder and publisher Hal Niedzviecki, shuttered BP. Hal joined us at Canadaland to tell us the story of Broken Pencil, the zine of zines.

Host: Jesse Brown

Credits: Tristan Capacchione (Audio Editor and Technical Producer), Bruce Thorson (Senior Producer), max collins (Director of Audio), Jesse Brown (Editor and Publisher)

Guests: Hal Niedzviecki

Fact checking by Sam Konnert

Additional music by Audio Network

Further reading:

• https://brokenpencil.com/

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