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Zines and the Law

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To me, zines are print blogs. I’m not talking about e-zines (they are just blogs – aren’t they?). I think print zines should be encouraged because 1) lots of creative young, and not so young, people are making zines, 2) zine creators are obviously still enjoying the tactile pleasures of print, paper, binding, and books. Isn’t this to be celebrated by bibliophiles? I love looking at zines – the artwork, the bookmaking, the writing (not always good but usually smile-inducing) are all pleasing and stimulate the bibliophile brain the way looking at art stimulates the artist in us all.

I don’t know of any print LAW zines, though. Surely there is a place for a law zine, isn’t there? The new-ish Oregon Appellate Almanac, a publication of the Appellate Practice Section of the Oregon State Bar, could have been a zine. The editors might have had a bit more fun with it if it had been. Not that they didn’t have fun, but I’m just saying they would have had MORE fun, if they could have had the freedom of creating a Zine. See, that’s the other thing I like about Zines – creative license and fun.

Anyway, if you live in the Portland metro area, here’s the Multnomah County public library’s Zine zone and their Zine Collection Party.

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4 responses to “Zines and the Law”

  1. dweebcentric says:

    i’d say that there can be a distinction between zines and blogs, depending upon the subject matter. i write for a zine that is less about stories of personal reflection (though this is much of the subject matter of my blog) and the same can be said for a lot of issue-based zines.

    a zine focusing on legal issues is a rad idea. i’ve been toying with the issue of incorporating historic musician legal battles in my own zine.

  2. wrs says:

    This comment has been removed by the author.

  3. wrs says:

    On the other hand, blogs imply an immediate feedback channel to the readers — either they use the blog’s comment function or post an answer to their own blog.

    … my Print Blogs! project is after to get over that lack of feedback from print readers.

  4. Emily-Jane says:

    Well, it’s not exactly a zine about the law, but the students at UC’s Boalt Hall School of Law have (or had?) a fan club devoted to the tv show The O.C., and they produced a zine. There’s are some excerpts from it at their webpage: http://oregonlegalresearch.blogspot.com/2007/01/zines-and-law.html

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