An ongoing collection of zines added to the holdings of the University of Miami Libraries Special Collections. Zines are typically independent and self published booklets popular in underground subcultures. The first zines were fanzines, started in the early 20th century by science fiction fans documenting the genre. The format truly took off with the punk rock movement of the 1970s, as a do-it-yourself spirit inspired legions of underground punk fans to start raw but vibrant journals documenting the nascent music scenes in their communities. Zine topics would broaden throughout the 1980s and 1990s to cover a variety of subject areas, from comics to anarchist politics to women’s rights, to more mundane subjects like dumpster diving, alternative fashions, tattoo art, and much more. Despite the expansion of topics, the format usually remained the same—self-published booklets printed in limited editions and typically produced with a photocopy machine.
A collection of fanzines dedicated to reggae music, and the culture and fanbase surrounding the genre. The titles range from small-run, independently published zines, to glossy commercial magazines and tabloids. The wide range of publishing locations, including the United Kingdom, New York and South Florida, indicate the international popularity of reggae, a musical genre born on the island of Jamaica. Some of the fanzines extend their coverage to other Caribbean musical genres such as ska and soca. The music scenes in Africa are covered as well. In addition to the music, many of the fanzines explore the Rastafari movement and other Afrocentric ideologies that have historically been linked to reggae.
The O, Miami collection holds memorabilia associated with the literary organization and their events and publications. The materials document many of the inventive techniques used to promote poetry during their annual O, Miami Poetry Festival, including poetry parking tickets and poems in the form of lottery scratch off tickets. Other events documented include the organization's visiting writers series, and their collaborations with Pages and Spreads, another local literary organization. The collection also includes chapbooks/zines that collect poems and writings from local Miami writers.
The Lenny Kaye Science Fiction Fanzine collection holds a significant number of sci-fi zines from the 1940s-1970s. Zines are typically independent and self published booklets popular in underground subcultures. The first zines were fanzines, started in the early 20th century by science fiction fans documenting the genre. This collection contains fanzines from the mid-20th century, collected by the musician Lenny Kaye. The fanzines document the active subculture surrounding science fiction, including fan fiction, convention news, and fan clubs. The collection holds zines produced as part of a number of amateur press associations, including the Spectator Amateur Press Society (SAPS), the Neffer Amateur Press Alliance (N'APA), and the Fantasy Amateur Press Association (FAPA). The collection is truly international in scope, with zines produced in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Japan and several European countries present.
The Kevin Arrow Miami, Music, Art, and Culture collection contains zines, periodicals, ephemera, flyers, photographs, art work, posters, audio-visual material (CDs, CD-ROMs, and vinyl records), and other related archival materials.
Jason Handelsman is a writer/journalist based in Miami. This collection consists of zines and zine originals for his project, "Untitled Rough Manuscript for the President's Reality Show," his journals, personal notes, and other writings.
A collection of contemporary zines created by Japanese women as part of an exhibit entitled "Feminine," which was curated by Tokyo's Zine's Mate and presented at the 2011 New York Art Book Fair. This archive was once part of the personal collection of Matt Wobensmith, who created the zine Outpunk and is known for being an avid zine collector and zine show curator.
The zines in this collection represent a wide array of genres, often utilizing photography, art, writing, and ephemera to create unique art pieces that are produced in limited quantities and locally distributed. They primarily showcase the viewpoints of modern Asian and Asian-American underground artists with such noted topics as fashion, sexuality, gender, travel, social issues, education, and self-expression. Written in both Japanese and English, many of the zines exhibit a heavy array of western influence, referencing western folklore, cinema, and pop culture as well as adopting western-inspired punk and alternative fashion. There is a spirit of freedom and unrestrained creativity that pervades this selection, captured by many crude sketches, both black and white and colorful, think pieces, and abstract drawings, all which serve to produce an intriguing snapshot of the growing art and zine movement in Japan in the 21st century.
Born in Ituiuitaba, Brazil, Gazy Andraus is a comics researcher and author. He studied Visual Arts at the Art Institute of the Federal University of Goiás (1986-1987) and graduated from the Faculty of Plastic Arts of the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation in São Paulo in 1992. He then became a Master of Visual Arts from the Institute of Arts of UNESP in São Paulo in 1999, and a Doctor in Communication Sciences. His collection includes Brazilian zines he created and collected over his lifetime.
The Firefly Zine collection is a collection of zines donated to the University of Miami Libraries by former residents of the Firefly, a local Miami collective house and important part of Miami's punk rock and activist subcultures. There are over 2,000 zines held in the collection.
Zines are typically independent and self published booklets popular in underground subcultures. The first zines were fanzines, started in the early 20th century by science fiction fans documenting the genre. The format truly took off with the punk rock movement of the 1970s, as a do-it-yourself spirit inspired legions of underground punk fans to start raw but vibrant journals documenting the nascent music scenes in their communities. Zine topics would broaden throughout the 1980s and 1990s to cover a variety of subject areas, from comics to anarchist politics to women’s rights, to more mundane subjects like dumpster diving, alternative fashions, tattoo art, and much more. Despite the expansion of topics, the format usually remained the same—self-published booklets printed in limited editions and typically produced with a photocopy machine.
The Firefly Zine collection in particular is significant for its materials documenting political beliefs and causes such as anarchism, direct action, women's rights, lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender (LGBT) rights and environmentalism. There are also many zines about the punk rock music scene and subculture, the rights of indigenous peoples, and alternative forms of transportation such as bicycles. As with many zine libraries, there is also a strong collection of zines that are of a more personal nature. Zines about South Florida, Latin America and the Caribbean regions—important collection areas of University of Miami Special Collections—are also significant in number.
The Erica Dawn Lyle papers offer a rich history of Miami’s countercultural art and music scenes and grassroots political activity from the 1990’s to the present. Writing under the name Iggy Scam, Lyle has produced a series of classic underground fanzines, called SCAM, that are known internationally in the punk rock scene. Lyle’s writing and archive also provides a fascinating back story to some of the political activity Miami is now known for. With the current wave of home foreclosures that has spread across South Florida, has come a resurgent wave of housing activism. The most well-known activist group in Miami today is Take Back The Land, a group that has gained national media attention for their tactics in helping homeless families move into and squat homes that have been foreclosed across Miami. The Lyle papers show a pre-history of an equally militant though far less organized and coherent group of South Florida squatters and anti-gentrification activists who were attempting similar tactics a generation ago. The papers also document the formation of the city’s first Food Not Bombs, a group that is still active today. The collection of zines, journals, sketchbooks, ephemera and original art work depict contemporary social history as well as Greater Miami’s issues of urban planning, property and housing rights and the responsibility and role of art. Also well documented are Lyle's travels through unconventional methods such as hitchhiking and train hopping.
A collection of zines acquired by underground science-fiction artist, David Rike, who did cover work and illustrations for Variant World, co-edited the zine, Innuendo, and provided contributions to other zines, such as Science Fiction, Five-Yearly, and The Incompleat Burbee. Many of these zines document the rise of science-fiction fandom in the United States from as early as 1944.
An ongoing collection of comics and zines added to the holdings of the University of Miami Libraries Special Collections, with a focus on zines produced in and/or about the Caribbean and Latin America, including diaspora communities. Zines are typically independent and self published booklets popular in underground subcultures. The first zines were fanzines, started in the early 20th century by science fiction fans documenting the genre. The format truly took off with the punk rock movement of the 1970s, as a do-it-yourself spirit inspired legions of underground punk fans to start raw but vibrant journals documenting the nascent music scenes in their communities. Zine topics would broaden throughout the 1980s and 1990s to cover a variety of subject areas, from comics to anarchist politics to women’s rights, to more mundane subjects like dumpster diving, alternative fashions, tattoo art, and much more. Despite the expansion of topics, the format usually remained the same—self-published booklets printed in limited editions and typically produced with a photocopy machine.
This collection documents Book Are Nice and the organization's involvement in the literary culture of Miami. The collection currently includes materials from two editions of Pages & Spreads, a series of pop-up reading room events that Books Are Nice has helped organize.
This collection contains zines created by University of Miami graduate students for Professor Marina Magloire's ENG655 "Find Your Mother: An Introduction to Black Feminism" class held in the fall semester of 2020.
Born in Puerto Rico, Arnaldo J. López serves as the Development Officer at Pregones/Puerto Rican Traveling Theater (PRTT). He holds a Ph.D. in Latin American Literatures and Cultures from New York University and is an avid advocate of the arts. This collection features an array of zines, ephemera, comic books, and other archival material he collected in his lifetime.
