Recently, I went to a digitization workshop at the Monroe County Public Library, which (in my humble opinion) may be the best public library in the world. In talking to the staff, I found out about the library's zine collection and mentioned that back in the 90s, I was involved with one at my high school. They are always looking to add to their collection, so I recently digitized them all and sent them the files. We're back in circulation, people!
These are some of my best memories from high school. People came together, contributed content, paid for the printing from their own pockets, and then circulated these around the school. I'm really happy I held on to my copies all these years. I also discovered that I have some of the originals from when we printed them - in all their rubber cemented glory. Those are some artifacts!
The Unknown
2 issues
1992-1993
This is the one that started it. I remember being so excited when I saw the first issue, and I knew this was something I wanted to be involved with. By the time the second issue rolled around, I was a contributor, along with several of my friends. Everyone used pen names, a tradition we continued for all 3 years. Some people used more than one pen name.
Issue 1
Issue 2
The Phoenix
4 issues
1993-1994
I think most of the people behind The Unknown had graduated, but we decided we needed to keep things going. We didn't feel right using the name The Unknown since that was someone else's project, so we went with the name The Phoenix (rising from the ashes of the previous year's zine).
We used so much rubber cement piecing these together. There were problems with the readability of some of the content in Issue 2, so we ended up reprinting everything that wasn't readable in Issue 3. This stuff was important and people needed to read it!
We ran into controversy! The school newspaper ran an editorial on us (where they apparently couldn't tell left from right).
Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
Editorial article and cartoon
Equinox
5 issues
1994-1995
What the hell? We went ahead and named it again, using the theme of seasonality and renewal. I think the rationale had something to do with the fact it has already had two different names and it was a little different every year anyway. We even handed out advertisements! By this point, it had really evolved into more of a literary zine. We were mellowing in our old age! We had also computer publishing software, and the world was ours!
Announcement Flyer
Issue 1
Issue 2
Issue 3
Issue 4
Issue 5
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