Ah, fuck it, I got nothing else. I could publish my laundry lists, and some random doodles, or perhaps a lengthy treatsie I have completed on those cheap dinner delights Ramen Noodles, but this at least pretends that I've got something meaningful to say. So here's the article.

It starts like this: I was wondering how in the hell all this disparate people end up doing the same thing, namely publishing zines. Zine publishing (any DIY publishing) is a lonely, cash-sapping avocation that only antisocial fuckup weirdos like me and you consider pouring our souls and energies into, so the fact that so many people consciously choose to do it amazes me. As I thought about this mystery, I thought I saw at least one pattern emerging. I'm probably just making this shit up to fill some pages of this rag, but I thought I perceived certain definite stages in a Zine Publisher's life.

STAGE 1: Pre-First Issue. LENGTH OF STAGE: Varies from 1 week to 27 years.

Ah, that magical period between realizing that any shlub who can jab the COPY button at their local Kinkos can put out something that vaguely resembles a magazine, and bollocks to anyone who says they can't, and actually producing an issue. It's a heady time, because it is, in the words of Willie Wonka, a time of pure imagination - you haven't actually tried producing anything, and you haven't met the cold realities of creation, reproduction, cost and distribution - the four horsemen of zine apocalypse. Like as not you've already told the world that you're putting out a zine, and every day some new wanker appears asking to see a copy of it. This can quickly lead to madness, which is, of course, a required trait in finishing any zine.

For some unlucky souls, of course, the pre-first issue stage can last their entire lifetimes, with puzzled relatives paging through thousands of unsorted pages in the event of our deaths.

STAGE 2: First Issue. LENGTH OF STAGE: Fifteen seconds.

Once those golden issues of your first ever zine are in the mail, a wave of relief and euphoria sweeps over you and you get all giddy. Then a sweaty film breaks out all over you, because you realize that you just condensed 27 years worth of material into one issue. At this pace, you'll be dead before you finish out the first volume, so the next issue looms large in your mind. You need to get it out faster, but how?

The usual solutions will enter your head, but you must resist, for the good of humanity. The usual solutions being: writing movie or album reviews just to fill space, publishing your junior high poetry, doodles, or diary entries just to fill space, using unusually large fonts to fill space, and generally just rambling on about whatever enters your pretty little head.

The realization that one zine isn't going to make you a star settles in when you get half your mailing back with bad addresses, and absolutely no attention paid. This is when you turn to Demon Alcohol for comfort.

STAGE 3: Alcoholic Inaction During Post-Inaugral Issue Depression. LENGTH OF STAGE: 1 month to 27 years

This stage is self-explanatory.

STAGE 4: Subsequent Issues. LENGTH OF STAGE: Anywhere from 1 to 1000 issues of zine.

Once you break through to the next issue of your zine, you're in uncharted territory, really, since so few people actually produce more than one issue of any zine. During this period your zine will probably mutate away from its original purpose, look, and style. Unless you are one of those lucky people who remains locked in an adolescent mental state throughout your entire life, and you proudly publish issue #345 of Boogers Shaped Like Things I've Found in My Nose a week after your thirty-fifth birthday.

Everyone finds their own way in this stage, of course. Some people publish as regular as clockwork, spitting out issues with the fascist attention to timeliness that made Italy such a force in the early 20th century. Some people produce issues according to a lazy, hard-to-pin-down inner schedule which sometimes sees one issue in a year, and sometimes five. Insanity, by this point, is largely assumed, as you are regularly pouring money, time, and passion into a black hole that is rarely read, or even known about, by anyone outside of your circle of friends and family. Then again, what else would be be putting our time, money, and passion into? Playstation games? Pornography? The Discovery Channel?

Insanity, in this situation, is really just another word for doing something worthwhile with your time.

STAGE 5: Coasting. LENGTH OF STAGE: However long Stage 4 lasts.

Not really a separate stage, but a subset of Stage 4, but The Inner Swine has never been known for its subtlety or accuracy or even its attempts at these things. Stage 5 is where you've figured everything out: the composition, typesetting, printing, and distro of your zine. Nothing surprises you. Nothing comes as a shock to you. The good part of this is that you can't be stopped, your zine just keeps on coming. The bad part is, of course, the crushing ennui of regular publication. The challenge of just doing it is gone, and now you're in constant danger of letting it become a job. Because, let's face it, the hours are long, the actual creation, distribution, and promotion of a zine is grueling, and the pay is low. By the time you realize you hate putting it out more than life itself, you've likely published five or six really shitty issues.

I guess there is a final stage: post-zine. I'd like to think that good zines go on forever, but, inexplicably, people who put out good zines often do so for a brief period of time. What happens after that? Well, sometimes they put out another zine, of course. Sometimes I guess they tire of the all-work-and-no-pay life of a zine-publisher, and I've speculated in the past that gaining success as a writer or artist leaves little room for unprofitable stuff like zining.