When does a zine become a magazine?
“A zine becomes a magazine when you start publishing articles that advertisers like, when you edit out personal stuff in favor of more “polished” approach. . . . when you do reader research and formulate articles around responses, when you cut an article that might offend . . .” (David Ratchford) “The way I’ve found to differentiate between a zine and a non-zine may be overly simple (and once the corporate posers, like Writers Digest catch on, things will change). It’s easy. A zine is no longer a zine once it gets a UPC symbol (and, no, UPC is not “Underground Press Conference”). You know: Bar Codes. When a publisher decides to get a bar code he has decided that he wants to sell his goods in mass quantities. He sees his product as commercially viable and of an interest to a larger public. Not to say that glossy Puck! will ever sell as many issues as Cosmopolitan, but it has abandoned the mom-and-pop formula used by your average xeroxed mag. Getting a UPC code is not necessarily a bad t
