There are those who argue that the underground these days can be found on the Internet: the global computer network allows its travelers to move about anonymously and carve out a corner for narrow, unconventional obsessions. But there is another, subterranean world of people with aliases and attitudes that makes the Internet seem almost fuddy-duddy. E-mail? Postings? Those are for executives and housewives.
The real underground has taken the very un-Postmodern step of depending on paper and the Postal Service: this is the low-tech, unwired world of photocopied "fanzines" (from fan magazines), the vanity projects of a new generation of publishers who are making fat, unglossy magazines radical again. Many of these "zines," as they are more generally called, are produced with desktop computers, but that is as sophisticated as they get. The majority make a point of their crude appearance and unhurried voyage to the reader; most are collated by hand, distributed by the mailman and cost $3 to $6. If they are printed at all, the runs typically remain at fewer than 2,000 copies. And the goal, of course, is not to make money, build circulation or get noticed. Instead some zines refuse to carry any advertising, distribute only to their intellectual compatriots and switch titles to disguise themselves as well as avoid detection by a possible talent scout.
The purpose of zines is to have a voice -- quiet, yes, but more tangible than a computer message -- to create a nonvirtual community of like-minded readers who can, in the case of the more longstanding publications, actually reach the publisher on the phone. "Benjamin Franklin made zines," says R. Seth Friedman, 32, publisher of Factsheet Five, a bimonthly review of these publications. "He published his own thoughts using his own printing presses. It wasn't the magazine business. He did it all on his own."
Cometbus is a case in point. A hand-collated zine with a cult following, it recounts the travels, incidents and imaginings of Aaron, an American drifter who wanders the contemporary landscape in search of adventure, both ordinary and profound. With more than 30 issues published in 12 years, Cometbus is considered a classic in this subterranean world. Like many zines, it is filled with words. Issue No. 30, for instance, is 82 pages of pure print, sometimes crawling off the page. It contains this paean to punk love: "Punk rock love is . . . looking at her tattoos while she's asleep. Taking showers together. Playing checkers with cigarette butts. Watching her band play . . . Both of you having the same ex-girlfriend . . . Her giving you 10 rolls of duct tape for your birthday. Her beating up skinheads. Going to the prom on her motorcycle and checking in the helmets at the coat check . . ."