When I first tried to print a mini zine, and assemble it by a series of folds and one cut, I’d have insisted—out of frustration and somewhat tongue-in-cheek—that the format itself was subversive of a “traditional” zine size. Which only goes to show that subversiveness is in the eye of the beholder.
The US federal regime is now trying to make the case that zines are criminal—viewing even the possession of them as a way to subvert fascism, which in different times, would traditionally have been seen as a good, uncontentious thing. It’s focusing its charges on a box of specific zines—ones publicly and commonly available—and specific person—absurdly caught up in the state’s “antifa” (aka antifascist) witch hunt. But the impact of this case in a Texas-based federal district court—if it goes in the regime’s favor—could mean that all zines are a crime, meaning subversive in the eye of the beholder called the US state.
Sadly, many zines these days are far from rebellious. They are far from working at cross-purposes with this hierarchical social order, and equally far from offering beautifully bottom-up and liberatory visions of other ways to structure the world. Zines are too often, say, mini zines with bland content and yet an artsy design being sold for $10—for what amounts to one side of one piece of paper. They are posi pretty commodities as distraction from awful ugly christofascism.
Not that from an anarchist eye of the beholder, every zine has to be advocating illegal acts. Indeed, most anarchist(ic) zines are warm-and-fuzzy ways to, say, freely feed and house people, make and gift herbal medicine, engage in harm reduction, do mutual aid, lend emotional support as peers, etc., supplying do-it-ourselves practices now for self-organization and solidarity outside the state—and pointing beyond the need for it (and violence like borders, cops, and capitalism).
Come to think of it, warm-and-fuzzy ways of living are being deemed illegal by the state. Hence zines should be subversive, offering portals of possibilities to subvert unfreedom, until all are free!
(photo of @free.des.revol mini zine; PDF at
https://freedes.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Des_mini-zine.pdf)
