Reading a 1994 Perzine Thirty Years Later

A reader donated a perzine from 1994, typed on a typewriter and pasted up with rubber cement. We read it aloud at print night.

The box was labeled only with a year and a marker drawing of a skull. Inside were about sixty zines, a handful of show flyers, and a letter from someone asking to trade.

What was in the box

• Scan at 600dpi, grayscale
• Remove rusted staples with a flat spatula
• Sleeve each issue separately
• Log the box number in the catalog

We scan everything at 600dpi before anyone reads it, because old toner flakes and staples rust. Then we read the originals once, carefully, and put them in acid-free sleeves.

The fonts changed. The reasons didn't.

Reading it now

What stands out is how little has changed. The fonts are different and the phone numbers have too many digits missing, but the reasons people made these are exactly the same.

A note on paper: we buy recycled 80gsm by the box and it runs through every machine we own. Heavier stock is lovely for covers, but it will jam the old copier if you try to feed it more than ten sheets at a time.