# data[].attributes.body
Comics in Zines, Zines in Comics!

“Comics as Resistance” (Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics)

Scholarly essays on comics as social commentary—connects directly to zine activism.

Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature” by Charles Hatfield

Explores the literary and DIY aesthetics that overlap with zine culture.

“Whatcha Mean, What’s a Zine?” by Mark Todd & Esther Pearl Watson

A fun illustrated book that uses comics about making zines.

# data[].attributes.body
Dynamic Task #3: Political & Social Commentary Team Zine!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
(make a copy) Dynamic Task #3: Political /Social Commentary Team Zine!

# data[].attributes.body
Zines as Political & Social Commentary

How have zines historically served as vehicles for activism?
What kinds of power structures do zines often confront or subvert?

https://nnomy.org/index.php/en/resources/classroom-resources/magz-comix-zines.html?own=0&filter[tag][0]=antiwarcomix

https://peacefulrevolutionary.substack.com/p/radical-zines

https://anchorarchive.org/taxonomy/term/840

https://anchorarchive.org/taxonomy/term/570

https://crimethinc.com/zines/this-is-about-stopping-the-genocide-in-palestine

https://zines.barnard.edu/elections-protest

https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.28038015?seq=1

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Magz/Comix/Zines - The National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NNOMY (National Network Opposing the Militarization of Youth) is a national networking body that brings together national, regional and local organizations to oppose the growing intrusion of the military in young people’s lives.

# data[].attributes.body
Dynamic Task #2: Art as Activism - Upload your activist / social justice zine here (and on HB), complete with a 3-4 sentence artist statement about your inspiration and intention. (Due by Thurs 10/2)

# data[].attributes.body
20-21ST CENTURY ZINES

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Q: What the heck is a zine?

A: A zine is a self-published, easily reproduced, printed form of self expression. Pronounced like "zeen," they are typically booklets made in small batches and distributed for a small fee, for free, or traded for other zines, goods, or services.

A zine can be almost anything: folded, stapled, taped, glued, sewn, stacked, or bound, and usually made with paper. The content of a zine can touch on any topic: from visual art and music to politics and environmentalism, to sexuality, humor, fashion, literary criticism, or personal memoir. The zine format can accommodate a wide range of ideas and expressive forms. You might find writing, drawings, photos, collages, or any other form of combining words and imagery. There might be a clear narrative, or the content could be completely abstract. A zine's structure is totally up to the maker. To be a zine, the maker must identify the published product as a zine. By identifying something as a zine, these booklets can be differentiated from other types of independent publications. While all the characteristics of zines I've listed here are generally true, they are also just guidelines. The only rule of zines is that there are no rules.

A person who makes zines can be called a 'zinester' and is likely motivated by passion over profit, valuing self-expression and intellectual and artistic vision over success under capitalism. Zine culture has historically been anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist. To many zinesters, the community found through making, reading, and trading zines is just as important as the printed publication.
A Brief History of Zines
The history of zines is often traced back to science fiction fans in 1930's Chicago, but I think we can go back much further. While the term 'zine' has only existed since the 30's, self-published booklets and pamphlets are not a new idea. People with independent ideas have been sharing their words and opinions since there were printing presses.

1440's: Guides for how to practice witchcraft
1450-1750: Guides for how to catch witches
1517: Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses

Self-publishing has played a key part in many acts of resistance. Though the term zine hadn't been coined yet, movements like the American Revolution were fueled and supported by zine-like publications.

1732-1759: Poor Richard's Almanac by Ben Franklin
1775: Common Sense by Thomas Paine
1788: Federalist Papers by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
1840s: Women's suffrage zines, including The National Citizen edited by Matilda Joslyn Gage
1848: The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles

1920's: "Little Magazines" popularized during the Harlem Renaissance (Read "Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists" for free here)

The word "fanzine" came out of sci-fi fan culture during the Great Depression era. Fans were not happy with what they considered bad writing, so they began to make and share their own fan made magazines-or FANZINES. The Comet began publishing in 1930.

1944: First xerox machine produced
1958: First commercial photocopier produced

During the 70's and 80's, DIY zine culture became deeply linked with the punk scene of London, LA, and New York. Zines flourished in the 90's with feminist punk movement riot grrrl. As a format, zines lend themselves to the voices of the marginalized: you can write, print, and distribute whatever you need to say, no permission required.
Zines in the Mainstream
Though zines have long been associated with counter-culture movements and those on the margins of society, they've trickled into mainstream spaces over time. Eventually, alternative culture will be recognized, co-opted, and commodified by mainstream culture. Rolling Stone began in 1967 as a zine filled with Hunter S. Thompson's political reporting. In 2016, Kanye West tweeted: "Zine pronounced Zine short for magazine. A lot of people pronounce it wrong."

The tweet was referencing a publication Kanye had made to accompany his second line of footwear for his brand, Yeezy. It's not surprising that Kanye feels connected with the spirit of zine culture, as he likes to brand himself as an outsider. While Kanye is correct in saying that a lot of people pronounce it wrong, he wrongly assumes zine is shortened from magazine instead of fanzine. I'm eager to dispute this remark because zines have much more in common with artfully designed books than they do with magazines funded by ad placement revenue. At the end of the day, identifying what you've made as a zine is the only thing necessary to make something a zine. However, Kanye's zines are made to help promote his brand, and this overtly capitalist effort is a clear departure from zine culture's anti-capitalist origins.

Amy Poehler directed and starred in the 2021 Netflix film Moxie (based on the book of the same name by Jennifer Mathieu). The film tells the story of shy teenager Vivian, who anonymously publishes a zine calling out sexism at her school and accidentally starts a revolution. Vivian is inspired by her mom's (played by Poehler) past as a punk rock riot grrrl in the 90's
Why Should I Make a Zine?
There are so many reasons why you could and should make a zine. Here are just a few:

-Tell your story
-Protest harm happening in your community
-Process a difficult time
-Support your art practice
-Connect with others
-Record an experience
-Create a collection
-Teach a process
-Inform people about a topic
-Share your manifesto

"The most important zine you will ever make is your first zine. It is likely to be awful and that is okay, even encouraged. Zines are always works in progress, just like people." Davida Breier, editor of Xerography Debt (Quoted on pg. 27 of Make a Zine byJoe Biel)

I personally recommend the no-staples zine format for first-time zinesters. If you're new to zine making, a piece of paper, a scissor, something to draw with, and an idea are all you need to get started.
Books About Zines Make a Zine: Start Your Own Underground Publishing Revolution by Joe Biel with Bill Brent Whatcha Mean, What's A Zine? The Art of Making Zines and Mini-Comics by Mark Todd and Esther Pearl Watson

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Brief History of Zines and Why You Should Make One

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A: A zine is a self-published, easily reproduced, printed form of self expression. Pronounced like "zeen," they are typically booklets made in small batches and distributed for a small fee, for free...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
If you've ever been into an indie bookstore or cruised around at a comic convention, you've likely seen or flipped through a zine. Zines (pronounced ZEEN) have been around since the early 20th century, and have been an enormous part of underground and non-commercial publication. Zines are characteristically cheap to make, often photocopied, and have a distinctly "DIY" look. Often, they represent the voices of people on the fringes, and their content is hyper local.

As far as content goes, zines can feature poetry, art, collage, interviews, comics, and more. Your local small press can roll out zines covering topics from anarchistic gatherings in your area, to comics about police brutality, to tutorials on how to build your own garden boxes. You can even find artistic zines online today, featuring art and artists from all around the world.

Zines have travelled a long way before arriving on your bookshelf or computer screen...so let's take a little look at where they've been!

The 1930s and '40s

By signing up you agree to our terms of use

The very first zine dates back to May of 1930 in the USA. A little publication called The Comet was first created by the Science Correspondence Club. The letter section of the zine was a prominent feature, where fans discussed science as well as science fiction.

At this time, photocopiers had not yet been invented. Enter the mimeograph, also known as a stencil duplicator. This machine was invented in the 1800s and remained in use until the 1960s and '70s when it was slowly replaced by the photocopier. It was not ideal for large editions, but it was perfect for the pulp fan magazines of the 1940s-60s.

The 1940s saw a boom in the science fiction fanzine culture. In October of 1940, Russ Chauvenet coined the term fanzine in his sci-fi publication Detours. A number of authors of the day created zines, including Ray Bradbury, Jack Williamson, and Robert A. Heinlein.

Additionally, the 1940s saw the first ever queer fanzine. A woman named Edythe Eyde (also known as Lisa Ben, an anagram of "lesbian") typed out the first copy of in June of 1947, creating a total of nine issues before ending it the following year. The publication was free, and Lisa Ben mailed them to friends as well as hand delivering them.

In 1949, the Xerox Corporation introduced the first xerographic copier, and "xeroxing" was officially born.

The 1950s and '60s: Folk Zines, Comics, and Star Trek

Several popular zines centring folk music culture emerged during the 1950s. Lee Hoffman was a prominent figure who published several science fiction zines as well as folk zines such as Bad Day at Lime Rock, Caravan, and Quandry.

Artists such as Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman, and Jay Lynch began to find their voices through fanzines, inspired by magazines such as Mad and Cracked. These artists went on to found the underground comics movement that changed the face of the comics industry.

While folk zines were still around in the 1960s, rock and roll zines also took the stage. Paul Williams's zine Crawdaddy!was the most popular of these, but it soon became popular enough to turn legit and become a full-on magazine.

Spockanalia was the first Star Trek zine in 1967, and it was wildly popular. The second issue featured letters from the cast, including Leonard Nimoy.

In 1968, Star Trek was to be cancelled after two seasons, but through fan lobbying (part of which was organized through fan zines), the fans were able to get the show back on the air for another year.

The 1970s and '80s: Punk Zines and the DIY Movement

Copy shops were now widely available in the 1970s, changing zine production forever. Now, zinesters were able to make many copies quickly and cheaply, and the look of zines changed along with it.

The punk scene became the main hub of zine culture during the '70s. Zines took on a grungy, do-it-yourself style. Some of the most popular of these were Sniffin' Glue, 48 Thrills, and Bondage. Most works came out of New York, L.A., and London. Punk zines continued well into the 1980s.

The 1990s and 2000s: Riot Grrrl and Queercore

Riot Grrrl, an underground feminist punk movement, came about in the 1990s. With this movement came a huge sweep of political zines that spread the feminist manifesto.

Queercore (AKA homocore) is another offshoot of anarcho-punk subculture, this one aimed at critiquing homophobia within the genre and society as a whole. QZAP (Queer Zine Archive Project) was first launched in 2003 in an effort to preserve as many queer zines as possible.

2010s and Beyond: What's Next?

Zines are still all the rage, both in digital and DIY physical forms. There are now zine fests, libraries collect zines and bookstores sell them. The POC Zine Project was created in 2015 to archive zines written by people of colour.

The zine is as popular today as it ever has been. It remains an important part of subcultural movements and underground press for marginalized voices. Anybody can make a zine... that's the best part!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
If you've ever been into an indie bookstore or cruised around at a comic convention, you've likely seen or flipped through a zine. Zines (pronounced ZEEN) have been around since the early 20th century, and have been an enormous part of underground and non-commercial publication.

# data[].attributes.body
One Page DIY Zine Design Share Out!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
One Page DIY Zine Design - Share Out Questions

# data[].attributes.body
Sniffin' Glue

As you navigate this database, jot any noticings, wonderings, questions, and connections below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Sniffin Glue 12 (1977) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Sniffin Glue 12 (1977)Correspondents here have noted how prolific some of the fanzine writers were - on the ball and what not - Sniffin' Glue is the classic...

# data[].attributes.body
Riot Grrrl

As you navigate this database, jot any noticings, wonderings, questions, and connections below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Riot Grrrl: The '90s Movement that Redefined Punk

# data[].attributes.body
Sniffin' Glue

As you navigate this database, jot any noticings, wonderings, questions, and connections below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
A Brief History of Punk Zine Sniffin’ Glue - Noah

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Renegade media and subculture go hand-in-hand. Before the internet made it easier to find out about under-appreciated music, movements, and brands, zines and other independent publications disseminated this information for a curious few who truly wanted to seek it out. It was infinitely harder to find like-minded peopl

# data[].attributes.body
Sniffin' Glue

As you navigate this database, jot any noticings, wonderings, questions, and connections below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
I left school in 1974 and got a job as a bank clerk. I used to buy the NME and read about New York punk: the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television. When the Ramones' debut album came out, it sounded so fresh and exciting. I was blown away. A kid like me would never have thought the music business was for them, but when you heard the Ramones, you thought: "I can do this."

I wanted to be involved even though I wasn't a musician. There were fanzines, but they were for more marginalised music, like blues and country. Inspired by the Ramones track Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue, I thought it would be great to do a punk fanzine.

I had an old children's typewriter I had got for Christmas one year and used that. I crossed out in pen where I needed to and used felt tip for the headlines. It was very basic. Looking back, it looks like some kind of DIY statement but the aesthetic template for punk didn't exist at that point. I was just doing the best I could, with whatever was available.

'No 1 of many, we hope!' ... the first issue of Sniffin' Glue. Photograph: © Mark Perry British/Library

The first issue didn't have many pages and there were no photographs. The main thing was a review of the Ramones. I never took them by hand to sell at gigs. I was lazy, so I sold them through record shops - Rough Trade, Virgin. Using their distribution networks, you could get them to pretty much every shop in the country.

Punk was like a bomb going off. It changed my life. Within a few months of starting Sniffin' Glue, I had quit my job. By issue four, we were talking about taking over the music business. The demand grew and record shops would front me money to get more copies printed. We started getting them made at the printers and soon had loads of great photographers contributing. An attitude was formed that set it apart from the music papers. We wrote about bands in a way that said: "Go and see them. They will change your life. You're going to cut your hair off, leave your job and form a band."

I was in the right place at the right time. It might be a legendary fanzine now but it didn't seem so then. Years later, I'm proud of the impact it had on what came next: other punk fanzines such as London's Burning, 48 Thrills, Ripped and Torn; as well as i-D and the Face, whose DIY ethos and strong stylistic identity owed so much to those early fanzines.

For me, punk died the day the Clash signed to [major label] CBS in 1977. I wrote that at the time. By mid-77, I had a talent-scouting job at Step-Forward Records and had started my own band, Alternative TV. It was too much to do all three. Plus, I felt the zine was getting diluted. So I thought: "Twelve issues and then stuff it." And that's what we did. We printed 20,000 copies of the final issue with Alternative TV's first single as a giveaway flexi-disc. Sniffin' Glue had said what it needed to - and went out on a high.
Danny Baker, writer
I came on board halfway through. I remember thinking Mark was nuts when he started it. We'd put each issue together in a condemned building behind Oxford Street. Stewart Copeland, the drummer in the Police, gave us his office in there.

There would be thousands of copies of each page arranged in piles on a table. We'd come back from a night out at the Roxy, do a line of speed and walk round the table all night, taking a page from each pile. You'd get to the end, put a staple through them, then start again. In the morning, you'd have 10,000 Sniffin' Glues.

I was surprised Mark decided to end it but he said: "This is the punk thing to do. It's all on Top of the Pops now. It's on the major labels. Let's finish it." We had £90 in the bank, which we spent on the flexi-discs for the final issue.

Mark doesn't get half the credit he deserves. You've got your Malcolm McLarens and your Bernie Rhodes, but Mark was the real thing - a council estate kid who started his own magazine. To me, that was like him flying to the moon.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I left school in 1974 and got a job as a bank clerk. I used to buy the NME and read about New York punk: the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television. When the Ramones' debut album came out, it sounded so fresh and exciting. I was blown away.

# data[].attributes.body
Riot Grrrl

As you navigate this database, jot any noticings, wonderings, questions, & connections below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
RIOT GRRRL MANIFESTO

The Riot Grrrl Movement began in the early 1990s by Washington State
band Bikini Kill and lead singer Kathleen Hanna.The riot grrrl manifesto
was published 1991 in the BIKINI KILL ZINE 2.

BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own meanings.

BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.

BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.

BECAUSE we want and need to encourage and be encouraged in the face of all our own insecurities, in the face of beergutboyrock that tells us we can't play our instruments, in the face of "authorities" who say our bands/zines/etc are the worst in the US and

BECAUSE we don't wanna assimilate to someone else's (boy) standards of what is or isn't.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to falter under claims that we are reactionary "reverse sexists" AND NOT THE TRUEPUNKROCKSOULCRUSADERS THAT WE KNOW we really are.

BECAUSE we know that life is much more than physical survival and are patently aware that the punk rock "you can do anything" idea is crucial to the coming angry grrrl rock revolution which seeks to save the psychic and cultural lives of girls and women everywhere, according to their own terms, not ours.

BECAUSE we are interested in creating non-heirarchical ways of being AND making music, friends, and scenes based on communication + understanding, instead of competition + good/bad categorizations.

BECAUSE doing/reading/seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out how bullshit like racism, able-bodieism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism, sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.

BECAUSE we see fostering and supporting girl scenes and girl artists of all kinds as integral to this process.

BECAUSE we hate capitalism in all its forms and see our main goal as sharing information and staying alive, instead of making profits of being cool according to traditional standards.

BECAUSE we are angry at a society that tells us Girl = Dumb, Girl = Bad, Girl = Weak.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousism and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.

Back To History Is A Weapon's Front Page

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
RIOT GRRRL MANIFESTO The Riot Grrrl Movement began in the early 1990s by Washington State band Bikini Kill and lead singer Kathleen Hanna.The riot grrrl manifesto was published 1991 in the BIKINI KILL ZINE 2. BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

# data[].attributes.body
Riot Grrrl

As you navigate this database, jot any noticings, wonderings, questions, & connections below.

# data[].attributes.body
Riot Grrrl

As you navigate this database, jot any noticings, wonderings, questions, connections below.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A recent resurgence of punk-powered feminism - or is that girl-powered punk? - raises the question: What was, or is, riot grrrl? A movement, a genre, an era, a scene?

The spelling itself is disputed: some OGs (original grrrls) argue two rs, others three; some just say girl. The term originated around 1991 almost as a joke, an offhand comment that got written into mimeographed fanzines that circulated among punk rock and feminist communities first in the Pacific Northwest and the Northeast, then across the country, and eventually around the world. There was a decentralized but effective network of activist chapters that organized protests and performances, made art and zines, and also just sat around and talked - raising consciousness one girl at a time. And of course, there were recordings: handmade cassette tapes, small-label 45s, EPs, LPs and even CDs.

Politically, riot grrrl blasted feminism into the future: Centering the needs of a new generation via direct-action strategies, witty mantras and slogans such as "girl power" and "support girl love," it became one of the most visible branches of what was dubbed third wave feminism. But materially the music was old-school, arguably the last blast of a predigital age. The mantra of the day was "do it yourself." If you wrote a good song, you recorded it as quickly and cheaply as you could, then pressed it up and stuck it inside some cut-up-graphics-style paper sleeve. The songs were put out by regional labels like K, Kill Rock Stars, Chainsaw, Outpunk and Dischord. Some first saw the light of day on compilation albums like the "International Pop Underground Convention," "Stars Kill Rock" and "Move Into Villa Villa Kula."

No pledge or stamp made an act riot grrrl. The bands below generally contained members who identified as such, or performed at shows organized by local chapters, or sang about feminist issues over adamantly under-processed music from 1991 to 1996. Some were what the poet Tracie Morris calls "riot grrrl adjacent": They existed before or formed simultaneously but separately from the activist centers. Before, beyond and beside riot grrrl there was an uprising of ferocious female acts playing music that was generally heavier and less overtly political: the Lunachicks, Frightwig, L7, Babes in Toyland, the Nymphs, Hole, the Gits. But that's another list.

Leapt upon by the media, riot grrrl disappeared almost as quickly as it materialized - too stubborn or scared to plunge or get sucked into the mainstream. But its influence has persisted, resurfacing in the last decade with the traveling art exhibition "Alien She," books including the young adult novel "Moxie" (optioned by Amy Poehler's film company), and untold numbers of bands, most famously Pussy Riot. In the wake of this riot grrrl renaissance, or resurgence, the OGs are reclaiming their place in history, and their spot on the stage. In the past year, Kill Rock Stars produced a podcast commemorating the 25th anniversary of Bratmobile's debut album, "Pottymouth," and two key groups - Bikini Kill and Team Dresch - have reunited for tours and are rereleasing albums. Bikini Kill played its first show in more than two decades on April 25; tickets sold out immediately for its limited tour.

This is a list of essential riot grrrl music, one song per artist - a starting point, not a totality. If you don't like our list, make your own. That's the point, really. Do it yourself. EVELYN McDONNELL

The Seattle grunge band 7 Year Bitch was generally considered riot grrrl adjacent, but few tracks expressed the radical rage of the era better than this primal scream anthem condemning sexual assault. The vocalist Selene Vigil shouts each word of the title in ascending tones, as if she's emphatically stating a point that should be obvious. E.M.

The Washington quartet Autoclave - not riot grrrls per se, but fellow travelers - was a decisive matrix for two of the city's most creative musicians: the extraordinary guitarist Mary Timony (who would go on to Helium and Ex Hex, as well as a fruitful solo career) and the bassist Christina Billotte (who switched to guitar in Slant 6 and Quix*o*tic). The band's self-titled compilation is a treasure trove of arrhythmic beats and elliptical lyrics, and its debut single, "Go Far," showcases confident, understatedly sophisticated songwriting. ELISABETH VINCENTELLI

It starts with a declaration of war: "We're Bikini Kill, and we want revolution girl-style now!" An audacious proposition follows: Be yourself. The first song on the first record by Bikini Kill established the bulwark for the battle to come. The guitarist Billy Karren's squeals of feedback are like an amplified throat clearing, while Kathi Wilcox's bass delivers marching orders. Kathleen Hanna speaks directly and intimately to a female audience - "Hey girlfriend!" - then Tobi Vail rapid-fires on the snare, and nothing would ever be the same.

"Rebel Girl," from the same record, is known as the definitive riot grrrl anthem, the ultimate snapshot of the genre's power-punk music and feminist heroism. But "Double Dare Ya" tossed the boys to the back of the room and pulled the girls to the front with its siren call. Hanna's vocals are a marvel of emotional swagger, humor and rage as she speaks to adolescent hearts in the language they know: mocking the nagging of parents, the bullying of boyfriends and the patronizing of the patriarchy, then finally shouting the call to arms of daredevil friends: "You do have rights!" E.M.

The University of Oregon students Allison Wolfe and Molly Neuman were an integral part of the riot grrrl origin story - their zine "Girl Germs" was a cut-and-paste feminist samizdat that first came out in early 1991. Naturally, a band followed, with Erin Smith, from Washington, joining on guitar. Unlike many of its peers, Bratmobile made records that almost matched its live shows' intoxicating rush - its motto was just as much get up and fight as get up and dance. Wolfe favored old-fashioned cat's-eye glasses and vaguely retro summer dresses, upending decades of expectations about women in rock bands: Here was someone who looked like a prim librarian spitting out acid-tongued harangues and taunts. On "Love Thing," from the band's debut album, "Pottymouth," Neuman's implacable, driving beat and the surfy lines Smith wrings from her vintage teardrop Kapa guitar keep pushing Wolfe's sing-screaming. The lyrics have acquired a prescient, bitter resonance in the age of #MeToo, and yet the song pulses with the infectious rock 'n' roll élan that characterized Bratmobile. E.V.

After Bratmobile disbanded (temporarily, it would turn out), Wolfe and Smith formed Cold Cold Hearts with the Cutthroats bassist Nattles and the drummer Katherine Brown. Everything about that combo was bare-bones: its discography (one 7" and one album), its songs (under two minutes) and its production (minimal but poppy). But Cold Cold Hearts burned bright and was funny, too, fully indulging in the humor that marked Bratmobile's best songs. Smith's playing on "Any Resemblance...," from the band's self-titled LP, is a frantic hybrid of the B-52's and the Cramps at warp speed. Wolfe's line "Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental" may well poke fun at riot grrrl's close-to-the-vest lyrics, or perhaps at the internecine battles that eventually drove wedges among bands, musicians and fans. E.V.

The sisters Amy and Wendy Yao formed Emily's Sassy Lime (it's a palindrome) with their high school friend Emily Ryan in Southern California, legendarily after sneaking out of their houses to see Bratmobile and Bikini Kill. They played primitive shambolic pop in the spirit of the Shaggs and Shonen Knife. This song, from their debut album, "Desperate, Scared, But Social," is a quintessential punk plaint against the Man. E.M.

"Watchmaker" just may be a response to the press's response to riot grrrl. "I want to rip off your best catchphrase/Smear your face across the music page," Carrie Brownstein snarls over Becca Albee's guitar and CJ Phillips's drums on the band's second and last album, "Such Friends Are Dangerous." "Watchmaker" is at once clever (the chorus "I asked you what time it was/Not how to make a watch" remains an excellent riposte to mansplaining) and fierce - Brownstein lets rip the roar that Sleater-Kinney fans would come to know well. E.M.

Created at the dawn of the 1980s in Toronto, this band anticipated both the riot grrrl and queercore scenes, which it bridged when these movements were in full bloom in the early 1990s. The quintet, led by the singer Caroline Azar and the guitarist G.B. Jones, found inspiration in the outer reaches of pop culture (B movies, underground artists like Tom of Finland), which it spat back out coated in a singularly irreverent brand of feminism. Jones, also an accomplished visual artist, influential zinemeister and Super 8 auteur, helped make Fifth Column as much a witty conceptual art project as a polemical rock band. E.V.

A side project from Bratmobile's Neuman and Bikini Kill minus Hanna, Frumpies embraced recorded-in-a-tin-can production values, fuzzed-out guitar and sing-songy vocals. The band didn't put out much music - a handful of 7" singles between 1993 and 2000, collected in the anthology "Frumpie One-Piece" - but each of its tracks, like "Eunuch Nights," summoned the glorious abandon of hundreds of garage bands and reclaimed lo-fi as the sound of American girls. E.V.

Riot grrrl's frank, open views about sexuality and body politics were groundbreaking, and the movement extolled female solidarity and friendship. But it took the emergence of Gossip to get a heroine who proudly called herself a "fat, feminist lesbian": Beth Ditto. On the early song "Where the Girls Are," the trio meshed a melody line reminiscent of the Sonics' "Have Love, Will Travel" with to-the-point lyrics: "Come on home with me tonight/Let me love you all night long." Ditto, who had fled Arkansas for the more tolerant pastures of Olympia, Wash., also brought soulful stylings and a powerful belt to the riot universe, heretofore dominated by deliberately artless snarls. E.V.

Few 21st-century bands have genes like girlSperm, commonly known as gSp, which includes the OG Tobi Vail and Layla Gibbon from Skinned Teen alongside Marissa Magic. The trio's self-titled debut EP barrels through 10 songs in 15 minutes. The combination of serrated guitars and alternately affectless and shouty vocals feels timeless, as much riot grrrl as no wave. E.V.

This essential first-wave riot grrrl band - made up of the guitarist Corin Tucker (later of Sleater-Kinney) and the drummer Tracy Sawyer - released a debut four-song 7" that was supremely unsettling in its raw intensity: These women knew. "Me & Her" is one of the best songs ever written about how torturous female friendships can be. "You don't understand a girl who's passionate for another girl," Tucker sings. "One day I think I love her then I think I want to kill her." E.V.

The London band Huggy Bear was proof that riot grrrl could leap not just from one American coast to the other, but across the Atlantic. While the group closely embraced the riot grrrl aesthetic, down to scribbling messages on their arms in black Sharpie, a major difference was that one of the quintet's two men, Chris Rowley, often took the mic. "Her Jazz," however, features the group's main female singer, Niki Elliott. The lyrics confront male allies, as we'd call them now, demanding they reconcile their actions with their rhetoric: "Boy/girl revolutionaries/You and me/That's what you told me/So show me!" The sound is excited and excitable, with Elliott biting into the words one second, polishing them the next. And if that boy stepped out of line? "I'll run you over/Watch me." The band performed the track in full agit-pop mode on the Channel 4 show "The Word" in 1993. E.V.

Wait, Kathleen Hanna could be relaxed and funny? She could sample Lesley Gore and the Cars? With Bikini Kill on a break, Hanna sat down in her apartment and recorded a solo album under the name Julie Ruin. Up until this point, the sounds of the moment seemed to have passed riot grrrl by, and the movement's adherence to a garage aesthetic was partly a political move: Men often kept women out of bands by arguing they lacked conventional technique, and riot grrrl proudly reclaimed a certain kind of rock primitivism. Hanna's "Julie Ruin" album made prominent use of lo-fi samples and loops, extending the zine's cut-and-paste visuals to the sonic realm. They gave songs like "V.G.I." an indisputable groove that paired well with Hanna's emerging playfulness - a combination she would maximize in her next project, Le Tigre. E.V.

Born in 1992, this coed London quartet was closely associated with riot grrrl, sharing stages with Bikini Kill, Huggy Bear and Pussycat Trash. But the band's protean, relatively sophisticated songwriting and production never fit the rough-and-ready template embraced by most of its peers - Linus leaned more toward musically ecumenical indie rock, albeit with unabashed feminist politics. With its shimmery guitar washes, melodic bass line and deceptively soothing vocals, the single "Super Golgotha Crucifixion Scene" is borderline shoegaze and may well be the most pop entry in this list. E.V.

A pure pop moment amid the din of revolution, Mary Lou Lord was the movement's Melanie: a starry-eyed, sweet-voiced, superfan troubadour paying tribute to (and at one point mimicking) Bob Dylan, of all people. An all-star female band - Vail and Wilcox of Bikini Kill and the inimitable Donna Dresch - give the melody its muscled momentum. The music delivers a rush of joy, but the lyrics capture the heartache of the time in tragically prescient fashion: Lord was calling out to her ex, Kurt Cobain, a lament we would all be singing a year later. E.M.

Because of their geographic, sonic and political proximity, the Vancouver duo Mecca Normal got swept up in the categorization of riot grrrl, but in fact, Jean Smith and David Lester had helped inspire Hanna to pick up a microphone. They have also survived the moment, still collaborating to this day. "I Walk Alone," from their first album, set the tone for much of what was to follow. It's the anthem of a woman staking her claim to independence, solitude, home, safety, the streets and freedom. Bold, blunt, raw and feminist, it remains timely and necessary. E.M.

No wonder Britain was so quick to embrace riot grrrl: The country had spawned proto-riot punk bands like X-Ray Spex, the Raincoats and the Slits, after all. The London-based Skinned Teen's three members were around 14 when they started their band, inspired by Bikini Kill and Huggy Bear. If they sounded as if they'd picked up their instruments for the first time mere hours earlier, well, that was pretty much the case. Driven by a simple but ruthlessly efficient bass line, "Pillow Case Kisser" addresses someone who thinks they may never amount to much and is oddly sympathetic despite the taunting delivery. E.V.

On a purely musical level, song per song, Slant 6 made arguably the best album of the riot grrrl era, "Soda Pop*Rip Off." The genius guitarist and vocalist Christina Billotte (formerly of Autoclave) leads the bassist Myra Power and the drummer Marge Marshall through 16 power-trio ravers. Named after a vintage engine, Slant 6 plays its songs like racecars - it's drag music fueled by high-octane girl power. (Imagine an amalgam of Dick Dale and Nancy Sinatra fronting the Who.) "Poison Arrows Shot at Heroes" improbably turns the title's five words into a waterfall melody that hints at treason and revolution. I have listened to this album countless times and I don't really know what the songs are about. But I know how they make me feel: excited, anxious, exhilarated, pissed, provoked, panicked, driven. E.M.

Sleater-Kinney formed out of the ashes of riot grrrl - specifically of Heavens to Betsy and Excuse 17, whose members Corin Tucker and Carrie Brownstein had toured together and dated. They went through a couple of drummers before finding a perfect fit: Quasi's Janet Weiss. With the demise of most of the genre's other flagship acts, S-K became riot grrrl's banner carriers, somewhat reluctantly, and "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" became one of the last great revolution girl-style anthems, a note-perfect statement about the importance of girls having female role models. With their call-and-response guitars and vocals in which Tucker and Brownstein finished each other's sentences, Sleater-Kinney also achieved a level of musicianship that not all of their peers could claim, or wanted. E.M.

This B-side of the only single put out by Hanna, Sharon Cheslow (of Chalk Circle) and Dug E. Bird (a.k.a. Doug Birdzell) offers a rare, slow, dose of melancholia from the era: a pretty song about how terrible pretty is. When Hanna sings "I really liked you" over the slow slide of a bass string, it's a moment of heartbreak - the finger on the point where pain begins, before it turns into rage. E.M.

Riot grrrl music could be loud and angry like Tribe 8, silly and poppy like Tiger Trap, or string-driven folk like the Seattle duo Tattle Tale. Jen Wood and Madigan Shive were teenagers when they formed the band, which built the template on which Tegan and Sara and Girlpool later erected their empires. "Glass Vase Cello Case" features acoustic guitar arpeggios, the mournful strains of a cello and the singers' soft harmonies. Originally released on the band's "Sew True" album, this track was featured in the film "But I'm a Cheerleader. " E.M.

Team Dresch, who have reunited and are playing anticipated shows this summer, are seriously skilled musicians who don't let their shredding get in the way of their self-expression. They're a sort of riot grrrl supergroup named after their superheroine guitarist/bassist Donna Dresch (Screaming Trees, Fifth Column, Dinosaur Jr.) that features members of Adickdid (Kaia Wilson), Hazel (Jody Bleyle), Calamity Jane (Marcéo Martinez) and Vitapup (Melissa York). Wilson and Bleyle trade singer/songwriter duties over thrashing rhythms and monster riffs. "Uncle Phranc," named after the self-identified "Jewish lesbian folk singer" of California punk fame, is about the importance of choosing one's own families when the folks we are given at birth don't understand or support our choices in love. Imagine Indigo Girls mashed up with Black Sabbath. E.M.

The Sacramento quartet Tiger Trap played rapidly strummed, jangly pop that sounded like it could have come from the New Zealand indie scene of the time. The instruments in "Supreme Nothing" tumble and trip as if they are going to fall apart at any minute, but instead they climb higher. Rose Melberg and Angela Loy sing steadfastly on top of the anarchy in girlie voices, not letting the nihilism of the music and the lyrics sour their day. E.M.

With hilarious lyrics about sexual role playing and theatrical stage antics like dildo dismemberment, the San Francisco group Tribe 8 tended to get dismissed as a novelty act. But there was serious social commentary beneath its thundering hard-core riffs, and some of its former members have become transgender pioneers. This song describes a generational shift, from the folky lesbians of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival (which Tribe 8 played multiple times, despite protests its first year there) to the tattooed lesbians of punk. E.M.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Riot Grrrl United Feminism and Punk. Here's an Essential Listening Guide. (Published 2019)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A recent resurgence of punk-powered feminism - or is that girl-powered punk? - raises the question: What was, or is, riot grrrl? A movement, a genre, an era, a scene? The spelling itself is disputed: some OGs (original grrrls) argue two rs, others three; some just say girl.

# data[].attributes.body
1. Select one or more issues of Punk Magazine to explore

2. Screenshot at least 2 pages worth analyzing.

3. Engage with the following questions:

1. What is the image or page showing?

1. Describe in complete sentences

2. What is the main idea of this particular page?

3. How do you know?

4. What can this teach the viewer/reader about this moment in time?

5. What is the tone of this particular page? Humorous, sarcastic, serious, etc. How do you know?

# data[].attributes.body
What is DIY?

# data[].attributes.body
What is a zine?

# data[].attributes.body
What is Punk?