Post- Digital Print - Monoskop

But commercial magazines have already started pursuing different
strategies – such as selling digital PDF versions (at about half the
price of the paper editions), distributed through new platforms and
services, of which Zinio is one of the most successful. At first, publishers
agreed to give away the PDF files for free, in exchange for personal
data obtained through registration. Later, the services began selling
the magazines, in both downloadable PDF format and web-based
view. An important early characteristic of these services was that they
allowed their customers to share the web-based digital editions with
as many friends as they wished – presumably as a strategy to increase
readership. Needless to say, many people simply shared the cheap PDF
files through their own websites, or made them available on peer-topeer
networks. Eventually, the commercial digital magazine services
all started restricting access through strictly unshareable web-based or
mobile app-based interfaces.
Independent magazines are not doing so well either. A prophetic
1995 issue of Factsheet Five reminds us of how independent publishers
in all likelihood became concerned about the Web and its consequences
for publishing, long before the mainstream industry did. Factsheet
Five dedicated this issue to the Web and its impact on the zine world;
the cover story was titled Paper or Plastic?, and the front-page illustration
depicted a large muscular man with a monitor-shaped face, kicking
sand on a skinny man with a magazine-shaped face. The skinny
guy is complaining: “Hey! Quit kicking silicon in our faces, you big
cyberbully!” while his girlfriend is thinking: “Oh, when will Charlie get
online?” The cartoon perfectly illustrates a sense of impending doom
within the traditional zine world, threatened in its very existence by a
younger and stronger ‘silicon’ bully.
59
Left
The historical Paper
or Plastic? cover of
Factsheet Five,
issue #56,
1995
Right
The Revenge of Print
issue (#55) of Punk
Planet, May & June
2003