Ripped, torn and cut offers a collection of original essays exploring the motivations behind - and the politics within - the multitude of fanzines that emerged in the wake of British punk from 1976. Sniffin' Glue (1976-77), Mark Perry's iconic punk fanzine, was but the first of many, paving the way for hundreds of home-made magazines to be cut and pasted in bedrooms across the UK. From these, glimpses into provincial cultures, teenage style wars and formative political ideas may be gleaned. An alternative history, away from the often-condescending glare of London's media and music industry, can be formulated, drawn from such titles as Ripped & Torn, Brass Lip, City Fun, Vague, Kill Your Pet Puppy, Toxic Grafity, Hungry Beat and Hard as Nails. The first book of its kind, this collection reveals the contested nature of punk's cultural politics by turning the pages of a vibrant underground press.
Introduction - Subcultures Network
Part I: Going underground: Process and place
1. Doing it ourselves: Countercultural and alternative radical publishing in the decade before punk - Jess Baines, Tony Credland & Mark Pawson
2. Zines and history: Zines as history - Lucy Robinson
3. Whose culture? Fanzines, politics and agency - Matthew Worley
4. Invisible women: The role of women in punk fanzine creation - Cazz Blase
Part II: Communiqués and celloptape: Constructing cultures
5. 'Pam Ponders Paul Morley's Cat': City Fun and the politics of post-punk - David Wilkinson
6. Goth 'zines: Writing from the dark underground, 1976-92 - Claire Nally
7. The evolution of an anarcho-punk narrative, 1978-84 - Russ Bestley & Rebecca Binns
8. 'Don't do as you're told, do as you think': The transgressive zine culture of industrial music in the 1970s and 1980s - Benjamin Bland
9. Are you scared to get punky? Indie pop, fanzines and punk rock - Pete Dale
Part III: Memos from the frontline: Locating the source
10. Vague post-punk memoirs, 1979-89 - Tom Vague
11. 'Mental liberation issue': Toxic Grafity's punk epiphany as subjectivity, (re)storying 'the truth of revolution' across the lifespan - Mike Diboll
12. From year zero to 1984: I was a pre-teen fanzine writer - Nicholas Bullen
13. Kick: Positive punk - Richard Cabut
14. 'This is aimed as much at us as at you': My life in fanzines - Clare Wadd
Part IV: Global communications: Continuities and distinctions
15. Punking the bibliography: RE/Search publications, the bookshelf question and ideational flow - S. Alexander Reed
16. Punks against censorship: Negotiating acceptable politics in the Dutch fanzine Raket - Kirsty Lohman
17. Contradictory self-definition and organisation: The punk scene in Munich, 1979-82 - Karl Siebengartner
18. 'Angry grrrl 'zines': Riot grrrl and body politics from the early 1990s- Laura Cofield
Index
