Remember 'Zines?

So, we hear 'zines are coming back in style. Or at least that they’re not totally dead. In fact there’s a party tonight in their honor at the Lower East Side arts space ABC No Rio, which has a 'zine library filled with more than 10,000 underground publications and comic books. For ye of the blog generation, 'zines were—er, are—these self-produced, mostly Xeroxed, often quirky or personal little periodicals that people trade with each other via the United States Postal Service. (Remember “snail mail?”)

At tonight’s 'Zine Library Party, there will be some comic-book artists and illustrators showing off their stuff, a performance by Brooklyn’s Rude Mechanical Orchestra and, most importantly, beer.

ABC No Rio, a grass-roots activism collective whose origins date back to December 1979, when about 30 artists broke into an abandoned city-owned storefront on Delancey Street and mounted an exhibit criticizing the city’s housing and land-use policies, is in the process of raising funds for a new building to replace the dilapidated structure that currently houses it on Rivington Street.

According to Steven Englander, the executive director, the budget for rebuilding is $2.6 million. Total raised so far: $440,000.