This chapter considers how European cult cinema was first culturally and economically ‘made’ by historicizing the alternative economy of European cult cinema fan enterprise, giving context for the chapters that follow. This historicizing is based on the data gained from the combined ethnography model, outlined in chapter two. The data collected is interrogated using my concept of the ‘alternative economy’, introduced in chapter one. Through this historicizing, I suggest that a combination of the do-it-yourself (DIY) ethos of punk, a culture of fanzine production, and the advent of VHS technology led to the forming of an alternative economy of European cult cinema fan enterprise. I look at how three fantrepreneurs, specializing in producing fan publications, set up their own businesses in this newly established economy, demonstrating how fan production can be understood as both a cultural and economic activity.

The fanzines

To give context for the emergence of European cult cinema fan enterprise, the culture of fanzine production needs to be explored. To do this, I draw on secondary work that discusses fanzines and interviews conducted with fanzine producers. I show how punk fanzines and horror fanzines published in America were influential to European cult cinema fantrepreneurs. The term fanzine, also referred to commonly as ‘zines’, can be defined as a fan-produced magazine; an amateur publication that is produced for dissemination amongst a fan network. Stephen Duncombe (1997, p. 1) believes that the definition of the term zine is more problematic than it seems, and, to truly understand the term, one must have access to a variety of fanzines and decide for themselves.