Chip Rowe started the pop-culture zine Chip’s Closet Cleaner in 1989 when he graduated from Northwestern’s journalism program. “In college I had this yearly ritual where I would clean out my closet. So when I graduated, I filled a newsletter with a lot of cartoons I liked and articles I’d saved and sent them to my friends.”
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A chance trip to Guild Books led him to FactSheet5, which reviews zines from around the world. “I remember looking through FactSheet5 and going, “Ohmygod! Ohmygod!’ I suddenly realized that that’s what I had been doing.” Chip’s Closet Cleaner had been a zine all along.
Rowe says that the zine slowly got more sophisticated. “I included more work of my friends and I abandoned the found text aspect of it. I thought it was also a great way to get my stuff out. I was writing and having fun writing these things.”
The electronic version of Chip’s Closet Cleaner has been criticized by the more Luddite zinesters. “One guy who does a zine out of Detroit called New Philistine ripped into me, ranting because I excluded poor people who don’t own computers. Well, it’s going to cost them three dollars to get the paper copy.”
