May you rest, Venus Zine

Venus Zine, which was originally called Venus; was my favorite magazine, and I just learned that I must now refer to the zine in the past tense. "Was." The zine went away in 2010. I had been waiting for a new issue to come out to shelves. I assumed that there must have been a stall for a good reason. I had hoped that production was simply on hold. Turns out that due to a lack of finances, the momentum that kept Venus Zine going, has gone kaput. I am now in mourning.

Venus Zine was a quarterly published magazine (or zine, if you will) that came into consciousness in 1995. The zine was geared towards women in music, and DIY culture. Although I love magazines like Under the Radar, Rolling Stone, SPIN, Q and others; I enjoyed that VZ focused on women.

Music is another area consumed by patriarchy. Women have a great place in music and I believe that men understand this. But if you look at the language we use to describe female musicians, you can see how women are marginalized. VZ focuses on "women in music." How often do we talk about "men in music?" Women in music is often considered to be a separate phenomenon and men in music is the norm.

Editor-in-chief Jill Russell gave the following statement via e-mail about the end of the magazines’ 15 year run:

We just learned that Venus will no longer publish in print (also, myself and the other staffers will be done as of this Friday, Dec. 10). Despite our best efforts — and we have done amazingly well this year on the editorial side, both in print and online — it’s become an issue of finances, as always in media … It's definitely not happy news to have to unravel the spring 2011 issue, which was already well under way, as well as much of the forthcoming web content, but it's unfortunately what we're in the process of doing now.

Let me pull out the tissues now.

Men were not forgotten within VZ. Men were of note within the pages of VZ, but Mr. White was the first gentleman who graced the cover of the zine. This is the 2010 Summer Issue.

I will now rely on BUST magazine, to get me through, but to be honest, it's just not the same. Venus Zine, was my first love. RIP, Venus Zine.