Tag: welsh

My zine, Fanzine Ynfytyn, is named after a song by Welsh language post-punk band Datblygu (“Develop”). The name could be construed as either “Fanzine Idiot”, “Idiot Fanzine” or “Idiot’s Fanzine”. People either look at the name with bafflement, go “uh, is it Welsh in some way?” or are pleased because they know the song (those people get a free copy). In some ways I regret giving it a name that so many people struggle to pronounce or understand, but I’m on issue 22 now, so they’ll just have to get used to it. When I started it, I only expected to give a few copies to some friends who were already familiar with the song, so it wasn’t really a concern (I also had a mini collage zine called “Pobble Eh Come?” like a really mis-spelt version of the soap opera). Seeing as one of those people was a fellow language student penfriend who I had a running joke with of us mangling Welsh and German together to make one überbendigedich language, I wasn’t too worried about the palatability of the name. I was never expecting to get to issue 22, and have sold or traded hundreds of copies of some of the back issues and have them in libraries and academic collections. I was surprised I got to more than a couple of issues to be honest.