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Fanzine

A fanzine (blend of fan and magazine or -zine) is a non-professional and non-official publication produced by enthusiasts of a particular cultural phenomenon (such as a literary or musical genre) for the pleasure of others who share their interest. The term was coined in an October 1940 science fiction fanzine by Russ Chauvenet and first popularized within science fiction fandom, and from there the term was adopted by other communities.

Typically, publishers, editors, writers and other contributors of articles or illustrations to fanzines are not paid. Fanzines are traditionally circulated free of charge, or for a nominal cost to defray postage or production expenses. Copies are often offered in exchange for similar publications, or for contributions of art, articles, or letters of comment (LoCs), which are then published.

Some fanzines are typed and photocopied by amateurs using standard home office equipment. A few fanzines have developed into professional publications (sometimes known as "prozines"), and many professional writers were first published in fanzines; some continue to contribute to them after establishing a professional reputation. The term fanzine is sometimes confused with "fan magazine", but the latter term most often refers to commercially produced publications for (rather than by) fans.

Origin
The origins of amateur fanac "fan" publications are obscure, but can be traced at least back to 19th century literary groups in the United States which formed amateur press associations to publish collections of amateur fiction, poetry, and commentary, such as H. P. Lovecraft's United Amateur.

As professional printing technology progressed, so did the technology of fanzines. Early fanzines were hand-drafted or typed on a manual typewriter and printed using primitive reproduction techniques (e.g., the spirit duplicator or even the hectograph). Only a very small number of copies could be made at a time, so circulation was extremely limited. The use of mimeograph machines enabled greater press runs, and the photocopier increased the speed and ease of publishing once more. Today, thanks to the advent of desktop publishing and self-publication, there is often little difference between the appearance of a fanzine and a professional magazine.

Science fiction
When Hugo Gernsback published the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories in 1926, he allowed for a large letter column which printed reader's addresses. By 1927 readers, often young adults, would write to each other, bypassing the magazine. Science fiction fanzines had their beginnings in Serious & Constructive (later shortened to sercon) correspondence. The fans would start up clubs to ease finding others with their same interests. Gernsback founded the Science Fiction League in 1934, where these clubs could advertise for more users.

The first science fiction fanzine, The Comet, was published in 1930 by the Science Correspondence Club in Chicago and edited by Raymond A. Palmer and Walter Dennis. The term "fanzine" was coined by Russ Chauvenet in the October 1940 edition of his fanzine Detours. "Fanzines" were distinguished from "prozines" (a term Chauvenet also invented), that is, all professional magazines. Prior to that, the fan publications were known as "fanmags".

Science fiction fanzines used a variety of printing methods. Typewriters, school dittos, church mimeos and (if they could afford it) multi-color letterpress or other mid-to-high level printing. Some fans wanted their news spread, others reveled in the artistry and beauty of fine printing. The hectograph, introduced around 1876, was so named because it could produce (in theory) up to a hundred copies. Hecto used an aniline dye, transferred to a tray of gelatin, and paper would be placed on the gel, one sheet at a time, for transfer. Messy and smelly, the process could create vibrant colors for the few copies produced, the easiest aniline dye to make being purple (technically indigo). The next small but significant technological step after hectography is the spirit duplicator, essentially the hectography process using a drum instead of the gelatin. Introduced by Ditto Corporation in 1923, these machines were known for the next six decades as Ditto Machines and used by fans because they were cheap to use and could (with a little effort) print in color.

The mimeograph machine, which forced ink through a wax paper stencil cut by the keys of a typewriter, was the standard for many decades. A second-hand mimeo could print hundreds of copies and (with more than a little effort) print in color. The electronic stencil cutter (shortened to "electrostencil" by most) could add photographs and illustrations to a mimeo stencil. A mimeo'd zine could look terrible or look beautiful, depending more on the skill of the mimeo operator than the quality of the equipment. Only a few fans could afford more professional printers, or the time it took them to print, until photocopying became cheap and ubiquitous in the 1970s. With the advent of computer printers and desktop publishing in the 1980s, fanzines began to look far more professional. The rise of the internet made correspondence cheaper and much faster, and the World Wide Web has made publishing a fanzine as simple as coding a web page.

New technology brought various print style innovations. For example, there were alphanumeric contractions which are actually precursors to "leetspeak' (a well-known example is the "initials" used by Forrest J. Ackerman in his fanzines from the 1930s and 1940s, namely "4sj". Fans around the world knew Ackerman by three letters "4sj" or even two: "4e" for "Forry"). Fanspeak is rich with abbreviations and concatenations. Where teenagers labored to save typing on ditto masters, they now save keystrokes when text messaging. Ackerman invented nonstoparagraphing as a space-saving measure. When the typist comes to the end of a paragraph, they simply moved the platen down one line.

Never commercial enterprises, most science fiction fanzines were (and many still are) available for "the usual", a sample issue will be mailed on request. To receive further issues, a reader sends a "letter of comment" (LoC) about the fanzine to the editor. The LoC might be published in the next issue; some fanzines consisted almost exclusively of letter columns, where discussions were conducted in much the same way as they are in internet newsgroups and mailing lists today, though at a relatively glacial pace. Often fanzine editors ("faneds") would simply swap issues with each other, not worrying too much about matching trade for trade, somewhat like being on one another's friends list. Without being closely connected with the rest of fandom, a budding faned could read fanzine reviews in prozines, and fanzines reviewed other fanzines. Recent technology has changed the speed of communication between fans and the technology available, but the basic concepts developed by science fiction fanzines in the 1930s can be seen online today. Blogs—with their threaded comments, personalized illustrations, shorthand in-jokes, wide variety in quality and wider variety of content—follow the structure developed in science fiction fanzines, without (usually) realizing the antecedent.

Since 1937, science fiction fans have formed amateur press associations (APAs); the members contribute to a collective assemblage or bundle that contains contributions from all of them, called apazines and often containing mailing comments. Some APAs are still active, and some are published as virtual "e-zines", distributed on the Internet. Specific Hugo Awards are given for fanzines, fan writing and fanart.

Media
Media fanzines were originally merely a subgenre of SF fanzines, written by science fiction fans already familiar with apazines. The first media fanzine was a Star Trek fan publication called Spockanalia, published in September 1967 by members of the Lunarians. They hoped that fanzines such as Spockanalia would be recognized by the broader science-fiction fan community in traditional ways, such as a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine. All five of its issues were published while the show was still on the air, and included letters from D. C. Fontana, Gene Roddenberry, and most of the cast members, and an article by future Hugo and Nebula winner Lois McMaster Bujold.

Many other Star Trek 'zines followed, then slowly zines appeared for other media sources, such as Starsky and Hutch, Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Blake's 7. By the mid-1970s, there were enough media zines being published that adzines existed just to advertise all of the other zines available. Although Spockanalia had a mix of stories and essays, most zines were all fiction. Like SF fanzines, these media zines spanned the gamut of publishing quality from digest-sized mimeos to offset printed masterpieces with four-color covers.

Men wrote and edited most previous science fiction fanzines, which typically published articles reporting on trips to conventions, and reviews of books and other fanzines. Camille Bacon-Smith later stated that "One thing you almost never find in a science fiction fanzine is science fiction. Rather ... fanzines were the social glue that created a community out of a worldwide scattering of readers." Women published most media fanzines, which by contrast also included fan fiction. By doing so, they "fill the need of a mostly female audience for fictional narratives that expand the boundary of the official source products offered on the television and movie screen." In addition to long and short stories, as well as poetry, many media fanzines included illustrated stories, as well as stand alone art, often featuring portraits of the show or film's principal characters. The art could range from simple sketches, to reproductions of large elaborate works painted in oil or acrylic, though most are created in ink.

In the late 1970s, fiction that included a sexual relationship between two of the male characters of the media source (first Kirk/Spock, then later Starsky/Hutch, Napoleon/Illya, and many others) started to appear in zines. These became known as slash fiction from the '/' mark used in adzines. The slash help to differentiate a K&S story (which would have been a Kirk and Spock friendship story) from a K/S story, which would have been one with a romantic or sexual bent between the characters. Slash zines eventually had their own subgenres, such as Femslash. By 2000, when web publishing of stories became more popular than zine publishing, thousands of media fanzines had been published; over 500 of them were k/s zines.

Another popular franchise for fanzines was the "Star Wars" saga. By the time the film The Empire Strikes Back was released in 1980, Star Wars fanzines had surpassed Star Trek zines in sales. An unfortunate episode in fanzine history occurred in 1981 when Star Wars director George Lucas threatened to sue fanzine publishers who distributed zines featuring the Star Wars characters in sexually explicit stories or art.

Comics were mentioned and discussed as early as the late 1930s in the fanzines of science fiction fandom. Famously, the first version of Superman (a bald-headed villain) appeared in the third issue of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's 1933 fanzine Science Fiction. In 1936, David Kyle published  The Fantasy World , possibly the first comics fanzine. Malcolm Willits and Jim Bradley started The Comic Collector's News in October 1947. By 1952, Ted White had mimeographed a four-page pamphlet about Superman, and James Vincent Taurasi, Sr. issued the short-lived Fantasy Comics. In 1953, Bhob Stewart published The EC Fan Bulletin, which launched EC fandom of imitative EC fanzines. A few months later, Stewart, White, and Larry Stark produced Potrzebie, planned as a literary journal of critical commentary about EC by Stark. Among the wave of EC fanzines that followed, the best-known was Ron Parker's Hoo-Hah!. After that came fanzines by the followers of Harvey Kurtzman's Mad, Trump and Humbug. Publishers of these included future underground comics stars like Jay Lynch and Robert Crumb.

In 1960, Richard and Pat Lupoff launched their science fiction and comics fanzine Xero. In the second issue, "The Spawn of M.C. Gaines'" by Ted White was the first in a series of nostalgic, analytical articles about comics by Lupoff, Don Thompson, Bill Blackbeard, Jim Harmon and others under the heading, All in Color for a Dime. In 1961, Jerry Bails' Alter Ego, devoted to costumed heroes, became a focal point for superhero comics fandom and is thus sometimes mistakenly cited as the first comics fanzine.

Contacts through these magazines were instrumental in creating the culture of modern comics fandom: conventions, collecting, etc. Much of this, like comics fandom itself, began as part of standard science fiction conventions, but comics fans have developed their own traditions. Comics fanzines often include fan artwork based on existing characters as well as discussion of the history of comics. Through the 1960s, and 1970s, comic fanzines followed some general formats, such as the industry news and information magazine (The Comic Reader was one example), interview, history, and review-based fanzines, and the fanzines which basically represented independent comic book-format exercises. While perceived quality varied widely, the energy and enthusiasm involved tended to be communicated clearly to the readership, many of whom were also fanzine contributors. Prominent comics zines of this period included Alter Ego, The Comic Reader, and Rocket's Blast Comicollector, all started by Jerry Bails. During the 1970s, many fanzines (Squa Tront, as an example) also became partly distributed through certain comic book distributors.

One of the first British comics fanzines was Phil Clarke's KA-POW, launched in 1967. Prominent British comics fanzines of the 1970s and early 1980s included the long-running Fantasy Advertiser, Martin Lock's BEM, Richard Burton's Comic Media News, Alan Austin's Comics Unlimited, George Barnett's The Panelologist, and Richard Ashford's Speakaeasy.

At times, the professional comics publishers have made overtures to fandom via 'prozines', in this case fanzine-like magazines put out by the major publishers. The Amazing World of DC Comics and the Marvel magazine FOOM began and ceased publication in the 1970s. Priced significantly higher than standard comics of the period (AWODCC was $1.50, FOOM was 75 cents), each house-organ magazine lasted a brief period of years. Since 2001 in Britain, there have been created a number of fanzines pastiching children's comics of the 1970s, and 1980s (e.g. Solar Wind, Pony School, etc.). These adopt a style of storytelling rather than specific characters from their sources, usually with a knowing or ironic twist.

Horror film
As with comics zines, horror film fanzines grew from related interest within science fiction fan publications. Trumpet, edited by Tom Reamy, was a 1960s SF zine that branched into horror film coverage. Alex Soma's Horrors of the Screen, Calvin T. Beck's Journal of Frankenstein (later Castle of Frankenstein) and Gary Svehla's Gore Creatures were the first horror fanzines created as more serious alternatives to the popular Forrest J Ackerman 1958 magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland. Gore Creatures began in 1961 and continues today as the prozine (and specialty publisher) Midnight Marquee. Garden Ghouls Gazette—a 1960s horror title under the editorship of Dave Keil, then Gary Collins—was eventually headed by the late Frederick S. Clarke (1949–2000) and in 1967 became the respected journal Cinefantastique. It later became a prozine under journalist-screenwriter Mark A. Altman and has continued as a webzine.

Mark Frank's Photon—notable for the inclusion of an 8x10 photo in each issue—was another 1960s zine that lasted into the 1970s. Richard Klemensen's Little Shoppe of Horrors, having a particular focus on "Hammer Horrors", began in 1972 and is still publishing as of 2024.

The Baltimore-based Black Oracle (1969–1978) from writer-turned-John Waters repertory member George Stover was a diminutive zine that evolved into the larger-format Cinemacabre. Stover's Black Oracle partner Bill George published his own short-lived zine The Late Show (1974–1976; with co-editor Martin Falck), and later became editor of the Cinefantastique prozine spinoff Femme Fatales. In the mid-1970s, North Carolina teenager Sam Irvin published the horror/science-fiction fanzine Bizarre, which included his original interviews with UK actors and filmmakers; Irvin would later become a producer-director in his own right. Japanese Fantasy Film Journal (JFFJ) (1968–1983) from Greg Shoemaker covered Toho's Godzilla and his Asian brethren. Japanese Giants (JG) was founded by Stephen Mark Rainey in 1974 and was published for 30 years. In 1993, G-FAN was published, and reached its 100th regularly published issue in Fall 2012. FXRH (Special effects by Ray Harryhausen) (1971–1976) was a specialized zine co-created by future Hollywood FX artist Ernest D. Farino.

Rock and roll
By the mid-1960s, several fans active in science fiction and comics fandom recognized a shared interest in rock music, and the rock fanzine was born. Paul Williams and Greg Shaw were two such SF-fans turned rock zine editors. Williams' Crawdaddy! (1966) and Shaw's two California-based zines, Mojo Navigator (full title, "Mojo-Navigator Rock and Roll News") (1966) and Who Put the Bomp, (1970), are among the most important early rock fanzines.

Crawdaddy! (1966) quickly moved from its fanzine roots to become one of the first rock music "prozines", with paid advertisers and newsstand distribution. Bomp remained a fanzine, featuring many writers who would later become prominent music journalists, including Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Ken Barnes, Ed Ward, Dave Marsh, Metal Mike Saunders and R. Meltzer. Bomp featured cover art by Jay Kinney and Bill Rotsler, both veterans of SF and Comics fandom. Bomp was not alone; an August 1970 issue of Rolling Stone included an article about the explosion of rock fanzines. Other rock fanzines of this period include denim delinquent 1971, edited by Jymn Parrett, Flash, 1972, edited by Mark Shipper, Eurock Magazine (1973–1993) edited by Archie Patterson and Bam Balam, written and published by Brian Hogg in East Lothian, Scotland, beginning in 1974, and in the mid-1970s, Back Door Man.

In the post-punk era, several well-written fanzines emerged that cast an almost academic look at earlier, neglected musical forms, including Mike Stax' Ugly Things, Billy Miller and Miriam Linna's Kicks, Jake Austen's Roctober, Kim Cooper's Scram, P. Edwin Letcher's Garage & Beat, and the UK's Shindig! and Italy's Misty Lane.

In the 1980s, with the rise of stadium superstars, many home-grown rock fanzines emerged. At the peak of Bruce Springsteen's megastardom following the Born in the U.S.A. album and Born in the U.S.A. Tour in the mid-1980s, there were no less than five Springsteen fanzines circulating at the same time in the UK alone, and many others elsewhere. Gary Desmond's Candy's Room, coming from Liverpool, was the first in 1980, quickly followed by Dan French's Point Blank, Dave Percival's The Fever, Jeff Matthews' Rendezvous, and Paul Limbrick's Jackson Cage. In the US, Backstreets Magazine started in Seattle in 1980 and still continues today as a glossy publication, now in communication with Springsteen's management and official website. In the late 1990s, numerous fanzines and e-zines flourished about electronic and post-rock music. Crème Brûlée fanzine was one of those that documented post-rock genre and experimental music.

United Kingdom
The punk subculture in the United Kingdom spearheaded a surge of interest in fanzines as a countercultural alternative to established print media. The first and still best known UK 'punk zine' was Sniffin' Glue, produced by Deptford punk fan Mark Perry. Sniffin' Glue ran for 12 photocopied issues; the first issue was produced by Perry immediately following (and in response to) the London debut of The Ramones on 4 July 1976. Other UK fanzines included Blam!, Bombsite, Wool City Rocker, Burnt Offering, Sideburns, Chainsaw, New Crimes, Vague, Jamming, Artcore Fanzine, Love and Molotov Cocktails, To Hell With Poverty, New Youth, Peroxide, ENZK, Juniper beri-beri, No Cure, Communication Blur, Rox, Grim Humour, Spuno, Cool Notes and Fumes. Of these, Tony Fletcher's Jamming was the most far reaching, becoming a nationally distributed mainstream magazine for several years before its demise.

United States
In the United States, Punk began publication in 1976 out of New York City and played a major part in popularizing punk rock (a term coined a few years earlier in Creem) as the term for the music and the bands being written about.

Flipside and Slash were important punk fanzines from the Los Angeles scene, both debuting in 1977. The San Francisco-based punk fanzine Search and Destroy, which published from 1977-1979, eventually became the influential fringe-cultural magazine Re/Search. Maximum RocknRoll, also from San Francisco, was a major punk fanzine, with over 300 issues published since 1982. The Washington, D.C. punk community generated several fanzines in the late 1970s and early 1980s, such as Capitol Crisis, Vintage Violence, Thrillseeker, If This Goes On, and Descenes.

As punk and alternative culture grew more popular throughout the 1980s and 1990s—evidenced by the success of punk and alternative rock bands like Sonic Youth, Nirvana, Fugazi, Bikini Kill, Green Day and The Offspring—thousands of other punk fanzines appeared in the United States, such as Punk Planet, Left of the Dial, Tail Spins, Sobriquet, Profane Existence and Slug and Lettuce.

Some punk fanzines from the 1980s, like No Class and Ugly American experienced a second life by placing all past content online for free and adding new content. Although fewer in number in the 21st century, punk fanzines still exist in the United States, such as Suburban Rebels and Razorcake, both from California.

Most punk fanzines were printed in small quantities and promoted their respective local scenes. They were often cheaply photocopied and many never survived beyond a few issues. Their greatest contribution was in promoting punk music, clothing, and lifestyle in their local communities. Punk bands and independent labels often sent records to the zines for review and many of the people who started the zines became critical connections for punk bands on tour.

Australia

In 1977, Bruce Milne and Clinton Walker fused their respective punk zines Plastered Press and Suicide Alley to launch Pulp; Milne later went on to invent the cassette zine with Fast Forward, in 1980.

After the year 2000
In the UK, Fracture and Reason To Believe were significant fanzines in the early 2000s, but both ended in late 2003. Rancid News filled the gap left by these two zines for a short while. On its tenth issue Rancid News changed its name to Last Hours with 7 issues published under this title before going on hiatus. Last Hours still operates as a webzine though with more focus on the anti-authoritarian movement than its original title. Artcore Fanzine (established in 1986) continues to this day, recently publishing a number of 30-year anniversary issues. There are many smaller fanzines in existence throughout the UK that focus on punk.

Mark Wilkins and Mystic Records
Mark Wilkins, the promotion director for 1982 onwards US punk/thrash label Mystic Records, had over 450 US fanzines and 150 foreign fanzines he promoted to regularly. He and Mystic Records owner Doug Moody edited The Mystic News Newsletter which was published quarterly and went into every promo package to fanzines. Wilkins also published the highly successful Los Angeles punk humor zine Wild Times and when he ran out of funding for the zine syndicated some of the humorous material to over 100 US fanzines under the name of Mystic Mark.

Italy
In Perugia, Italy, Mazquerade ran from 1979 to 1981.

In Basilicata, Italy, Raw Art Fanzine ran from 1995 to 2000.

In Milan, Italy, Gorezilla ran from 1988 to 1991.

Mod
In the United Kingdom, the 1979 Mod revival, which was inspired by the 1960s Mod subculture, brought with it a burst of fresh creativity from fanzines, and for the next decade, the youth subculture inspired the production of dozens of independent publications. The most successful of the first wave was Maximum Speed, which successfully captured the frenetic world of a mod revival scene that was propelling bands like Secret Affair, Purple Hearts and The Chords into the UK charts.

After the genre had started to go out of fashion with mainstream audiences in 1981, the mod revival scene went underground and successfully reinvented itself through a series of clubs, bands and fanzines that breathed fresh life into the genre, culminating in another burst of creative acceptance in 1985. This success was largely driven by the network of underground fanzines, the most important and far reaching of which were Extraordinary Sensations, produced by future radio DJ Eddie Piller, and Shadows & Reflections, published by future national magazine editor Chris Hunt. The latter in particular pushed back the boundaries of fanzine production, producing glossy, professionally written and printed publications at a time (1983–1986) when most fanzines were produced via photocopier and letraset.

Local music
In the UK, there were also fanzines that covered the local music scene in a particular town or city. Mainly prevalent in the 1970s, and 1980s, all music styles were covered, whether the bands were playing rock, punk, metal, futurist, ska or dance. Featured were local gig reviews and articles that were below the radar of the mainstream music press. They were produced using the technology of the time, i.e. typewriter and Letraset. Examples include Bombsite Fanzine (Liverpool 1977), Wool City Rocker (Bradford 1979–1982), City Fun (Manchester), 1984, Spuno (Bath 1980) No Cure (Berkshire) and Town Hall Steps (Bolton) and more recently mono (fanzine), (Bradford) with many more across the country, such as Premonition Tapes Tapezine on cassette (Sheffield 1987) and Crime Pays (Liverpool 1988).

Role-playing-game fanzines
Another sizable group of fanzines arose in role-playing game (RPG) fandom, where fanzines allowed people to publish their ideas and views on specific games and their role-playing campaigns. In 1975, was released the apazine Alarums and Excursions.

Role-playing fanzines allowed people to communicate in the 1970s, and 1980s with complete editorial control in the hands of the players, as opposed to the game publishers. These early RPG fanzines were generally typed, sold mostly in an A5 format (in the UK) and were usually illustrated with abysmal or indifferent artwork.

A fanzine community developed and was based on sale to a reading public and exchanges by editor/publishers. Many of the pioneers of RPG got their start in, or remain part of, science fiction fandom. This is also true of the small but still active board game fandom scene, the most prolific subset of which is centered around play-by-mail Diplomacy.

The UK fanzine Aslan (1988–1991) was responsible for popularization of freeform role-playing games in the UK.

Video gaming
Video game fanzines first emerged during the second generation period at a time when gaming stores and newsletters for computer user groups were beginning to become established but had not yet receive significant recognition by purchasers and gamers. The earliest such publication was Joystick Jolter. Other subscriber-based newsletters included 8:16 (UK, all things Atari, 1st issue Nov 1987), The Video Game Update, later titled Computer Entertainer.

As desktop publishing tools became more accessible, there was an increase in fanzine production. Fanzines generally emphasized either classic gaming (e.g. 2600 Connection and Classic Systems & Games Monthly), or current gaming (e.g. APE and The Subversive Sprite). Less commonly, some fanzines covered both topics (e.g. Digital Press and Joystick & Screen). The number of zines grew with the development of video game journalism as writers like Arnie Katz and Chris Bieniek used their columns in mainstream magazines like Video Games & Computer Entertainment, EGM, and Tips & Tricks, to publish reviews of promising fanzines. These mainstream reviews had the effect of introducing fan editors to each other and of creating a fanzine scene.

The popularity of video game fanzines diminished greatly with the rise of the internet, however some zines—particularly the classic gaming ones (e.g. Classic Gamer Magazine and Video Game Collector)—continued beyond the mid-90s. The rise of "on demand" publishing has led to a new outlet for print zines, like Jumpbutton and Scroll.

The video game fanzine era was biggest in the US and Canada, but zines are also produced in other countries. Prominent video game fanzines produced in the UK include Retrogamer, Pixel Nation, Capcom Fanzine, Mercury, and Super Famicom Mini Mag among others. In France fanzines like Revival were circulated, and Japan has seen the production of lavish doujin works.

More recently, there has been a mini-resurgence in video game fanzines, with the launch of HyperPlay RPG in 2015 and Switch Player in 2017. Based in part on Super Play's focus on role-playing games and "any-bit" Nintendo, HyperPlay RPG received positive reviews by the mainstream video game media.

Wargaming
Several fanzines exist within the hobby of wargaming. Among them is Charge!, a leading international fanzine exclusively for miniature wargaming enthusiasts for the American Civil War period. Other fanzines support Warhammer and other popular rules sets.

Sport
The first association football fanzine is regarded as being Foul, a publication that ran between 1972 and 1976. In the UK, most Premier League or Football League football clubs have one or more fanzines which supplement, oppose and complement the club's official magazine or matchday programme. A reasonably priced zine has a guaranteed audience, as is the culture of passion in being a football fan.

The longest running fanzine is The City Gent, produced by supporters of Bradford City FC, which first went on sale at Valley Parade in November 1984 and is now in its 26th season. Following close on its heels was Nike, Inc. which was first released in 1989. At the time it was not the first of its kind with Terrace Talk (York City), which was first published in November 1981 and Wanderers Worldwide (Bolton Wanderers) having already been established but since disappeared. In 1985 the emergent When Saturday Comes (a fanzine without a specific club focus that was subsequently launched as a mainstream magazine) promoted a 'fanzine movement' that gave birth to many more club titles during the late 1980s which was something of a glory period for fanzines.

With the widespread availability of the Internet, much of the energy that was put into football fanzines subsequently went into the development of supporters' websites. Examples of other UK football fanzines include A Love Supreme (Sunderland), TOOFIF (Fulham), The Square Ball (Leeds United), 4,000 Holes (Blackburn Rovers) and War of the Monster Trucks (a Sheffield Wednesday fanzine named after a local TV station elected not to show the final scenes of an unlikely cup victory). The Queen's Park Rangers fanzine 'A Kick up the Rs' was first published in August 1987 and is still issuing an average of 10 issues per season.

Fanzines are not exclusive to the top tiers of football however, with Northern Counties East League side Scarborough Athletic FC having a fanzine titled Abandon Chip!, a pun based on both the perilous situation of predecessor club Scarborough FC and that club's sponsors, McCain.

And also away from the world of Football there were a number of established fanzines, for example Rugby league has such notable publications as Who The Hell Was St. George Anyway? Rugby League fanzine, by supporters of Doncaster RLFC and Scarlet Turkey of Salford City Reds.However, due to pressure from the Internet etc. these publications no longer exist in printed form. The title of World's longest running Rugby League fanzine now belongs to The Aye of the Tigers, by Castleford Tigers supporters. The fanzine movement has even spread to the United States, where ice hockey fans have produced several popular fanzines. In Chicago two examples include the formerly published Blue Line Magazine and currently The Committed Indian, both produced by Chicago Blackhawks fans. In St. Louis there are Game Night Revue and St Louis Game Time for the St. Louis Blues.

There are also a number of fanzines to be found in Ireland of which Shelbourne's Red Inc. is the longest running since 1999.

In the United States, sports fanzines are relatively rare. In Boston they are a bit more common. There are two fanzines sold outside Fenway Park including Yawkey Way Report, which is run by a former Marine.

Recent developments
With the increasing availability of the Internet in the late 20th and the early 21st century, the traditional paper zine has begun to give way to the webzine (or "e-zine") that is easier to produce and uses the potential of the Internet to reach an ever-larger, possibly global, audience. Nonetheless, printed fanzines are still produced, either out of preference for the format or to reach people who do not have convenient Web access. Online versions of approximately 200 science fiction fanzines will be found at Bill Burns' eFanzines web site, along with links to other SF fanzine sites. In addition, zine festivals are held each year in American cities like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Brooklyn, as well as internationally in cities including Melbourne, Australia, and Glasgow, UK.

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Forgotten Futures

Forgotten Futures is a role-playing game created by Marcus Rowland to allow people to play in settings inspired by Victorian and Edwardian science fiction and fantasy (i.e., steampunk). Most of its releases begin with these stories then add background material to explain the settings (often as alternate worlds, whose history diverges from our own), adventures, and other game material.

Game system
The base system uses three characteristics (Body, Mind, and Soul) and a range of skills; points are used to purchase characteristics and skills based on one or more of the characteristics. Skills and characteristics are used by opposing them to a target (such as a difficulty number, an opponent's skill or characteristics, etc.) using a 2D6 dice roll. Subsequent revisions to the rules add options including a Magic characteristic, melodramatic character traits, and other complications, but the core system remains unchanged.

Rowland is believed to have pioneered the concept of shareware tabletop role-playing games with this system, although there were earlier shareware computer games with role-playing elements. Users can download the rules from his web site, buy a subscription that entitles them to Forgotten Futures CDs, or buy a copy of the published version of this game. The CDs are also good sources for science fiction books and other period material whose copyright has expired. A proportion of his income from the game is donated to cancer research charities.

Currently several versions of the rules are on line (complete and summary versions in HTML and PDF, and a German translation in PDF), along with a sample adventure set in a Victorian Channel Tunnel, plus eleven game collections (source material plus background worldbook, adventures, etc.), with an expanding collection of additional resources on line and on the CD-ROM. The rules and sample adventure have twice been published in print; in brief form as a booklet given away with Arcane Magazine in 1997, and at full length by Heliograph Inc. in 1999.

In May 2016 Rowland announced that due to delays in the next release and changes in European tax law he would end shareware distribution of the game. Instead he intends to put all of the existing material on line, including the full contents of the CD, with a tip jar for voluntary contributions, and hopes to add more material. Users with current shareware registrations were offered a partial refund or the option to donate it to Cancer Research UK.

Versions

 * Forgotten Futures I: The A.B.C. Files: Set in Kipling's 21st century airship utopia. Contains the text of "With the Night Mail" and "As Easy as ABC", a worldbook, an adventure, a spreadsheet of airship data, and numerous illustrations. This was the first and by far the smallest of these collections, since at that time the game was distributed on 720k disks; subsequent releases were on 1.44mb disks then CD-ROM.
 * Forgotten Futures II: The Log of the Astronef: A comprehensive guide to the exploration of the Solar System in 1900 AD. Based on George Griffith's Stories of Other Worlds, it contains six stories, the illustrations from their original publication, a worldbook taking the story forward to 1920, a spaceship design spreadsheet, five adventures, plus the novelisation A Honeymoon in Space. The fiction and worldbook were briefly available in print from Heliograph Inc.
 * Forgotten Futures III: George E. Challenger's Mysterious World: Adventures with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's scientific hero, including the full text of The Lost World, "The Poison Belt", "When the World Screamed", The Land of Mist, "The Horror of the Heights", and "The Disintegration Machine", a worldbook, four adventures, and a wargames scenario.
 * Forgotten Futures IV: The Carnacki Cylinders: Horror and the supernatural in Edwardian England, including the original text and illustrations for William Hope Hodgson's "Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder", a worldbook with rules for magic and the Ab-natural, three adventures and two long outlines, a story-telling card game, etc. Re-released as PDFs with additional material December 2022.
 * Forgotten Futures V: Goodbye Piccadilly…: The destruction of London, as seen by a variety of authors around the end of the 19th century. Contents include two long adventures, numerous adventure outlines, ten stories and articles, etc.
 * Forgotten Futures VI: Victorian Villainy: A source collection for melodramatic adventures, including three plays, the novel A Bid for Fortune by Guy Boothby, some of E.W. Hornung's Raffles stories, and more.
 * Forgotten Futures VII: Tsar Wars: Based on the late 19th-century novels of George Griffith, Tsar Wars is a setting for the struggle between the anarchist Terror and the forces of oppression in the early 20th century, and the return of the Tsar's heir to the utopia of 2030 AD. The novels were briefly in print from Heliograph Inc.
 * Forgotten Futures VIII: Fables and Frolics: Based on the fantasies of E. Nesbit, FF8 is a role-playing game set in a world of childhood magical adventures. Includes three novels, 23 short stories and some autobiographical articles by Nesbit, also rules for magic, life as a Victorian/Edwardian child, adventures, etc.
 * Forgotten Futures IX: It's My Own Invention: Adventures in the worlds of weird science and engineering. Includes two novels by George Griffith, articles and stories by several authors, and game worlds based on flight (and a war on the supernatural), automata and calculating engines, space travel, and time travel.
 * Forgotten Futures X: The Tooth and Claw Role Playing Game: A licensed RPG based on the novel Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton, set in a world with Victorian-equivalent technology which has a separate dragon nation. Player characters are dragons. The game is published in PDF and HTML versions, and is illustrated by Sue Mason and the author. It includes background material, revised rules catering for dragon characters, two adventures, and adventure outlines.
 * The Forgotten Futures Compendium: Two long adventures, Curse of the Leopardmen by Alex Stewart and The League of Extraordinary Geometers (a crossover with The Original Flatland RPG) by Marcus Rowland, plus adventure outlines based on Victorian and Edwardian advertising by Marcus Rowland. PDF only.
 * Forgotten Futures XI: Planets of Peril: A 1930s pulp SF setting based on the stories of Stanley Weinbaum, sent to registered users on November 20, 2010, on line from December 20, 2010. Published in PDF and HTML versions and including most of Weinbaum's SF, three long adventures, and details of the worlds and technology of the setting.
 * In Preparation - Forgotten Futures XII: Empire of Earth: Announced with the release of FF XI, FF XII will be a setting based on Victorian stories of interplanetary and interstellar travel and warfare, primarily "The Struggle for Empire" by Robert W. Cole.
 * The Original Flatland Role Playing Game: Originally published in 1998 as an 'extra' on the Forgotten Futures CD-ROM, and relaunched as a stand-alone PDF with additional material in 2006, this game uses a streamlined version of the Forgotten Futures rules adapted to the setting of Edwin A. Abbott's Flatland. Characters are living 2D shapes such as triangles and hexagons. The game includes rules, three adventures and four adventure outlines, a wargame by Matthew Hartley, a long section on the 'science' of Flatland which attempts to explain aspects of the world and its natives, and the original book. It is sold as a charity project in aid of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

Reception
In the November 1994 edition of Pyramid (Issue #10), Ken and Jo Walton liked both the content of Forgotten Futures 2 and the shareware concept, saying, "This is an excellent, atmospheric, roleplaying game, made slightly unapproachable by its unusual distribution method. It is available only on disk; you unzip the file and print out the book for yourself. All text files are ASCII format, all pictures are GIFs."

In the March 1998 edition of Dragon (Issue 245), Allen Varney called Forgotten Futures "A very substantial and admirable shareware RPG from one of Britain's top designers, based on the British 'scientific romances' popular a century ago." Varney also complimented Marcus Rowland for trying to keep those old 'scientific romance' stories in circulation, saying, "Aside from the game's real virtues, this worthy mission makes Forgotten Futures a must for any fan of science fiction's early history."

Reviews

 * Pyramid - CD-ROM version

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Forgotten Futures


text:
Fabritio Caroso

Fabritio Caroso da Sermoneta (1526/1535 – 1605/1620) was an Italian Renaissance dancing master and a composer or transcriber of dance music.

His dance manual Il Ballarino was published in 1581, with a subsequent edition, significantly different, Nobiltà di Dame, printed in 1600 and again after his death in 1630. The work has been published in English as Courtly Dance of the Renaissance by Julia Sutton.

Both manuals have been printed in facsimile edition. Many of the dances of Fabritio Caroso's manuals are meant for two dancers with a few for four or more dancers. These manuals offer a great deal of information to dance historians and musicologists alike in that each description of a dance is accompanied by music examples with lute tablature and directions about how each music example is to be played. Many of the dances also contain dedications to noble women of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

title: Fabritio Caroso


text:
Fatah

Fatah (فتح, ), formally the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (حركة التحرير الوطني الفلسطيني), is a Palestinian nationalist and social democratic political party. It is the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the second-largest party in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian Authority, is the chairman of Fatah.

Fatah is generally considered to have had a strong involvement in revolutionary struggle in the past and maintained a number of militant groups. Fatah had been closely identified with the leadership of its founder and chairman, Yasser Arafat, until his death in 2004, when Farouk Kaddoumi constitutionally succeeded him to the position of Fatah Chairman and continued in the position until 2009, when Abbas was elected chairman. Since Arafat's death, factionalism within the ideologically diverse movement has become more apparent.

In the 2006 election for the PLC, the party lost its majority in the PLC to Hamas. The Hamas legislative victory led to a conflict between Fatah and Hamas, with Fatah retaining control of the Palestinian National Authority in the West Bank through its president. Fatah is also active in the control of Palestinian refugee camps.

Etymology
The full name of the movement is Ḥarakat al-Taḥrīr al-Waṭanī l-Filasṭīnī, meaning the "Palestinian National Liberation Movement". From this was crafted the inverted and reverse acronym Fatḥ (generally rendered in English as Fatah), meaning "opening", "conquering", or "victory". The word fatḥ is used in religious discourse to signify the Islamic expansion in the first centuries of Islamic history – as in Fatḥ al-Shām, the "conquering of the Levant". Fatḥ also has religious significance in that it is the name of the 48th sura (chapter) of the Quran which, according to major Muslim commentators, details the story of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. During the peaceful two years after the Hudaybiyyah treaty, many converted to Islam, increasing the strength of the Muslim side. It was the breach of this treaty by the Quraysh that triggered the conquest of Mecca. This Islamic precedent was cited by Yasser Arafat as justification for his signing the Oslo Accords with Israel.

Establishment

The Fatah movement was founded in 1959 by members of the Palestinian diaspora, principally by professionals working in the Persian Gulf States, especially Kuwait (then a British protectorate) where the founders Salah Khalaf, Khalil al-Wazir, Yasser Arafat resided. The founders had studied in Cairo or Beirut and had been refugees in Gaza. Salah Khalaf and Khalil al-Wazir were official members of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yasser Arafat had previously been head of the General Union of Palestinian Students (GUPS) at the Cairo University (1952-1956), whilst another co-founder, Khaled Yashruti, then a 22-year-old student, was the GUPS head in Beirut. Upon founding, Arafat summoned Mahmud Abbas (who was residing in Qatar, then a British protectorate) to join. The group of Gulf-based young Palestinian professionals were the core of Fatah in its early days of existence. Fatah espoused a Palestinian nationalist ideology in which Palestinian Arabs would be liberated by their own actions.

Immediately after its establishment the name of the movement was first used in Falastinuna which was the official media organ of the Fatah.

1967–1993
Fatah became the dominant force in Palestinian politics after the Six-Day War in 1967.

Fatah joined the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1967, and was allocated 33 of 105 seats in the PLO Executive Committee. Fatah's Yasser Arafat became Chairman of the PLO in 1969, after the position was ceded to him by Yahya Hammuda. According to the BBC, "Mr Arafat took over as chairman of the executive committee of the PLO in 1969, a year that Fatah is recorded to have carried out 2,432 guerrilla attacks on Israel."

Battle of Karameh
Throughout 1968, Fatah and other Palestinian armed groups were the target of a major Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) operation in the Jordanian village of Karameh, where the Fatah headquarters – as well as a mid-sized Palestinian refugee camp – were located. The town's name is the Arabic word for "dignity", which elevated its symbolism to the Arab people, especially after the Arab defeat in 1967. The operation was in response to attacks against Israel, including rockets strikes from Fatah and other Palestinian militias into the occupied West Bank. Knowledge of the operation was available well ahead of time, and the government of Jordan (as well as a number of Fatah commandos) informed Arafat of Israel's large-scale military preparations. Upon hearing the news, many guerrilla groups in the area, including George Habash's newly formed group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Nayef Hawatmeh's breakaway organization the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), withdrew their forces from the town. Fatah leaders were advised by a pro-Fatah Jordanian divisional commander to withdraw their men and headquarters to nearby hills, but on Arafat's orders, Fatah remained, and the Jordanian Army agreed to back them if heavy fighting ensued.

On the night of 21 March, the IDF attacked Karameh with heavy weaponry, armored vehicles and fighter jets. Fatah held its ground, surprising the Israeli military. As Israel's forces intensified their campaign, the Jordanian Army became involved, causing the Israelis to retreat in order to avoid a full-scale war. By the end of the battle, nearly 150 Fatah militants had been killed, as well as twenty Jordanian soldiers and twenty-eight Israeli soldiers. Despite the higher Arab death toll, Fatah considered themselves victorious because of the Israeli army's rapid withdrawal.

Black September
In the late 1960s, tensions between Palestinians and the Jordanian government increased greatly; heavily armed Arab resistance elements had created a virtual "state within a state" in Jordan, eventually controlling several strategic positions in that country. After their victory in the Battle of Karameh, Fatah and other Palestinian militias began taking control of civil life in Jordan. They set up roadblocks, publicly humiliated Jordanian police forces, molested women and levied illegal taxes – all of which Arafat either condoned or ignored.

In 1970, the Jordanian government moved to regain control over its territory, and the next day, King Hussein declared martial law. By 25 September, the Jordanian army achieved dominance in the fighting, and two days later Arafat and Hussein agreed to a series of ceasefires. The Jordanian army inflicted heavy casualties upon the Palestinians – including civilians – who suffered approximately 3,500 fatalities. Two thousand Fatah fighters managed to enter Syria. They crossed the border into Lebanon to join Fatah forces in that country, where they set up their new headquarters. A large group of guerrilla fighters led by Fatah field commander Abu Ali Iyad held out the Jordanian Army's offensive in the northern city of Ajlun until they were decisively defeated in July 1971. Abu Ali Iyad was executed and surviving members of his commando force formed the Black September Organization, a splinter group of Fatah. In November 1971, the group assassinated Jordanian prime minister Wasfi al-Tal as retaliation to Abu Ali Iyad's execution.

In the 1960s and the 1970s, Fatah provided training to a wide range of European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African militant and insurgent groups, and carried out numerous attacks against Israeli targets in Western Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s. Some militant groups that affiliated themselves to Fatah, and some of the fedayeen within Fatah itself, carried out civilian-aircraft hijackings and terrorist attacks, attributing them to Black September, Abu Nidal's Fatah-Revolutionary Council, Abu Musa's group, the PFLP, and the PFLP-GC. Fatah received weapons, explosives and training from the Soviet Union and some of the communist states of East Europe. China and Algeria also provided munitions. In 1979, Fatah aided Uganda during the Uganda–Tanzania War. Members of the organization fought alongside the Uganda Army and Libyan troops against the Tanzania People's Defence Force during the Battle of Lukaya and the Fall of Kampala, but were eventually forced to retreat from the country.

Lebanon
Since the death of Eljamal in 1968, the Palestinian cause had a large base of supporters in Lebanon.

Although hesitant at first to take sides in the conflict, Arafat and Fatah played an important role in the Lebanese Civil War. Succumbing to pressure from PLO sub-groups such as the PFLP, DFLP and the Palestine Liberation Front (PLF), Fatah aligned itself with the communist and Nasserist Lebanese National Movement (LNM). Although originally aligned with Fatah, Syrian President Hafez al-Assad feared a loss of influence in Lebanon and switched sides. He sent his army, along with the Syrian-backed Palestinian factions of as-Sa'iqa and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) led by Ahmad Jibril to fight alongside the Christian forces against the PLO and the LNM. The primary component of the Christian militias was the Maronite Phalangists.

Phalangist forces killed twenty-six Fatah trainees on a bus in April 1975, marking the official start of the 15-year-long Lebanese civil war. Later that year, an alliance of Christian militias overran the Palestinian refugee camp of Karantina killing over 1,000 civilians. The PLO and LNM retaliated by attacking the town of Damour, a Phalangist and Tigers (Ahrar) stronghold, killing 684 civilians. As the civil war progressed over 2 years of urban warfare, both parties resorted to massive artillery duels and heavy use of sniper nests, while atrocities and war crimes were committed by both sides.

In 1976, with strategic planning help from the Lebanese Army, the alliance of Christian militias, spearheaded by the National Liberal Party of former President Cammille Chamoun militant branch, the noumour el ahrar (NLP Tigers), took a pivotal refugee camp in the Eastern part of Beirut, the Tel al-Zaatar camp, after a six-month siege, also known as Tel al-Zaatar massacre in which hundreds perished. Arafat and Abu Jihad blamed themselves for not successfully organizing a rescue effort.

PLO cross-border raids against Israel grew somewhat during the late 1970s. One of the most severe – known as the Coastal Road massacre – occurred on 11 March 1978. A force of nearly a dozen Fatah fighters landed their boats near a major coastal road connecting the city of Haifa with Tel Aviv-Yafo. There they hijacked a bus and sprayed gunfire inside and at passing vehicles, killing thirty-seven civilians. In response, the IDF launched Operation Litani three days later, with the goal of taking control of Southern Lebanon up to the Litani River. The IDF achieved this goal, and Fatah withdrew to the north into Beirut.

Israel invaded Lebanon again in 1982. Beirut was soon besieged and bombarded by the IDF; to end the siege, the US and European governments brokered an agreement guaranteeing safe passage for Arafat and Fatah – guarded by a multinational force – to exile in Tunis. Despite the exile, many Fatah commanders and fighters remained in Lebanon, and they faced the War of the Camps in the 1980s in their fight with the Shia Amal Movement and also in connection with internal schisms within the Palestinian factions.

Presidential and legislative elections
In the 1993–1995 Oslo Accords, Fatah, as part of the PLO, made some interim agreements with Israel, including recognition of Israel by the PLO. Until his 2004 death, Arafat headed the Palestinian National Authority, the provisional entity created as a result of those Oslo Accords. Soon after Arafat's death, Farouk Kaddoumi was elected to the post, which he continues to hold.

Fatah nominated Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian presidential election of 2005.

In 2005, Hamas won in nearly all the municipalities it contested. Political analyst Salah Abdel-Shafi told the BBC about the difficulties of Fatah leadership: "I think it's very, very serious – it's becoming obvious that they can't agree on anything." Fatah is "widely seen as being in desperate need of reform," as "the PA's performance has been a story of corruption and incompetence – and Fatah has been tainted."

Internal discord
In December 2005, jailed Intifada leader Marwan Barghouti broke ranks with the party and announced that he had formed a new political list to run in the elections called the al-Mustaqbal ("The Future"), mainly composed of members of Fatah's "Young Guard." These younger leaders have repeatedly expressed frustration with the entrenched corruption in the party, which has been run by the "Old Guard" who returned from exile in Tunisia following the Oslo Accords. Al-Mustaqbal was to campaign against Fatah in the 2006 Palestinian legislative election, presenting a list including Mohammed Dahlan, Kadoura Fares, Samir Mashharawi and Jibril Rajoub. However, on 28 December 2005, the leadership of the two factions agreed to submit a single list to voters, headed by Barghouti, who began actively campaigning for Fatah from his jail cell.

There have been numerous other expressions of discontent within Fatah, which is just holding its first general congress in two decades. Because of this, the movement remains largely dominated by aging cadres from the pre-Oslo era of Palestinian politics. Several of them gained their positions through the patronage of Yasser Arafat, who balanced above the different factions, and the era after his death in 2004 has seen increased infighting among these groups, who jockey for influence over future development, the political line, funds, and constituencies. There is concern over the succession once Abbas leaves power. There have been no open splits within the older generation of Fatah politicians since the 1980s, though there is occasional friction between members of the top leadership. One founding member, Faruq al-Qaddumi (Abu Lutf), continues to openly oppose the post-Oslo arrangements and has intensified his campaign for a more hardline position from exile in Tunis. Since Arafat's death, he is formally head of Fatah's political bureau and chairman, but his actual political following within Fatah appears limited. He has at times openly challenged the legitimacy of Abbas and harshly criticized both him and Mohammed Dahlan, but despite threats to splinter the movement, he remains in his position, and his challenges have so far been fruitless. Another influential veteran, Hani al-Hassan, has also openly criticized the present leadership.

Fatah's internal conflicts have also, due to the creation of the Palestinian Authority, merged with the turf wars between different PA security services, e.g., a longstanding rivalry between the West Bank (Jibril Rajoub) and Gaza (Muhammad Dahlan) branches of the powerful Preventive Security Service. Foreign backing for different factions contribute to conflict, e.g., with the United States generally seen as supportive of Abbas's overall leadership and of Dahlan's security influence, and Syria alleged to promote Faruq al-Qaddumi's challenge to the present leadership. The younger generations of Fatah, especially within the militant al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, have been more prone to splits, and a number of lesser networks in Gaza and the West Bank have established themselves as either independent organizations or joined Hamas. However, such overt breaks with the movement have still been rather uncommon, despite numerous rivalries inside and between competing local Fatah groups.

2009: Sixth General Assembly
The Sixth General Assembly of the Fatah Movement began on 4 August 2009 in Bethlehem, nearly 16 years after the Oslo I Accord and 20 years since the last Fatah convention, after being repeatedly postponed over conflicts ranging from representation to venue. More than 2,000 delegates attended the meeting, while another 400 from the Gaza Strip were unable to attend the conference after Hamas barred them from traveling to the West Bank.

The internal dissension was immediately obvious. Saudi King Abdullah told the delegates that divisions among the Palestinians were more damaging to their cause of an independent state than the Israeli "enemy".

Delegates resolved not to resume Israeli-Palestinian peace talks until 14 preconditions were met. Among these preconditions were the release of all Israel-held Palestinian prisoners, a freeze on all Israeli settlement construction, and an end to the Gaza blockade.

By affirming its option for "armed resistance" against Israel, Fatah appealed to Palestinians who wanted a more hardline response to Israel.

Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon said the conference was a "serious blow to peace" and "was another lost opportunity for the Palestinian leadership to adopt moderate views."

Elections to Central Committee and Revolutionary Council
On 9 August 2009, new members of the Central Committee of Fatah and the Revolutionary Council were chosen. Delegates voted to fill 18 seats on the 23-seat Central Committee, and 81 seats on the 128-seat Revolutionary Council after a week of deliberations. At least 70 new members entered the latter, with 20 seats going to Fatah representatives from the Gaza Strip, 11 seats filled by women (the highest number of votes went to one woman who spent years in Israeli jails for her role in the resistance), four seats went to Christians, and one was filled by a Jewish-born convert to Islam, Uri Davis, the first Jewish-born person to be elected to the Revolutionary Council since its founding in 1958. Fatah activists from the Palestinian diaspora were also represented and included Samir Rifai, Fatah's secretary in Syria, and Khaled Abu Usba. Elected to the central council was Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of Marwan Barghouti who was serving five life sentences in Israel for his role in terrorist attacks on civilians in Israel during the Second Intifada.

Reconciliation process with Hamas
A meeting of the Revolutionary Council was held in Ramallah from 18 to 19 October 2014. Many important questions were discussed, including reconciliation with Hamas. Opinion was divided on this issue.

2016: Seventh Congress
In December 2016, more than 1400 members of Fatah's 7th Congress elected 18 members of the Central Committee and 80 for the Revolutionary Council. Six new members were added to the Central Committee while 12 were reelected. Outgoing members included Nabil Shaath, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, Zakaria al-Agha and Tayib Abdul Rahim.

Its leader Abu Ashraf Al-Armoushi and his comrades were killed in the Al-Basateen neighborhood of Ain Al-Helweh camp on 30 July 2023 during a fighting.

Ideology
Fatah has "Member Party" status at the Socialist International and has "Observer Party" status within the Party of European Socialists.

The November 1959 edition of Fatah's underground journal Filastinuna Nida al-Hayat indicated that the movement was motivated by the status of the Palestinian refugees in the Arab world:
 * The youth of the catastrophe (shibab al-nakba) are dispersed... Life in the tent has become as miserable as death... [T]o die for our beloved Motherland is better and more honorable than life, which forces us to eat our daily bread under humiliations or to receive it as charity at the cost of our honour... We, the sons of the catastrophe, are no longer willing to live this dirty, despicable life, this life which has destroyed our cultural, moral and political existence and destroyed our human dignity.

Armed struggle – as manifested in the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine and the military role of Palestinian fighters under the leadership of Abd al-Qadir al-Husayni in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War – was central to Fatah's initial ideology of how to liberate Palestine.

Structure
Fatah's two most important decision-making bodies are the Central Committee and Revolutionary Council. The Central Committee is mainly an executive body, while the Revolutionary Council is Fatah's legislative body.

Armed factions
Fatah has maintained a number of militant groups since its founding. Its mainstream military branch is al-'Asifah. Fatah is generally considered to have had a strong involvement in terrorism in the past, though unlike its rival Islamist faction Hamas, Fatah is no longer regarded as a terrorist organization by any government. Fatah used to be designated terrorist under Israeli law and was considered terrorist by the United States Department of State and United States Congress until it renounced terrorism in 1988.

Fatah has, since its inception, created, led or sponsored a number of armed groups and militias, some of which have had an official standing as the movement's armed wing, and some of which have not been publicly or even internally recognized as such. The group has also dominated various PLO and Palestinian Authority forces and security services which were/are not officially tied to Fatah, but in practice have served as wholly pro-Fatah armed units, and been staffed largely by members. The original name for Fatah's armed wing was al-'Asifah ("The Storm"), and this was also the name Fatah first used in its communiques, trying for some time to conceal its identity. This name has since been applied more generally to Fatah armed forces, and does not correspond to a single unit today. Other militant groups associated with Fatah include:
 * Force 17. Plays a role akin to the Presidential Guard for senior Fatah leaders. Created by Yasser Arafat.
 * Black September Organization. A group formed by leading Fatah members in 1971, following the events of the "Black September" in Jordan, to organize clandestine attacks with which Fatah did not want to be openly associated. These included strikes against leading Jordanian politicians as a means of exacting vengeance and raising the price for attacking the Palestinian movement; and also, most controversially, for "international operations" (e.g. the Munich Olympics massacre), intended to put pressure on the US, Europe and Israel, to raise the visibility of the Palestinian cause and to upstage radical rivals such as the PFLP. Fatah publicly disassociated itself from the group, but it is widely believed that it enjoyed Arafat's direct or tacit backing. It was discontinued in 1973–1974, as Fatah's political line shifted again, and the Black September operations and the strategy behind them were seen as having become a political liability, rather than an asset.
 * Fatah Hawks. An armed militia active mainly until the mid-1990s.
 * Tanzim. A branch of Fatah under the leadership of Marwan Barghouti, with roots in the activism of the First Intifada, which carried out armed attacks in the early days of the Second Intifada. It was later subsumed or sidelined by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.
 * Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Created during the Second Intifada to bolster the organization's militant standing vis-à-vis the rival Hamas movement, which had taken the lead in attacks on Israel after 1993, and was gaining rapidly in popularity with the advent of the Intifada. The Brigades are locally organized and have been said to suffer from poor cohesion and internal discipline, at times ignoring ceasefires and other initiatives announced by the central Fatah leadership. They are generally seen as tied to the "young guard" of Fatah politics, organizing young members on the street level, but it is not clear that they form a faction in themselves inside Fatah politics; rather, different Brigades units may be tied to different Fatah factional leaders.

During the Second Intifada, the group was a member of the Palestinian National and Islamic Forces.

Constitution
In August 2009, at Fatah's Sixth General Conference in Bethlehem, Fatah delegates drew up a new "internal charter".

title: Fatah