About this site

Great Worm Express Distribution sells various types of independent media. The focus is on zines, however I also sell music, and I have plans to sell books and videos in the future.

What's a zine?

A zine is an independently produced magazine. Zines are usually photocopied rather than printed. Zines are used to spread the ideas of many subcultures and countercultures. "Zine" rhymes with bean, not with line.

History of the distro

I was living in Vancouver in 1999, where I discovered zines. I had bought Stay As You Are from Brad Yung (the glorious third issue, of which I am carrying the last few remaining copies) and a few other zines. There was a slew of bad ones, but I didn't care much about these. Then I bought the last issue of Factsheet5, which had been the zine bible for many years, although I didn't know that at the time. In its pages I discovered that there were hundreds of good zines from all over the world, although it was mainly from the United States. Then I bought Broken Pencil and discovered that many Canadians also published zines! and to say that none of these reached Vancouver. I was looking for something interesting to do, I had found my calling in the underground scene: I would get good zines to Vancouver. I later moved to Toronto, where there is a more vibrant zine scene, but the website you see before you today is the result of my efforts into zinedom: getting good zines around. 4 years later, I'm still at it and have no plans of stopping. I hope that you will enjoy these zines as much as I enjoy bringing them out of the obscurity for your enjoyment. --frandroid

What's with the name?

The Great Worm is Shai Hulud, the giant sandworm, the worm-god of the Fremen. The latter are the inhabitants of Dune, the desert planet of the novel of the same name by Frank Herbert. The Fremen ride giant sandworms to move rapidly and effectively through the desert... Now I wish I could deliver zines this way, but the traditional postal system will have to work for the moment :)