About Ox-Fanzine

Ox-Fanzine

Ox-Fanzine is the German punk and hardcore fanzine published by Joachim Hiller in Solingen. Founded at the end of 1988 — the first issue appeared in January 1989 — it has documented the punk-rock, hardcore-punk and rock'n'roll subcultures for more than 35 years, appearing bimonthly with around 148 pages and a music-CD supplement, in the regular magazine trade. The Frankenpost has called it the most important hardcore and punk magazine in the German-speaking world; the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung described it as the organ of the German punk scene. With a circulation of around 10,000 copies (2019), it has maintained a stable audience despite the decline of music magazines — the subject of a January 2019 Der Freitag article.

Overview

Ox is a fanzine for punk rock, hardcore punk, rock'n'roll and other alternative music, published in Solingen by Joachim Hiller through the Ox-Verlag. It appears bimonthly — in February, April, June, August, October and December — with a volume of around 148 pages and a music CD enclosed, one of the first fanzines to regularly include CDs with its issues. The programme centres on the punk subculture: band interviews, scene reports, record reviews — plus comic, book and film reviews, a serial novel by Klaus N. Frick, various columns and, since the very first issue, a page of vegetarian recipes. Nearly 60 authors contribute with varying frequency, including the regular Lars Gebhardt. The circulation was 12,500 copies at its mid-2000s peak (publisher's figure, 2005 — surpassing other German and American zines such as HeartattaCk), settling at around 10,000 by 2019. The fanzine is sold in the regular magazine trade as well as by subscription (28 euros domestic per year). The ISSN is 1618-2103. The Ox-Fanzine Podcast extends the magazine into audio: Joachim Hiller talks with guests about what's current and gives background on the print magazine's contents — episode 131 discusses issue 185 with Social Distortion, Rantanplan and Vitamin X, among others.

History

The fanzine was founded at the end of 1988 by Joachim Hiller and Biggi Häußler in Heidenheim an der Brenz in southern Germany; the first issue was published in January 1989. The zine was named after Häußler's cat, which appeared on the first cover. After some time Ox merged with the zine Faces the Facts, whose editor Thomas Hähnel joined — but eventually Häußler and Hähnel left to focus on other endeavours, leaving Hiller as the sole editor. In the 1990s Hiller relocated to Solingen in western Germany, establishing Ox there. Since the first issue the fanzine has carried a page of vegetarian recipes — from which Hiller and his wife Uschi Herzer have published five cookbooks, the latest entirely vegan, with artists including Steve Albini, Mille Petrozza, Bill Gould and Reimer Bustorff of Kettcar contributing their own recipes. The milestones: on 11 February 2009 Ox-Fanzine and the Solingen music association Cow Club organised the 100th-issue anniversary concert with Wire, Jingo de Lunch, EA80 and other bands; on 7 February 2014 the zine celebrated its 25th anniversary with a show featuring Ruts DC, the Generators, Asta Kask and Vitamin X. In January 2019 Der Freitag wrote about how Ox had maintained a steady audience despite the decline of music magazines. The Ventil-Verlag published "Ox – das Buch" in 2003, the best interviews from 15 years of Ox-Fanzine.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's core is the punk and hardcore interview: the long-form conversations with the bands — from Social Distortion to Rantanplan, from the Ruts DC to Vitamin X — that document the scene's history in the participants' own words. The reviews cover the records, the comics, the books and the films — the complete media diet of the subculture. The serial novel by Klaus N. Frick and the columns give the magazine its literary texture; the vegetarian recipe page — running since issue 1 — its culinary one. The enclosed music CD makes each issue a listening object as well as a reading one. The podcast extends the programme: the episode discussions of the current issue's contents (issue 185 with Social Distortion, Deutsche Laichen, DFL, Erection, Focus., Ed Colver, Gebretter, Maria Iskariot, Rantanplan, Sexschweiss, Vitamin X), the special episodes such as the Punk & Dada conversation with the Solingen curator Dr. Katharina Günther on the 2026 Dada exhibition, and the "How Ya Goin'?" Cosmic Psychos specials. The cookbooks — Das Ox-Kochbuch in five volumes, from the 2000 first volume's vegetarian and vegan recipes "not only for punks" to the 2012 fifth volume's "Kochen ohne Knochen" — carry the fanzine's vegetarian page into the book trade. The magazine's coverage is the subculture's complete world: the music, the media, the food, the politics, the history. The review sections treat the subculture's media with the seriousness the corporate press reserves for the mainstream: the comics reviewed as literature, the films as cinema, the books as scholarship — the fanzine's premise that the punk reader's cultural consumption deserves the same critical attention. The columns carry the scene's arguments: the debates about selling out, about veganism, about the scene's own history — the arguments that have filled the fanzine's letters pages for 35 years. The serial novel gives the magazine its fiction: the ongoing story that rewards the subscriber who reads every issue.

Organization and Ownership

Ox-Fanzine is published by the Ox-Verlag in Solingen (P.O. Box 110420, 42664 Solingen), owned and edited by Joachim Hiller — who is simultaneously publisher, editor-in-chief, advertising contact and editorial contact. The one-man publishing house is the fanzine's economic model: the subscriptions (28 euros domestic, 33 euros abroad per year), the single-issue sales (4.90 euros), the regular magazine-trade distribution, and the cookbook publishing. The nearly 60 contributing authors — from the serial novelist Klaus N. Frick to the regular Lars Gebhardt — work on the fanzine's volunteer-inflected model. The Cow Club, the Solingen music association, is the fanzine's event partner — co-organiser of the 100th-issue concert in 2009. The podcast is produced by Hiller himself. The magazine's independence — the sole editor-publisher, the Solingen base, the 35-year run — is its identity: the fanzine that grew into the German-speaking world's most important punk and hardcore magazine without becoming a corporate music magazine. The ISSN is 1618-2103. Detailed current circulation figures beyond the 2019 estimate of around 10,000 are not publicly confirmed.

Digital Presence

The fanzine's website is ox-fanzine.de, and the podcast — Der Ox-Fanzine Podcast — is available on the podcast platforms, with 131 episodes by the mid-2020s: the issue discussions with Uschi and Joachim, the specials, the scene conversations. The wonderl.ink/@oxfanzine link hub collects the magazine's digital presence. The German, English, French, Catalan and Russian Wikipedia articles document the fanzine's history and significance — the rare punk fanzine with encyclopaedic coverage in five languages. The fachzeitungen.de listing records the subscription data: the bimonthly rhythm, the 148-page volume, the CD supplement. In the German music-magazine landscape Ox occupies the subculture's pole: where the corporate music magazines declined, the Solingen fanzine held its audience — the January 2019 Der Freitag article's subject. For the punk and hardcore scene of the German-speaking world — the bands, the readers, the cooks — Ox remains the organ: the interviews, the reviews, the recipes, the CDs, the podcast, from Heidenheim 1989 to Solingen today, bimonthly, for more than 35 years, named after a cat, published from Solingen, read across the German-speaking world, every two months, without fail, since 1989.