It's not a new concept.

Zines evolved from fanzines, which were self-published and distributed works that came out of the gaming and science fiction communities in the '60s. This in turn led into the punk era, when zines could be dedicated to anything from music to politics to personal essays. Because they were always produced essentially on copy machines and hand-distributes, the name "zine" stuck because they were clearly not as professional as "real" magazines. Zines ended up becoming something of their own subculture for a while, especially leading up to and in the early days of the web.