Xerography Debt #10
Table of Contents
| Xerography Debt Issue #10 February 2003 Davida Gypsy Breier, Editor Fred Argoff, Androo Robinson, Donny Smith, Eric Lyden, & Bobby Tran Dale, Founding Reviewers Mark Hain, Matt Fagan, Christoph Meyer, Erin Quinlan, Eric Lyden, Gavin J. Grant, Dan Taylor, Brooke Young, Maria Goodman, Rick Bradford, Kate Haas, Kathy Moseley, Ted Mangano, & William P. Tandy, Reviewers Androo Robinson and Matt Fagan, Artists Xerography Debt is a Leeking Inc., publication. It is scheduled to appear 3 times a year. Issues are $3. Send cash/stamps, zines, and correspondence to: Xerography Debt Davida Gypsy Breier PO Box 963, Havre de Grace, MD 21078 E-mail: davida@leekinginc.com Website: www.leekinginc.com © February 2003 #11 Due out June 2003. You can pre-order today! |
To order a paper copy of this issue, please send $3 (cash, stamps, money order, or check) to Davida Gypsy Breier, PO Box 11064, Baltimore, MD 21212
Distribution: Atomic Books, Quimby’s, SoberBrothers.com, Stickfigure Distro, & Tower Records |
|
Introduction
Strange…in this issue many of the reviewers out themselves as poetry fans. I guess we are living in a new era where people can admit this without fear of social ostracism and political repercussions.
I would like to thank Mother Nature for the 27 inches of snow she dumped on the Baltimore area, which enabled me to miss two days of work and finally get caught up.
Donny Smith and I decided that The Home of Zineland Security had seen enough ink. It is now available online at: www.leekinginc.com/xeroxdebt/zineland.htm. I will also gladly send reprints upon request. Donny has also started a comprehensive index of all the zines that have been reviewed in XEROGRAPHY DEBT. It is a work in process with over 1000 entries and 5 issues indexed. You can view it online at: www.leekinginc.com/xeroxdebt/xdindex.htm.
I keep trying to refine and enhance each issue, so let me know what you like or don't like. Also, I apologize for the small type size. I was faced with the dilemma of reducing the font size, cutting a large amount of material, or increasing the page count. I couldn't afford the extra page and I didn't have the heart to cut more than I had already, so hopefully the smaller size will work for everyone.
Enjoy!
Davida Gypsy Breier
February 2003
Basic stuff you should know
If this is your first issue, XEROGRAPHY DEBT is a review zine for zine readers by zine writers. It is a hybrid of review zine and personal zine. XEROGRAPHY DEBT has its own freestyle approach. It is all about communication, so each reviewer has used the format or style most comfortable to him or her. Also, each reviewer "owns" the zine in a completely communal, non-possessive sense. We are individual artists and writers coming together to collaborate and help keep zineland flourishing. It is a communal experience from start to finish. Do your part by ordering a few zines from the many reviewed here and, if you self-publish, please consider including a few reviews in your zine.
XEROGRAPHY DEBT's reviews are selective. To explain the "system." Some reviewers choose to review zines they have bought or traded with, some review zines that are sent to XEROGRAPHY DEBT for review, and some do both. Also, I buy zines at Atomic Books, my local zine store, and zine events, so if you see your zine reviewed and you didn't send it in, that might be where I found it. Generally the only reviews you will read in here are "good reviews." Constructive criticism is given, but basically we don't have the time or money to print bad reviews. If you sent your zine in for review and don't see it listed, wait a few months and see if it appears in the following issue. I read and then distribute the zines to the reviewers about two months before the print date. If the reviewer passed on reviewing you zine, it will be sent out again for the next issue. So, each zine gets two shots with two different reviewers. Ultimately, many of the review copies stay in the XD archives, but some are donated to zine libraries. Occasionally mistakes happen, postal or otherwise, so if you have a question about a zine you sent in for review, please contact Davida at PO Box 963, Havre de Grace, MD 21078 or davida@leekinginc.com.
XEROGRAPHY DEBT is receiving more and more zines for review. Until issue #6 complimentary copies were sent all of the zines reviewed. That just isn’t feasible any more. If I have your e-mail address, I’ll try and email a copy of the review and a link to the new issue on the website. If I can afford the time and postage I’ll send a postcard or letter with the review. If I am unable to do this, please bear with me, I’m doing the best I can.
It is available for free online (some reviews and artwork will only be available in print) or paper copies can be ordered for $3.
If you have an event, announcement, or project you would like to share, please get in touch.
The lack of paid advertising within these pages is deliberate. Despite reviewing our friends and lovers, we try to be somewhat objective and free to do as we please. Needless to say, this brings up the point of needing some help to stay afloat...
Sponsors
I see Xerography Debt as the PBS of review zines. It is by us, for us, with no financial incentive, just a dedication to small press. If you have a few spare stamps or dollar bills to help support us and the zine community, it would be most appreciated. Also, let me know if you wish to remain anonymous. This issue's sponsors are:
Janette, Patrick, Androo Robinson and Maria Goodman, Dar Veverka, Jeannie McStay, Rhonda Baker, AJ Michel, Scout, Josh Bowron, Tracy Pickle, DB Pedlar, Al Cene, Owen Thomas, Lisa Falour, Ted Mangano, Christoph Meyer, Anne Thalheimer, Matt Fagan, and a few anonymous benefactors.
We love letters…
My p.o. box is actually 617547 not 647547. It is such a treat to be included in this community. (Ed. - Sorry!)
Dan & I have begun a new (and equally less rewarding) campaign of
pitching bottles into the Chicago River stuffed with our work and instructions
on how to contact us. New books from each of us are imminent.
Zebulun
Chicago, IL
This latest Xerography was quite a fun read...better & better might be a natural course regardless considering the diversity in reviewers that you've assembled, as well as the fact that you keep collecting said reviewers like people collect postage stamps, so diversity in content is inevitable. I think this issue is the most fully realized of what I think, as an outside observer, of what your vision of the zine is sposed be...I hafta say, I really enjoyed Jeff Somers' piece on bad reviews. It was a crafty, well veiled "fuck you" to bad reviews which had just the right amount of tongue in cheekiness backed with some solid points and accountability. A very good addition.
Your comments on Factsheet 5 were definitely on the mark. So much so, I
had to really....and I mean this....I really had to think back to how many
times I might have cried in my beer to you about the publication's demise if I
did at all...bwahahahah. That's wrong. But it's true.
Botda
Oakland, CA
Announcements
NOMINATE YOUR FAVORITE ZINE NOW FOR ZINE YEARBOOK
Zine
Yearbook is currently accepting nominations for the newest edition. Volume 7
will feature excerpts from zines printed in 2002. Zines must have been printed
in 2002 and have circulations of less than 5,000 copies per issue. All you need
to do is photocopy the article or artwork that you want nominate, and include
the zine's name and address with your entry. Please send your nominations
to:
The Zine Yearbook
PO Box 1225
Bowling Green, OH 43402
All
entries must be received by February 28, 2003. For more information, email:
zineyearbook@yahoo.com.
The bATL collective needs zines for their NEW library
"Right
now we have a space in a warehouse in the west end of Atlanta. We have couches,
chairs, etc, and probably close to 1000 zines and 100 books. Stickfigure Distro
has donated a lot of older zines and books so we started off with a good number
of them. The library is open on saturday's from 12pm - 6pm. It is across from
Stickfigure Distro so kids have an excuse to be down there and can walk across
the street to us. It's open to everybody. We don't have checkout or anything
right now. We just have a great collection so people can feel free to read and
hang out. In the future we want to have computer access and set up some space
to encourage people to start their own projects as well. “
Send your
zines to:
Chris Ware
641 Rosalia St. Apt. C
Atlanta, GA
30312-3446
bATL@doityourself.com
Call for Submissions
"Hi! I'm Julie from Junie in Georgia.
I'm calling for submissions on a separate zine I want to make about personal
tragedies or experiences. If anyone wishes to share their stories through text,
drawings, collage or other means, I would love to include them in my zine. The
only requirement is that it can be adapted to fit on an 8 1/2 by 11 page. The
deadline is August 1st, 2003. Your stories can include anything that has
affected you -- an accident, losing a loved one, an injury, getting fired, a
natural disaster, whatever. Send to either junieingeorgia@hotmail.com or P.O.
Box 438, Avondale Estates, GA 30002. Thanks!”
Salt Lake City Zine Library Moves
“I had no idea that
this whole moving the library thing would be such a huge pain in the ass. I
really should have known better but, I have spent every moment in the old empty
library doing the strangest things and I think a nervous breakdown for the
entire library is coming fairly soon. I have no idea how we are going to open
on Saturday but they assure me it is going to happen. I have been skipping
class to make sure all seven huge boxes of zines will be taken care of. Right
now I am alone in the sub basement of the old library, whose phones have been
shut off, surrounded by angry looking microfilm machines. If this were the
Twilight Zone I would so fall victim to the possessed machines.
“I will admit that the new building is right next door to the old
building so Julie and I will still receive mail sent to the old address for the
next 50 years or so. So, send all your zines and zine related stuff to: Brooke
Young or Julie Bartel (just pick one of us, we read each other's mail
anyway)”
Salt Lake City Public Library
210 E 400 South
Salt
Lake City, UT 84111
New Jersey Zinefest
Do you make zines? Read zines? Love
zines? Then come out to Rutgers University on Sunday April 13th, 2003 for a
zining good time! A bunch of local zine kids are putting together the Garden
State's first zinefest, and it will be open to people from all over. If you
want to attend or help out in anyway, please get in touch. And tell everyone
you know about it!”
Website - http://www.njzinefest.com
Email -
njzinefest@yahoo.com
Address - P.O. Box 5754, Parsippany, NJ 07054 (Ed.- At
present Leeking Inc. and Eight Stone Press hope to attend.)
POOPSHEET Website Relaunch
“I'm pleased to announce that
I am relaunching the Poopsheet website: www.angelfire.com/zine/poopsheet
“A couple of changes come with this relaunching. First, the Reviews
section will now be produced as a blog. Also, for those unaware, the News page
is now here. The beauty of these two changes is that the News and Reviews
sections can be updated on a more regular basis (which is to say, as often as
possible). So check those pages frequently for updates. Also, anybody who so
desires has the freedom to add their news to the News page whenever they wish.
Simply fill in the blanks and it's done (registration isn't necessary). This
means there will no more formal "issues" of Poopsheet. Rather, it's become a
continuously-updated entity. These changes are intended to both make Poopsheet
more time-efficient for myself and encourage more interactivity from the
readers. I urge you to begin posting your news at your convenience. I'm happy
to do it, of course, but you do have that option. Also: Read any interesting
zines or comix lately? Want to write a review? I'd like to encourage you to do
so and I'll post it to the new Reviews blog.”
Calling all ZINESTERS South of the U.S.- Mexico Border & West of
the Mississippi!
“We are building a Zine Archive in the Special
Collections and University Archives at SDSU, a repository for fine, unique, and
unusual books, periodicals, manuscripts, oral histories, and other documents.
The Archive's aim is to provide a protected space for D.I.Y. collections while
advancing public access to these important works. Immortalize your creations
forever! Zines won't circulate but anyone can use the Archive. Allow someone
100 years from now to read what life was like for YOU and have your publication
live on indefinitely. Have extra zines just collecting dust where few people
can enjoy? Send us those too!
“Expand access to D.I.Y. publications
and promote their preservation!
“We are collecting all zines related
to: Feminism, Gender, and Trans Issues, Women/Girls/Trans, Local Music, Local
Politics & Activism, and Border issues.”
Please send your
inquiries and donations to:
Attn: Elke Zobl
Special Collections &
University Archives
Malcolm A. Love Library
San Diego State
University
5500 Campanile Drive
San Diego, CA 92182-8050
ezobl@mail.sdsu.edu
http://infodome.sdsu.edu/about/depts/spcollections/
The Columns
HEY, YOU WITH THE ZINE!
By Benn Ray, Atomic Books
1100 W. 36th St., Baltimore, MD
21211
benn@atomicbooks.com
www.atomicbooks.com
Do you want people to read your zine? By people, I mean more than just your immediate family and friends. I mean strangers; people you don’t know who will purchase a copy of your hand-crafted publication and read with great interest your inner-most thoughts and feelings and then send you money for more issues, or even better, a letter telling you how much they love your zine and maybe they’ll even include a copy of their own zine which you may sorta like but will pretend to adore?
Since you’re making a zine, you most likely would like this to happen right? Otherwise you’d just be writing in a diary or something and keeping all those unique thoughts to yourself.
Here are some pointers, from a store owner, on how to get your zine into the hands of readers.
1. CHECK YOUR LOCAL STORES
The very first step (and easiest) to getting your zine out there is to look around the town you live in. Don’t bother with larger chain bookstores, most likely they won’t be too into consigning your zines. Check with any independently owned bookstores (even the used book stores), and inquire if they would be interested in carrying your zine. (If you do a comics zine, check with any local comic shops; they might be willing to give your zine a shot. Please keep in mind though, that if they are a mainstream super-hero comics store, you are most likely not going to sell too many copies of your comics zine-even if it deals with superhero fare. The average mainstream comics reader has little interest for things outside the Marvel & DC Universes). But local area independent stores are always worth trying, and many like to support local writers/artists.
2. FIND STORES LOCATED IN OTHER PARTS OF THE COUNTRY THAT ARE KNOWN FOR CARRYING ZINES
To find stores outside of your immediate area that carry zines, your best bet is to check with other people who do zines. Most zinesters love getting any kind of mail, so an email asking their advice will most likely always be welcome. There are a handful of stores that carry a selection of zines throughout the country, Atomic Books (of course), Quimby’s, See Hear, and probably some others that I can’t think of right now (Tower Records even carries some zines). Stores have varying reputations in the zine world in terms of how easy they are to deal with, how easy it is to get them to pay for copies of your zine they’ve sold, etc. So by checking with other zinesters (make sure you get multiple opinions because one person may have had a bad experience with a store, but that doesn’t necessarily mean everyone has), you’ll at least know what to expect when dealing with the stores.
3. CONSIGNING YOUR ZINE TO STORES
Most stores that carry zines do so on a consignment basis. That means if your zine sells, you get paid.
Shelf-space is limited. Some might say there are actually more zines than customers for zines. So, in order to get a store to pick up your zine, you need to send them a copy of your zine with a cover letter introducing yourself, your zine and containing all the pertinent zine info and your contact info. I know of many zines that I’d like to carry at Atomic Books, but the zine makers have never contacted us, and my efforts to contact them have turned up nothing.
If you are concerned with shifty retailers selling the review copy you submit to them, write REVIEW COPY in marker somewhere on the front of the zine. But also keep in mind that if a retailer does put your review copy out for sale on their shelves, if that zine sells, that helps you because they may be more interested in carrying your zine.
The key here is that if you send out your zine and hear nothing back from the store, don’t take it personally. Zine submissions are constantly coming in to Atomic Books, and keeping up with them is a full-time job itself. After waiting a few weeks, shoot the store an email or call them “just to make sure they got the zine and to see if they were interested in carrying it.”
4. WHAT KIND OF ZINES DO STORES LOOK FOR?
In terms of what kind of zines stores might pick up, well, I can’t speak for all stores. But I know that in our case, you could be Allen Ginsberg himself, back from the dead, delivering a hand-written copy of HOWL for consignment and we’d think twice about carrying it. I’ve heard some people say that the only people who read zines are people who make zines, that may be true. But the only people who read poetry zines are a very small fraction of the people who make poetry zines. We generally don’t carry them (the same goes for fiction).
Content is key. A unique angle, someone with something to say is just as important as how good your zine looks. We’ve had zines that look like utter shit but have the best content in the world sit on our shelves, and we’ve had zines that look fantastic but really say nothing new or interesting also sit on the shelves.
The world has enough music review zines. There are plenty of women doing zines about motherhood, and some of them are quite good. There’s no need for more unless you have a BRAND NEW TAKE on it. I understand you may be a 24 year old who wants to write about what’s going on in your life. But try to look at your life objectively. Is this something you’d pay $2.00 to read? If not, then you might want to keep a journal instead of creating another per-zine. A good zine is one that has a unique theme, offers a new perspective on an old theme or one that is written incredibly well.
There seems to be a lo-fi faction in zinedom that states as part of its doctrine that if it doesn’t have a black and white collage cover, isn’t photocopied and stapled, it’s not a true zine. Remember, the crappier your zine looks, the least likely a reader is to pick it up. If a reader doesn’t buy it, it’s more than likely that a store will end up returning all your zines unsold in a few months and stop carrying your title altogether (that’s if they even decided to carry the zine in the fist place). For those lo-fi purists out there, it’s the 21st century; zines don’t have to look like they were made in 1986 to be good.
5 PEOPLE JUDGE A ZINE BY ITS COVER
Zines will also usually not be displayed in the best space in many stores. This is not a slight, but a necessity of business from the store’s perspective. If a store is selling a $2.00 zine, the chances are that they’re only going to make 80 cents off of each zine sold. However, if that store has a $30 book for sale, the store will stand to make (at best) $12.00. The store will have to sell 15 copies of a $2.00 zine to make the same about of money as they do off of one $30.00 book. Stores have to pay the rent too.
Color on a cover always makes a zine stand out. Whether you use colored paper for the cover, or use highlighters and markers to color in your cover or you use a color printer to print your covers or you hand silkscreen your covers, any amount of color makes your zine stand out in the sea of other zines.
Keeping in mind how zines are shelved when making your covers will also help. In an ideal world, a store would have the shelf space to display every zine front out, with no overlap; but that’s just not realistic. In many cases, zines are displayed on some sort of incline, with one zine sitting in front of another with only the top portion of the cover visible. Placing the title of your zine at the top of the cover will help readers easily find your zine. (Mag Sabo, an employee at Atomic Books, also recommends against affixing anything to the cover of your zine that may flake off or tear. There are few things as hateful as a zine that flakes more than someone with a bad case of dandruff.)
You may also want to list some of the highlights from inside the zine on your cover. Zines that clue potential readers in to what’s inside the pages get picked up and thumbed through more often than zines that don’t. Yeah, magazines do this, but they do so for a reason. Getting a potential reader to pick up and browse through your zine is the first step in selling it.
6. GET REVIEWED
People like to pick up something they’ve heard about. Make sure you send your zine out to websites and magazines that review them, like, say XEROGRAPHY DEBT. This will clue people in that your zine exists, and lets them know what it’s about. Don’t be afraid of a bad review, there are many places that will not level critical analysis or simply won’t review it if they don’t like it. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I picked up a zine about zines that really ripped apart another zine (even if they did deserve it). The zine community can be surprisingly nurturing.
Plus, many store employees who handle consignment read zines about zines, so if you get reviewed in there, your name has a better chance at being familiar. Plus, you may even have stores and potential readers contact you directly.
7. PRICING
Keep your price affordable. A regular photocopied 24 page, stapled zine sells for between $1.00 - $2.00 dollars. People who go to stores looking to buy zines like to buy a stack of things to read for very little money. They are expecting to pay a certain price for zines, and anything outside of that price range they’ll skip.
But this does not mean you should under-price your zine and lose money every time you come out with a new issue. Make sure your publishing venture is worth the hassle so you can keep your zines chugging along.
8. CATALOGS AND THE INTERNET
Many stores have either print or online catalogs. When we get a new zine in, and I add it to our catalog, I look for 2 things. Since I don’t have time to read every zine that we carry, I look for a description of the zine. We have this space on our consignment forms, but many zinesters do not take advantage of this. For example, when the zine comes back and the description the creator filled out says, “A per-zine from Utah with heart,” that’s often exactly what goes into our catalog. If you are looking at a catalog and you see a zine called MILKY LAXATIVE with that kind of description, the chances are good you’re not going to drop $2.00 to order it.
The second thing is a cover image. People who update store websites may not have time to scan everything in, but if you have any form of website whatsoever, put a cover image of your current issue (and back issues) up on your website before you even send your zine out. That way stores with online shopping carts have no excuse not to show a cover image of your zine on their site.
9. WHEN YOU HAVE A NEW ISSUE, SEND IT
If a store has accepted your zine on consignment, when you come out with a new issue of that zine, send the store copies. You may want to double check with stores about their consignment policy, but when most agree to carry your zine, it’s not on an issue by issue basis, but as a title. That means when you come out with a new issue, package up as many issues as that store usually asks for and ship them out.
10. GETTING PAID
You may think that stores have some automated software that immediately alerts an employee when it’s time for them to contact you for payment, but most don’t. Most stores handle consignment by hand, and if they carry one zine, they may carry hundreds. That means there are hundreds of consignment forms to keep track of. If you haven’t heard from a store in a 90 day period about payment for your zine, you should contact them.
Just call the store or shoot them an email and say you want to find out how well your zine’s doing. If they say they sold some copies, ask them for a payment. If you don’t hear from a store, don’t’ assume that the responsibility is theirs alone to contact you. They are selling your property, so you should contact them to make sure you get paid.
Including an invoice (even if it’s handwritten) with each shipment of zines helps the stores better track your merchandise.
Also, the best time to contact stores for payment is in the third or forth week of January. This is the time when stores are still flush with money from the holiday shopping season (but not so busy with holiday shoppers that they can’t take the time to pay out), so they’re more likely to pay you.
Now, you may think most of these pointers are just plain common sense, but you’d be surprised at the submissions stores get. There’s no guarantee a store will pick up your zine to carry or a reader will purchase it, but these pointers will greatly increase your odds.
FONT USE 101
or Stop Font Abuse!
Davida Gypsy Breier
PO Box 963, Havre de Grace, MD 21078
davida@leekinginc.com
www.leekinginc.com
I read about 600 zines a year of every size and topic. Now, between you and me, there is something that we in the zine community need to address…font abuse. There is a school of thought that says a zine must look like a zine to be a zine. Now that “zine look” is messy, homegrown, and often described as vaguely “punk,” but there’s nothing saying that you’ve sold out if people are able to actually read your manifesto to Hello Kitty Dildos.
Recently I received a zine for review that used about 20 different fonts. That would be fun, free-spirited and all, but I couldn’t read a full page of the text. The person used “display fonts” (decorative fonts most often used for headlines) for body copy (the wordy part of the article). The review was affected because I couldn’t read what the writer was trying to convey.
When I started my zine I was computer-less and either used a typewriter, handwrote, or borrowed friends’ computers to type my articles. I realized early on that handwriting the text was downright stupid for me to do. I have dreadful handwriting. Typewriters and computers were made for people like me who fail penmanship everyday like a supernatural reverberation from the 3rd grade. For headlines I kicked it old-school; I used old type books which showed hundreds of different font faces and enlarged them on a photocopier then cut and pasted the individual letters down. Tedious yes, but it worked.
The font abuse I wanted to address here isn’t of the handwritten/cut and paste variety – it is the computer variety. Just because you have 100 fonts at your disposal doesn’t mean you should try and use them all at once. Repeat that over and over again until it is seared on your brain. Since MS Word is one of the most commonly used word processing programs I will use its features for example below.
Here are some basic guidelines and definitions:
Serif: This is a typeface that has counterstrokes projecting from the letterform. For example, Times New Roman and Bodoni are serif faces. As a rule, serif faces are easier to read in large blocks of text than sans serif. A word of caution, some serifed fonts are more delicate than others. Some have excessively thick and thin strokes and once the text is photocopied, it can begin to break down, becoming illegible.
Sans serif: These typefaces do not have counterstrokes and are often clean or sleek looking. Arial and Helvetica are two examples. These typefaces are easier to read in larger sizes or small quantities.
Point sizes: This refers to the vertical size of the type. There are 72 points in an inch, so 72 point type is 1 inch tall, thus 36 point = ½ inch, 18 = ¼, etc.
Body copy: This refers to the main body of text in the article. Generally speaking, body copy should be between 9 point to 14 point. (Note: This issue is the highly legible 8pt Palatino Linotype.)
Display type: large and/or decorative type used for headlines or titles. Common sizes are 14, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, 60, and 72 point.
Leading: the space between lines of type. You can adjust this in MS Word by going to Format, then to Paragraph.
Kerning: This is how you manually adjust the space in between letters. You can compress or expand the spacing in Word by going to Format, then Font, then Character Spacing. Also under the Character Spacing tab you can scale the letters to be taller or shorter.
The example provided below, shows the variations that can be made by using just one font (10 pt. Helvetica, in this case), by adjusting the formatting and style.
Widows and orphans: these are words or short phrases at the beginning or end of a paragraph, or that sit alone at the top or bottom of a column. They just dangle there looking forlorn. The easiest way to deal with them is to tighten the kerning to bring the word up onto the previous line or expand the kerning and give it another word or two for company.
Reverse out: to use white or light-colored type on a dark background. This can be an effective eye catcher, but shouldn’t be overused (note the bottom row of type above).
I love display fonts and have damned near 1500 fonts installed on my computer, but they should be used sparingly. The right display font can compliment your ideas visually. If you are going to mix two fonts on a page, try and come up with a nice contrast. However, mixing 3 or more can be tricky and can easily look like sloppy font salad. If you are printing a full size zine (8.5x5.5), consider using two columns to ease readability.
Okay, now that we’ve had this little chat, go out and explore a few free font websites and download (responsibly) to your heart’s content:
www.maryforrest.com/fonts/fonts.html
www.coolarchive.com/fonts.cfm
www.free-typewriter-fonts.com
www.chank.com/freefonts.html
www.disturbed.com/fonts.html
www.astigmatic.com
www.fontfreak.com
www.pcfonts.com
www.fontface.com
One last thing, always proofread. I saw a personal ad the other day that noted that the person was decease-free and a job ad for a pubic relations manager.
IT MEANS IT’S WANK
By Jeff Somers
P.O. Box 3024, Hoboken NJ 07030
mreditor@innerswine.com
www.innerswine.com
“So what does that mean? It means it’s wank.”- Vic Flange, www.fleshmouth.co.uk, describing my zine.
PERSONA NON GRATA
...in which Jeff Somers ruminates on people
believing anything he writes in his zine to be the total, unadulterated
truth.
Friends, I’ve written a lot of crazy shit in my zine. It’s my zine, and I have fun with it, and the people who actually come back for a second issue usually enjoy at least some of the shenanigans. I’ve written about being paid billions of dollars by Microsoft for the rights to my zine. I’ve written about forming a worldwide Organization of Evil modeled on James Bond villains, with me securely running the show from a secret underground bunker. I’ve often exaggerated my boozing to truly heroic levels that would have left me dead long ago if they were true. From pretty much page one of every issue, with a few shining exceptions, I am piling on bullshit in a breathtakingly brazen manner. I’d think it would be obvious.
And yet, people believe a lot of it.
Not the Organization of Evil, of course. Even the dimmest people reviewing my zine ignore those sorts of things, often with thinly-disguised contempt. People often believe the binge-drinking, the loss of my pants on a regular basis, the arrests for public urination or lewdness. Certainly if I had any pride to speak of I’d be insulted that people so readily believe that I spend all my time passing out from liquor and wetting myself. That’s supposed to be funny, damn your eyes. While it’s true that I enjoy the occasional dignified entire bottle of Jack Daniels in one sitting, and it’s also true that once or twice I’ve lost my pants under mysterious circumstances while out living the high life with The Inner Swine Inner Circle (TISIC), neither happens as often or as egregiously as I pretend in my zine.
And yet...
I get reviews sometimes that take everything said in the zine WAY too seriously. Now, I’m not upset that people don’t appreciate the humor. Every zine is a unique snowflake and not everyone is going to like it, and I’ve already discussed how I love bad reviews (see It Means it’s Wank #1, XD#9). What bothers me is that I can write the most ridiculous bullshit and people just take it seriously. And what really bothers me is when they chastize me for the Error of My Ways.
Here’s a quote from one of my favorite emails on the subject:
“You “May not” live long enough.... although you should. Alcohol is wonderful for slowing down your never ending thoughts of the moment as well as the next 20 years. The best relaxer ever invented for the thinking man. Especially at night when your brain will not shut off and let you sleep...It’s not so much a crutch for you as a tool, however it can get out of control and will during your youth....Pay attention to your body signs and read up on the subject... it is a life and death matter! I did not have blackouts till I was close to 40 yrs old, lots of tolerance over my 20 years of Harley riding and non stop drinking in the Navy. It was an accepted way of life at the time.”
Wasn’t that fun? The incoherency aside, I really enjoyed the fact that he completely missed the joke. Now, I know that it’s almost a cliche in zinedom (and other artistic cliques) to write about being a hard drinker, living on the razor’s edge, punishing yourself for your brilliance, yada yada. I often have reviewers mention that fact that I write about being drunk in dismissive, been-there-done-that tones. This bugs me, because it should be the effectiveness of the joke, or the quality of the writing that gets judged, not whether or not I’m the millionth zine writer to delightedly describe his puking habits in public toilets. The question should be, do I describe my public-toilet puking habits more entertainingly than the rest of you bozos.
In my zine, Your Humble Editor is a persona. Many, if not most, perzines are pretty raw and honest, and you can usually assume that there is minimal filtering. If they’re writing about being beat up in school, or dying slowly at their day job, or drinking too much and yakking on a public bus, you can usually assume that events and feelings described are pretty true to what really happened. This may be where the trouble starts: lazy readers assume certain things about all zines, and certain things about all perzines–like you can believe everything in it 100% because, heck, it’s a perzine. While my zine is often described as a perzine, you don’t get much honesty from it. A lot of times there are true, actual events and honest feelings at the base of the essays in each issue, but it’s all buried under layers of sweet, thick bullshit. To get to Your Humble Editor, you have to imagine me, then take away any sense of responsibility or restraint, pickle in booze, and come up with a special effects budget. It’s about as far away from me as you can get and still be recognizable.
I guess if someone isn’t amused by the persona, it’s natural that they give me a bad review, and that’s fair, and fine with me. All I really ask is that people realize there is, in fact, a persona. If it amuses you to imagine that I lose my pants on a regular basis, fine; I’m only here to amuse you, anyway. Bastards.
The Reviews
Dan Taylor
PO Box 5531, Lutherville, MD 21094
www.dantenet.com; dante@dantenet.com
He’s been called “exploitation film maven,” “junkmonger,” “food trends expert” and lots worse through the years. His mom calls him “the miracle baby” but you can call him The Hungover Gourmet. Check out the journal of food, drink, travel and fun at www.hungovergourmet.com or send a SASE to PO Box 5531, Lutherville, MD 21094-5531 for more info.
AZMACOURT #8 (c/o Mr. Parker, 1012 Townhouse Circle, Norman, OK
73069, no price listed but send a couple bucks; 44 pages, digest-sized)
Thanks to a brother who chose to reside there, I have been to Oklahoma more
times than I can remember. During those trips I’ve seen drunken Shriners
chasing their little hats, bullets in my motel parking lot and signs that read:
“Give Satan an inch and he’ll become a ruler.” But, in all those
trips, I have never seen anybody that I thought was producing a zine. Then
again, many of those trips are conducted in a haze of cheap beer, good steaks,
and highly irresponsible gambling, so maybe I’m not the best judge of
character. AZMACOURT is an interesting comic journal/perzine that gets high
marks thanks to the creator’s confessional, self-effacing style.
Highlights include an amusing letter written to the makers of an asthma inhaler
and workplace tales from the world of telemarketing call centers. While I found
the frequent mentions and visual representations of bowel movements a little
disturbing and totally disagree with his enthusiasm about the flick MEMENTO it
won’t keep me from recommending this to open-minded readers.
SECRET MYSTERY LOVE SHOES #2 (Androo Robinson and Maria Goodman,
2000 NE 42nd, PMB 303, Portland, OR 97213, $2, trades welcome; 44 pages,
mini-digest)
My girlfriend and I met in high school and then spent the
next 17 years falling in and out of love with other people while fate, a higher
power, whatever you want to call it, kept intertwining our paths until we got
our acts - and ourselves - together. So I dug Androo’s opening cartoon
telling us how he and Maria ended up together after meeting one another several
years ago at a zine conference in Chicago. I also dig the hell out of his
varied illustrative styles, so I knew I was in for a treat. SMLS is a great
collaboration between the two creative souls, and packs its pages with
interesting and unusual info (I now know how to make my only household cleaners
AND dye fabric), charming cartoons and illustrations, and fun facts about the
creators that you would never have known. Androo won me over with the choices
for the soundtrack of the movie based on his life: Goblin, Archies, 1910
Fruitgum Company, and Tom Waits. Rock on!
BLEEDING FROM THE WALL: A CD by Filmmaker Steve Balderson
(Available from www.dikenga.com)
There aren’t a whole lot of
filmmakers who get intimately involved in the music that accompanies their
cinematic works. Frankly, I’ve always loved John Carpenter’s scores,
especially the memorable work he did on HALLOWEEN, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and the
underrated THEY LIVE. Italian horror master Dario Argento often collaborated
with the light-metal thunder of Goblin and it always added an interesting audio
counterpart to his frequently over-the-top visuals. Steve Balderson is an
“award-winning film director” that I’ve never heard of, but
he’s apparently directed something called FIRECRACKER which stars a
diverse cast including Dennis Hopper, Debbie Harry, Karen Black and Jane
Wiedlin. I will let you soak in that cast and draw your own conclusions. This
disc was apparently inspired by his work on the film, though it differs greatly
from the songs I might’ve come up with. If I was on the set with those
people all day I would’ve written stuff like, “Did You Get to Keep
the Zuni Fetish Doll?,” “When Hot Chicks Get Old” and “Do
You Remember Making OC AND STIGGS?” Balderson is apparently much smarter
than I am, ‘cause he came up with ten haunting and hypnotic tracks that
definitely owe a debt to such bands as Japan, Bauhaus, Love and Rockets, and
Dalis Car as well as David Lynch’s work with Angelo Badalamenti and Julee
Cruise. These days, I prefer to rock, but if that gaggle of influences sections
your grapefruit you could do much worse.
PSYCHIC X: Psychic Voice for the Lost Generation DVD
(www.psychicshoppingclub.com)
Back in the early days of the video
revolution, the cable airwaves were cluttered with great shows like ‘Night
Flight,’ ‘The Cutting Edge’ and ‘120 Minutes’ that
mixed music videos with comedy bits. Somewhere along the line those shows
either disappeared or morphed into shills for whatever alternative bands had
been signed to major labels. Which leaves us with cable access - the video
equivalent of the zine. This DVD compiles the best from ‘Psychic Shopping
Club,’ a cable access show that’s been bringing low-fi videos and
comedy bits to lucky viewers in Cleveland for more than five years. While
it’s not the kind of disc you’d normally slap in and watch from start
to finish, there’s a lot here to dig. Tunes from Floyd Band, Sosumi and
Public Display of Infection would’ve all been at home on college radio in
the 90s and I distinctly remember playing The Pink Holes and their version of
“The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” A variety of comedy bits and short films
break up the videos, and they’re as hit and miss as you might expect with
a certain “insider” feel to them. That said this’d be the
perfect disc to slap in during a late night beer fest.
Erin Quinlan
71 Storm St., Apt 2C, Tarrytown, NY
10591
DanAndErinQ@aol.com
September Coming Soon #2
30 pages, mini, $1, trade or nice
letter
September Coming Soon is a melancholy, pensive cut ‘n’
paste zine written by a Washington State native attending college in
California. In essays the size of Polaroid snapshots, Ellen longs for the
closeness she once had with old friends, the summers she spent at camp, and the
unique lurch of seasons in Spokane. Ellen may take a shining to California yet,
though: She writes that she recently noticed the pepper tree outside her
dormitory window and wonders what else in California she hasn’t stopped to
see. Also, I enjoyed the item about a gas leak in her building and her efforts
to gather her prized possessions before evacuating (a scenario people often
wonder about, but rarely are forced to participate in). S.C.S. is an odd,
affecting little zine, with an eerie power to remind this reader, at least, of
when her life was ambling in a similar place.
Ellen Adams, 5025 Thacher
Road, Ojai, CA 93023; save_ronnie@yahoo.com
Rabid Transit – New Fiction by the Ratbastards
42 pages,
digest, $5
To be honest, I am not enthusiastic about fiction in general,
and I am conspicuously less so regarding fiction of a surrealist/science
fiction bent. My apologies to the authors for not being more liberal with my
embrace. If I were, though, I’d likely investigate the material in Rabid
Transit, which showcases one story apiece by the four Ratbastards, all of whom
make sporting attempts to broaden the definition (and appeal) of genre writing.
My favorite stories were those with more mainstream structures and settings.
The first, for instance, called “The Blue Egg” chronicles the
strange, spouse-like symbiosis between a lonely office temp and an expanding
egg, which arrives at her home mysteriously, in a foil package. The tale
unfolds slowly, with a swelling intensity I found completely spellbinding. On
the other hand, I struggled with “The Psalm of Big Galahad,” because
it was written with use of a jargon I found amateurish, clunky and exhausting.
In all, the presentation is nice – cleanly photocopied pages with few
typos – but the five-dollar cost is deeply, deeply unreasonable.
Velocity Press, 124 Illinois Ave., Youngstown, OH 44505
www.taverners-koans.com/ratbastards
Zen Baby #9
48 pages, digest, $1or trade for single issue; $5
or Black Jack gum for lifetime subscription
Zen Baby’s editor,
Christopher Robin, describes his publication as being one of “random
stories.” That summary is perhaps too generous and not elaborate enough.
Stories – ones with discernible English sentences, anyway – are
somewhat scarce, but the intrepid reader may choose from a throbbing cornucopia
of collage art, freeform poetry, newspaper clippings, letters to the editor,
and unexplained doodles. The material was mostly submitted by others, and its
quality swings with a kind of hectic volatility. The patchwork presentation may
appeal to those craving thumbnail glimpses at many lives, but I failed to find
much sustenance in this issue. While personal zines usually leave me feeling as
though I’ve gotten to know someone, Zen Baby made me feel more like I had
taken a sprint down a crowded city street with sunglasses on – all I got
was a dull smear of the gamut. But that’s just me.
Christopher Robin,
P.O. Box 1611, Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1611
Infiltration #19
30 pages, digest, $2
I have heard of
Infiltration, the zine about exploring buildings and locales off-limits to the
general public, and I always figured it was overseen by bad-mannered punk-rock
cartoons – ugly teenagers who visit residential construction sites, for
instance, and punch holes in the Sheetrock. My impressions were inaccurate. The
writers of Infiltration are inquisitive, funny, thoughtful adults. I suppose in
the wake of an automobile break-in, I find it difficult to believe that anyone
would enter a restricted area for something other than vandalism or theft. In
any case, this issue is one focusing on “houses of the holy.” Readers
are steered through written and photographic tours of churches and cathedrals
(and one former church now serving as headquarters for a small theater group)
in Michigan, Paris and Toronto. The accounts of each infiltration are not
merely accounts, either – the writers strive to include some historical
information about the structures, such as dates of construction, et al.
Whatever the status of your faith, it is refreshing to learn about the
buildings without suffering through any of the sniggering anti-religious
commentary some might expect from the zine community.
Infiltration, P.O.
Box 13, Station E, Toronto, ON M6H 4E1, Canada
ninj@infiltration.org;
www.infiltration.org
Do the Siamese Twins Make Love?
28 pages, digest, $2
At
first glance, I thought I was contending with the limited charms of an
all-poetry zine. Why? Because the content looks like poetry. This is due to
Davida Gypsy Breier’s airy typography and graphic design, and William P.
Tandy’s lithe, terse writing style, a collaboration that leaves readers
suspended in a swirl of gargoyle imagery and punchy filaments of prose. Davida
was judicious when she gave each item, no matter the length, its own page and
the dignity of a title, providing readers a sober, built-in pause between
pieces. (My favorite story, “The Importance of Cleanliness” was only
about 85 words, but it pulsed and resonated in the white space beneath it.) I
also enjoyed the longer account, “Drydock,” about the author’s
father, newly separated from his wife, visiting the battered Tamaroa, an ocean
tug he served aboard in the 1960s. I should note, too, that Tandy is
particularly talented at ending stories. You know how in professional magazines
there’s a dingbat indicating the conclusion of a piece? His essays and
poems don’t need them. Once he’s finished a story, though, his
readers will not necessarily be finished thinking about it.
Eight-Stone
Press, P.O. Box 963, Havre de Grace, MD 21078;
esp@leekinginc.com
The East Village Inky #16
38 pages, mini, $2
When she
isn’t busy shaping and sustaining the virtues of contemporary urban
motherhood, Ayun Halliday manages to filch a few moments to scribble this zine,
the photocopied sensation that set the big ball rolling. If you haven’t
read the E.V.I. before, you must brace yourself. The entire thing is rotten
with a kind of effortless, perfect, literary charisma. The author is most well
known for her illustrated tales of her funny, offbeat children, but she is not
overly reliant on such stories, as some have jealously implied. I suspect that
even if Ayun Halliday were childless, and even if she were not married to a
Tony Award-winning playwright, and even if she had settled in her home state of
Indiana rather than settle in a Brooklyn brownstone, she would still be
producing some of today’s more captivating writing, because she could
write riveting copy about a tube sock. In this issue: an account of the Tony
Awards (including an inset of her husband’s acceptance speech), attending
a Broadway premiere (where she struggled to conjure “possible proletarian
salutations” to Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon, who were seated behind
her), hawking her book at a publishing expo in Manhattan, attending a sex toys
workshop, butcher-shop gore, Greg’s “Advice to the Fathers,” and
more. If you pass this by, you are an everlasting fool.
Ayun Halliday, P.O.
Box 22754, Brooklyn, NY 11202;
inky@erols.com; www.ayunhalliday.com
Donny Smith
PO Box 411, Swarthmore, PA 19081
dwanzine@hotmail.com; www.geocities.com/dwanzine
Please don’t think I didn’t like your zine if you don’t
see it below. This time around I tried to review only zines I’ve never
reviewed before. My own zine, as featured in Utne Review, is Dwan, available
from me, Donny Smith, PO Box 411, Swarthmore PA 19081 USA, for $4 cash (free to
prisoners; some trades accepted).
Our leaders continue to drum their
chests. Here’s what Rubén Darío had to say to one of them
about a hundred years ago: Crees que la vida es incendio, / que el progreso es
erupción, / que en donde pones la bala / el porvenir pones. / No. (You
believe that life is incineration, / that progress is eruption, / that where
you put a bullet / there you put the future. / No.) I hope this is for a
different future:
Cinemad #6 (2001)
available from Mike Plante, PO Box 360695,
Los Angeles CA 90036 USA, for $3.95 ($5.95, Canada) or from Tower Records;
http://www.cinemadmag.com/
on the cover: John Cassavetes
inside: Informative interviews with George Kuchar, Karen Black, Jonas
Mekas, Albert Maysles, Cassavetes’s cameraman, and an itinerant
projectionist. Reviews of independent films and independent festivals. “I
Was a Soap Opera Slave,” an article on being an intern at a daytime drama.
A clear-minded interview with a Cassavetes scholar.
quote: The
meanings in [Citizen] Kane are simple, obvious, and clear-cut, right on the
surface. They tumble into your lap in the movie theater. … The experiences
in [THE KILLING OF A CHINESE] BOOKIE never attain this degree of clarity. They
are mysterious, multivalent, and elusive. What does it mean when the
“bookie” shakes his head squints his eyes, and mutters something the
moment before he is shot? … The result is scenes that don’t have the
clarity of ideas but the turbulence of experiences. Why do we want to get ideas
from works of art anyway? Experiencing is a far richer, more exciting way of
encountering life than understanding. —Ray Carney
overall: An
amazing collection, worthy of a magazine with a much bigger staff and budget.
It will make you excited about the cinema (if you aren’t already).
Clamor Issue 16 (September/October 2002)
available from Clamor, PO
Box 1225, Bowling Green OH 43402 USA, 6 issues for $18 (US addresses) or $25
(non-US addresses); info@clamormagazine.org
on the cover: an old
woman in her living room
inside: articles about activists and
ordinary people, plus lots of book reviews
overall: A really good
progressive magazine. The book reviews are the best; I ordered many items for
the library where I work.
Dirt and Sky (fall 2002)
available from Mark Hain, Box 411, Swarthmore PA 19081 USA, for $4
Giant_turu@hotmail.com
on the cover: two boys stand side by side on
a vast plain
inside: Mark’s journals from before and after his
dad’s death. A gossipy email exchange with one of Mark’s high school
friends. A lovely drawing of Mark’s dad.
quote: We went to see
the latest Zhang Yimou film, the unfortunately mistitled Happy Times. In one
scene the main character, a middle aged man, buys a popsicle for the blind
teenage girl to whom he’s inadvertently become a foster father. She asks
to touch his face to find out what he looks like, and I found myself thinking
“What a shockingly manipulative use of sappy music!” even as I slid
way down in my seat because I knew bawling was inevitable. … I was doing
my best to hold it in, because the theater was sort of crowded and I was
ashamed to cry. I managed to keep my weeping sounds down to one loud snort and
one stifled “glurb!” noise while Don stroked my hand.
overall: It took me a couple weeks to get through this zine because
I’d start crying every few pages and have to put it away for a few days. I
know all the people involved, so I can’t give an objective review. I can
give my own account of the events Mark describes (though Mark’s account
makes better reading). I wrote this is my diary when I got home from Nebraska
after the funeral:
About 2:30 the morning Ben died I had a terrifying
vision of heaven opening up before me in a dream. Like a door into the sun.
Then I woke up. Then sleep again. Waking again. And so on.
I never really
believed he would die. It’s still not entirely real to me. I felt numb
most of the week. I just wanted to be there for Mark and [his mom] and not
break down or make a scene.
I first met Ben during a very troubled time in
my life, almost 11 years ago. I think he probably had trouble dealing with
Mark’s gayness, but he always made me feel welcome. [Other memories of
Ben:]
sleeping with his glasses on his forehead
playing with
[Mark’s nephew and niece]
starting a fire in the fireplace
playing
The Messiah in the car
telling stories about his childhood or
Mark’s
his goodness and his fun
always working but still there for
the kids
his funny Czech words for things
more than anything the loving
memories Mark has of him
L’horreur est humaine No 4
(2001?)
available from Sylvain Gérand, 26 rue du Tapis Vert,
79500 Melle FRANCE; email for price: horreurhumaine@hotmail.com
on the
cover: a very explicit collage involving what I guess is prostate surgery
inside: It’s subtitled Nouvelle encyclopédie pratique
d’hygiène et de médecine pour tous. According to Sylvain,
“It’s a fake medical dictionnary. Each drawer [drawing?] corresponds
to a health name.” Each drawing or collage faces a page of medical text in
French (and each text has a little secret).
overall: mostly
disturbing
Ingleside news numéro neuf (early 2002)
available from IsaBelle Bourret, 460 de la Couronne #410, Québec QC G1K
6G2 CANADA, for $3 Canadian in Canada or $3 US in USA or $6 US elsewhere
ingleside_news@perseide.zzn.com; www.geocities.com/ingleside_news/
on
the cover: collage, “30% plus de fromage”
inside: all
in French: how she changed her zine from an English-language band fanzine to a
French-language perzine; her journals from the protests against the Summit of
the Americas; tips on dealing with tear gas; her vacation in Vancouver; an
interview with her cat; how she became a fingernail model for Elle Canada;
Christmas 2001; New Year’s 2002; a helpful definition of
“well-concealed cash”; recipes; restaurant, book, zine, and shampoo
reviews quote: … eh bien imaginez pour moi!! Imaginez la sensation pour le
Joe Bleau bien ordinaire (bon c’est vrai que je passe rarement
inaperçue et que j’irais sûrement pas jusqu’à me
qualifier d’ordinaire, loin de là mais bon … je ne fais quand
même pas la manchette d’Entertainment Tonight tous les soirs
quoi!!), bref de quelqu’un qui n’est pas (… encore … hehe)
une vedette et qui, feuilletant tranquillement une revue de mode d’ampleur
nationale, tombe sur … sa propre main!! C’tait pas la crise
d’apoplexie, mais pas loin. [… well imagine how I felt!! Imagine how
the average Joe Blow felt (though it’s true that I rarely pass unnoticed
and I would surely not qualify as merely ordinary, far from it but anyway
… I don’t despite the headline on Entertainment Tonight every evening
though!!), in short someone who is not (… again … hehe) a star and
who, leafing peacefully through a national fashion magazine, fell on … her
own hand!! I didn’t have a stroke, but not far from it.]
overall: I confess that I didn’t read the whole thing (my excuse
being that it’s full of page after page of tiny type—and in French
after all (you can see from the translation above what difficulties I have)).
But it seems like a good, entertaining zine.
El laberinto de
Ariadna No 3 (verano-otoño 2002)
available from Laberinto de
Ariadna, Apdo de Correos 7, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona) SPAIN; no price,
but they do accept trades; http://ariadna.sitio.net/;
laberintodeariadna@hotmail.com
on the cover: a labyrinth
inside: poems in Spanish and Catalan
quote: Como las hojas
caídas en la lluvia / el silencio derrama su zumo / sobre la boca de la
noche. [Like leaves fallen in the rain / silence spurts its juices / over the
mouth of night.] —Carmen Busmayor
overall: It’s just an
oversized trifold pamphlet, but each one has at least two really good poems,
and that’s a lot better than most literary publications.
Mujinga numero twenty twenty (2002?)
available from Mujinga, Na
Kobylue 102, Vsenory, 252 31 CZECH REPUBLIC, for trade; email to check address:
mujinga@volny.cz; www.volny.cz/mujinga/
on the cover: a bug in fancy
boots naps under a mushroom
inside: all in English: thoughts on the
roots of war, on being vegan in Prague and in general, on star signs and New
Age ideas about health, and on cat’s food; notes on shiatsu; an article
about a vegan activist’s time in prison; pictures of kitties; a short
story about two unhappy men, a cat named Hitler, and a poodle
quote:
I told her I had something important to discuss with her as we sat on a bench
outside the Tate Modern. The look in her eyes kinda baffled me at the time, now
I can see it as the hope that we’d get back together again. We went back
to her place and I stripped off, lay down and asked to check whether I had a
clitoris. I didn’t and she never seemed so close to me again.
overall: readable and more clear-headed than I expected (meaning I
don’t expect much from someone who takes star signs seriously); also
introduced me to the concept of freeganism, which seems to be a form of
veganism allowing the scavenging of animal products cast off by others and
possibly allowing hunting in some cases
Object Lesson issue one:
the playing card (summer 2002)
available from M. DesPairagus, PO Box
4803, Baltimore MD 21211 USA, for $2
mdesharn@yahoo.com
on the
cover: a girl with paint (or blood) on her hands looks at the eight of
spades
inside: according to M.’s description: “What I did
on my summer vacation, organized by the suits of a deck of cards. Yard sales! A
break up! Reviews! Public libraries!”
quote: Time for bed.
Pleased with new knick knacks in home, also with new catch phrase: I see your
heinie! It’s pink and shiny! Best hollered at top volume out of your car
at tough looking teen boys.
overall: Made me remember the joy of
librarianship (which is so easy to forget as I drudge away with my electronic
projects), like the surprising things patrons say, their amazing thoughts, the
obscure questions they ask—and of course the chance to order all kinds of
books (and someone else pays). Loved her book reviews too.
Republicanazi: What a Fucking Asshole! (fall 2002)
possibly
available from A. Coward, PO Box 1241, Santa Cruz CA 95061 USA; email for price
or trade: aliciathecatpress@yahoo.com
on the cover: Bush II with
Hitler mustache
inside: Lots of newspaper articles detailing the
evil deeds of the Bush administration, a few pages of advice on activism, and
some other musings.
quote: Republicanazis value hard work. Who
knows if they actually do it. But it’s still a good ideal.
overall: A good place to start if you haven’t read a newspaper for
the last few years—but has only about 10 pages of original content if you
have. Nevertheless, it’s bound in signatures using staples, ribbon, and
electrical tape in very DIY fashion, so obviously a labor of love—or hate,
depending on how you look at it.
splicing tape & bulletproof
teeth (2002)
available from Andrew Daniel Saleem Penland a.k.a. Andrew
Octopus, 149 Newfound St, Canton NC 28716 USA, for $1? or trade
DrFrankn1@aol.com
inside: drawings, collages, and poems
quote: newspaper’s erasure. (ideas, / swallowed at 45 rpm // being
vomited at 33 1/3) out onto / a spiderwebyarn bridge, where pigfaced
overall: More literate and more socially aware than most zine poets.
Charming drawings like children’s art. Musical and definitely worthwhile.
Zines de mail art y poesía visual (continually
updated)
available at http://boek861.com/zines_galeria.htm
maintained by César Reglero Campos, Taller del Sol, Apdo 861, 43080
Tarragona ESPAÑA
inside: a huge number of listings for mail
art, alternative art projects, and literary zines all over the world
Mark Hain
PO Box 411, Swarthmore, PA
19081
Loathe as I am to come across as a crotchety old man (actually, I
don’t care,) I’m compelled to preface my reviews with a scolding
about a little matter of legibility. This latest dispatch of review copies from
Davida was one big ol’ mass of brain piercing eyestrain. One zine (10
jam-packed pages of 4-point type) actually contained these words: “FOR
SMALL PRINT: Have a good light. Read only a little at a time. Check dollar
stores for reading glasses/magnifiers. Or, make enlarged copies.” Come on
now — any zine that’s physically painful to read, or suggests I spend
additional money in order to struggle through, is not acceptable. One zine
contained a missive about how it was illegible because it was so punk that it
had been produced on a broken typewriter salvaged from a dumpster, and that
this made it “real” and “PUNK AS FUCK” and was all about
“FUCKIN’ SHIT UP”, etc. (actually, I think that it might have
been ironic, but I still couldn’t read it.) I can respect and understand
political beliefs and financial conditions that prevent people from creating
their zines on computers, but why is it so damned difficult (or bourgeois or
assimilationist or whatever) to write out your text in a clear, legible hand?
And I must confess I’ve never understood nor appreciated the zine
aesthetic I call “the ransom note”— typically seen as sliced-up
single lines of text pasted semi-randomly across a dark photocopied background.
It almost always compromises coherence for the same old design cliché
— and looks like it’d be a really laborious task on top of it. The
bottom line is, if you’ve got ideas to share, why purposefully make the
forum so difficult that it essentially silences you?
All of this has
been said already, with more panache in Xerography Debt #9 by Bobby Tran Dale
and Sue Donimh, but I guess I just lost patience this time around. As long as
I’m alienating everyone, let me just add that there’s nothing more
tedious than the endless fawning interview with the local obscure,
self-important band. OK, now that that’s off my chest, on to the reviews!
Don’t be mad! Peace and love and happiness to you all!
Cuckoo,
Issue #13
24 pages
Madison Clell’s comic depicts “one
woman’s true stories of living with multiple personality disorder.”
In this issue, the protagonist must confront one of her personalities, a
seven-year old girl, and reveal her condition to her ultimately supportive
boyfriend. My reaction to Cuckoo is sort of tepid; it handles a difficult
subject courageously, but the artwork is rather off-putting. I guess I just
didn’t find Cuckoo very compelling, although I know it has been received
much more enthusiastically by many others, as the extremely passionate
endorsements on the cover attest, including one from Dr. “Patch”
Adams (now if I could just purge my mind of the image of Robin Williams in a
clown nose, moist-eyed with head cocked like a mentally retarded Labrador
Retriever, his smile simultaneously smug and repulsively saccharine—
ugh!!!). According to the inner cover, there is now a compilation in book form
of issues 1-13.
$3 U.S.; $3.75 Canada; Green Door Studios, [temporary
address] 1705 Church St. #101, San Francisco, CA 94131
madclell@teleport.com; www.cuckoocomic.com
Eating Sensibly: What,
When, How Much, for Health, Pep, Joy.
10 pages (marked as 36, but I
don’t get how…)
This is the four-point type zine. The cover
features a nicely done cartoon of a person indulging in “Delusion
Dessert”, feeling sick and guilty, and realizing that “the REAL
choice is between feeling low at times even if I eat sensibly, or eating junk
food and feeling MORE depressed.” The gist of this publication seems to be
the relation between dietary choices and a satisfying lifestyle, with
“insights, tactics, book reviews” (loads of book reviews) and poetry.
That’s as far as I got before I started feeling like red-hot knitting
needles were being driven into my cerebral cortex through my eyeballs. I
suspect there’s insight, interesting ideas and good resources within, but
the presentation just makes Eating Sensibly as daunting and incomprehensible as
a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Magic 18-in-1 Pure Castille Soap (“All One!
All One!”). I appreciate the dilemma of having more ideas than space, but
I also found it ironic that a publication promoting “Health, Pep,
Joy” made my poor peepers feel so unhealthy, sluggish and miserable.
$2 cash; Julia Summers, P.O. Box 190, Philomath, OR 97370
Lethal
Bubblegum, Issue #1 (“Growin’ Up Dysfunctional”)
16
pages
There are some publications that make you feel like a voyeur, that
make you feel invasive, decidedly uncomfortable, even a little dirty, because
of the depth of what’s revealed and the sincerity with which it’s
related (these zines are among my favorites). Lethal Bubblegum is such a zine.
As the subtitle implies, Star offers several anecdotes of “family
drama”, centered around her alcoholic father and violent, bipolar older
brother. The cutesy stick figure illustrations only heighten the disturbing
mood and sense of immediacy. Star describes this new zine as a “Personal
history project in which each issue is about a different subject of my life
that made me who I am,” and writes that the next issue will be about
“why my trust is now earned.” Star’s writing is as blunt and
forceful as a blow to the head. Lethal Bubblegum is a small zine, but with a
powerful impact.
$1.50; Star Morris; contact via e-mail until funds are
raised for a P.O. Box:
LethalBubblegum@livejournal.com
Trades:
“Maybe”
Off the Hook: The Newsletter of the Missouri
Prison Labor Union, Issue #4, Fall 2002
12 pages
It’s easy to
feel really bad about the state of affairs in the U.S. of A. right now,
isn’t it? Well, the introductory essay by Jerome White-Bey makes it clear
how much worse things are for those in prison post-September 11, and reminds us
how easy it would be for virtually anyone to end up in the same place these
days. That prospect is made more horrifying by this issue’s focus on women
in prison, and the extremely powerful writing by Gretchen Schumacher and
Barrilee Banister: “I was taken to solitary confinement. A rumor started
that I was pregnant. Three officers (a male and two females) came in my cell
and beat me down and maced me. They told me if I was pregnant they would make
me abort, and so they kicked me in the stomach, while I was on the ground. I
never had any sexual relations with any officers (except being coerced to
perform head in order to be fed.)” (from Banister’s article
“What Happened in Arizona?”) The Missouri Prison Labor Union is a
non-profit organization “set up to act as a guardian of prisoners’
civil and human rights,” and their publication also gives ways people on
“the outside” can help. This publication made me scared and angry,
like virtually everything else in America now.
No price listed— $2-3?;
Available from South Chicago ABC Zine Distro, P.O. Box 721, Homewood, IL
60430
Secret Mystery Love Shoes, Issue #2
40 pages
Another good issue, full of charming comics and illustrations, that’s like
an engaging conversation with sprightly, creative, fun friends. Includes a
short comic on how Andy and Maria met; more tips from Maria (who seems destined
to be the Heloise of the zine world) on making your own natural cleaning
products and dyeing at home; a tribute to Lynda Barry; “Meet Our
Bikes”; a history of Maria’s hair; cute pictures of otters, and much
more. The cover features a silkscreen of an octopus! Andy and Maria make quite
a team.
$2; Maria Goodman & Androo Robinson, 2000 NE 42 Ave, PMB 303,
Portland, OR 97213
The Special People’s Club, Issue #3
44 pages of various awkward sizes
There are many projects of this sort out
there in Zineland, a young woman’s soul searching and self-analysis on
paper, but I found The Special People’s Club to be more intelligent and
well-written than many (although the use of the words “hella” and
“that rocks” made me cringe— but I’m a crabby old man,
remember?) Jasmine presents, in a stream of consciousness format, musings on
gender identity and sexuality, relationships and longing for sex, pondering how
to make ethics and theory an active part of life, memories of a trip to the
British Isles, an on-and-off interest in Tori Amos, and an account of vaginal
cutting that made me wince. This issue also includes “The Infamous Mini
Zine”, comprised of literary quotations.
No price listed—
$1-2?;
Jasmine L. Hoover, 5700 N. Tamiami Tr., Box 13, Sarasota, FL
34243
rylla@yahoo.com (there was also a web-address, but I couldn’t
read it!)
Table Crumbs, Issue #1
32 pages
Table Crumbs,
a political punk zine, states “this zine ain’t personal, it’s
about CLASS + what’s left of it, it’s about the leftovers we get and
create and digest….” This first issue features a selection of
Soviet-era political/propaganda posters; an article making a distinction
between censorship and calling punk and hardcore bands on offensive
misogynistic/homophobic/racist lyrics, and a much appreciated parody of
“punks” who are all self-righteous about dumpstering and
“keeping it real,” yet manage to have cell phones and thousands of
dollars’ worth of tattoos and piercings (I have to admit, though, I got a
little confused sometimes about what was satire and what was sincere.) Although
Adas states this is not a “personal” zine, the highpoint for me was a
piece about her youth in Communist Poland, and a reprinted article on destitute
farming villages in Northeast Poland with her own commentary. Overall,
Adas’s stream of consciousness writing style is a bit meandering, but
what’s said is worthwhile— I just wish the handwritten scrawl was
easier to read! Margins, please! I may sound like a fourth grade teacher, but
so what? Teaching fourth grade is a noble profession!
Price unlisted
($1-2?); Adas Wrdblewski, 308 N. Prairie #403, Champaign, IL 61820
Fred Argoff
1800 Ocean Pkwy. #B-12, Brooklyn, NY
11223
Completely unfazed by last issue’s disaster—wherein my whole
package of zine reviews got lost in a Post Orifice maelstrom—I told Davida
that of course I was on board for this new issue. If at first you don’t
succeed, complain, complain, complain! And so it’s time to kick off the
new year with an entirely fresh selection of zines. Got your seat belts on? OK,
here we go...
Once upon a time, zinedom was a tidy little community of
people whose main interests were independence, freedom of expression, and good
old-fashioned fun in zine production. But, as in so many other aspects of life,
an insidious element crept into the proceedings—that being crass
commercialism. Fortunately, all is not lost. Standing tall in favor of freedom
of the press (and in opposition to “electronic publications”) is
THE FREE PRESS DEATH SHIP. Chock full of well-reasoned communications
from readers as well as literate and fair zine reviews. Why anyone would still
be grasping at straws and hoping for a return of Factsheet 5 is beyond me.
There’s no price listed, so your donation to the Death Ship definitely
keeps the torch of free press burning. Send for your copy right now, from
Violet Jones, P.O. Box 55336, Hayward, CA 94545.
If you live in a big
city, or maybe even if you don’t, there are probably buskers around. In
New York, where I live, there are so many of them in the subways alone, it
makes you wonder why none of them has ever tried keeping an account of their
adventures in zine form. Well, wonder no more, because now there’s
PLATFORM. Elizabeth keeps a running record of the stations where
she’s played and the day’s take, as well as unusual
sightings—and if you’ve ever experienced our mass transit system, you
know there’s no shortage of unusual sightings! $2 lands you a copy of this
wonderful new zine, from Elizabeth Genco, P.O. Box 22722, Brooklyn, NY 11202.
Do you know what the word “moxie” means? Well, maybe
it’s time you cracked open that dictionary sitting there collecting dust
on your shelf, and then you’ll know. And you’ll realize just how
appropriately MOXIE! is titled. Put briefly: Suzie says what she thinks.
In issue #20, for example, she tells us why she isn’t a big music buff,
lets a couple of celebrities have what they deserve, and rants on about Mike
Love of the Beach Boys. All this, and zine reviews, too. So do the right thing,
and stuff a buck or two into an envelope and send it to Suzie Davis, 330 Reed
St. (112F), Philadelphia, PA 19147. Make sure to tell her you got the tip here.
Feeling a little hot and bothered lately? That could be a sign that
you need to see the latest issue of HOT AND BOTHERED. Each page is
nothing less than a cornucopia of adventure. Issue #3 contains such unexpected
gems as seeing Joan Jett in concert for the first time (...rather see her hump
a guitar than watch Britney strip any day!), a quick list of things that are
pointy—and you might not guess ‘any of these items on your own,
praises sung to the hot glue gun, and bobble head dolls. Fun? You bet, so a
buck or two to Malena Barnhart, 524 Daisy Dr., Taneytown , MD 21787 is a good
idea right about now.
I’ve been trading zines with Mark Strickert
for some time now, and I am frankly amazed that a person who always complains
of a money shortage does the amount of traveling he does. He keeps a running
list of the counties throughout the United States that he’s been through,
for heaven’s sake! Where has he been lately? Aha—you don’t think
I’m going to give the whole store away, do you? No, you’ll just have
to send away for the current issue of the somewhat mysteriously titled FORTY
TWO and find out. Look up “peripatetic,” and surely his picture
is there. From Mark at P.O. Box 6753, Fullerton, CA 92834.
You may be
familiar with my zine Brooklyn! Occasionally, people wonder why nobody else
seems to think their own hometowns are worthy of a zine. Now, though, a
brand-new zine called SUNSHINE CAPITAL uses the editor’s hometown
as a starting point for all sorts of writing. The premier issue features true
stories of teens & police, working & television, and a quick history of
Tucson. Everyone ought to rally around and support a new addition to the zine
community, and for $2, you can do your part. Travis Klein, P.O. Box 12171,
Tucson, AZ 85732.
Poetry. There; I’ve used the dirty word.
It’s all that’s necessary to send most of you scattering as you
scream in terror, right? Still, that doesn’t change the bottom line, which
is the good stuff you’ll discover in BLIND MAN’S RAINBOW.
Sure, breaking down and sending away for a poetry zine is a major barrier to
overcome. But give it a try. You didn’t die the first time your mother
made you eat broccoli, did you? This won’t kill you either, and hey, you
might even enjoy yourself. $3 lands you a copy of the current issue, from
Melody Sherosky, P.O. Box 1557, Erie, PA 16507.
Brooke Young
c/o SLC Zine Library, 209 E 500
South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
byoung@mail.slcpl.lib.ut.us
Hey Everybody! So this is my
second attempt to write these reviews and I’m so late that it just
isn’t funny anymore. Davida, Goddess of all things Zines, has given me a
reprieve just this once, and only because I made her feel bad for me. I have
spent the last month in a darkened basement trying to bring some sort of order
to the massive zine collection at the Salt Lake City Public Library. That
didn’t really happen, but I kind of faked it so half of the collection is
now on display and looks great and the other half is still in boxes in various
degrees of readiness. Anyway, everything looks nice and the zine collection is
in a much-improved spot from the sub basement of the old library. Thanks for
reading my reviews. Email me at byoung@slcpl.lib.ut.us
Hart Wheel
#2
It is the duty of the Salt Lake City Public Library to do whatever
we can to foster the zine culture in Utah, whatever there is of it. If that
means hiring every zinester in the state, well then that’s just what we
will have to do. I am not just reviewing this zine because I work with Moey, I
am reviewing Hart Wheel because it is really, really good. This is the second
issue of Hart Wheel and it reads like a love letter to zines. She recounts the
time she read Doris and how that changed the way she looked at the world of
zines (I just love that). Reading her zine is like reminder to take a new look
at the things you love. The zine also explores all the excitement of being
young and discovering what you actually stand for with a grace and enthusiasm
that appeals to all. I like her piece about her flirtations with the Utah
straightedge scene just because I understood her frustration, not just with
that particular movement, but also with organized cliques of any kind. E-mail
Moey at hartwheelzine@yahoo.com
The True Modern
I have to
admit to sometimes not giving zines like the True Modern much of a chance. The
True Modern is a zine of short fiction pieces written by Christian Zappone with
no images or introduction. I tend to dismiss zines like this in the short
attention span fog that I seem to live in. What surprised me was how much I
liked the stories told here and that they grabbed my full attention right away.
Christian writes with a personal style that has little of that annoying
literary stuff that makes me wince. (I have really bad taste in fiction
generally, this being the exception of course.) Most of the pieces have a
political theme but they weren’t militant or overly preachy. They were
pieces about searching for something more and finding simple ways to make
differences, which were things I could identify with. I read the entire zine
straight through, and was startled by how much I thought about it after I was
done. If that’s not a recommendation then I don’t know what is. Send
$3 to Christian Zappone, PO Box 2338, Astoria, NY 11102; wwmi@mindspring.com
Swing Set Girl #3
Sarah consistently makes zines that I
really admire. Swing Set Girl is the perfect blend of the visual image and the
written word. The range of emotions found in this one issue is astounding.
Sarah goes from heartbreak to the euphoria of love, from righteous indignation
to the bottomless pit of suicide. As I try and write this review the word that
keeps flowing from my fingers to the keyboard is HEART. I feel like I have to
work it into every sentence just because this zine is Sarah’s heart laid
bare for the world to see. To write a zine full of that much truth is pretty
intense, not just for the creator, but for the reader as well. I think my
favorite selection was a letter to her grandmother, which just struck me as the
most personal piece in a zine full of personal information. She does include an
insert about female genital mutilation, which was interesting to read. I think
it was my least favorite part, but it stayed with me the longest and had me up
at night trying to argue with her position. As my partner in all library
related crimes, Julie, put it, “I’m willing to go out on a limb and
say female genital mutilation is bad, but I have taken enough Anthropology
classes to be truly confused about how I feel about Africa and what should get
fixed first. I think people have to not be dying of starvation and wars before
basic human rights can be addressed, but maybe not.” Sarah makes a
convincing argument. Send $1 to Sarah, PO Box 5754, Parsippany, NJ 07054;
gwudistro@yahoo.com; http://girlwakesup.i85.net
The East Village
Inky #17
I feel wholly unprepared to review this bastion of zine child
rearing literature. I’m just a snot nosed kid who still shivers and says,
“Ewww, children.” With that warning said, I like the East Village
Inky. I like moms and good moms are worth more then the Hope Diamond. If every
mother in America could find Ayun’s balance of what is important in the
whole child rearing scheme of things and what a mom should just let go, then
the country would be much better off. Ayun is a good mother and she produces a
fabulous zine. Everyone should order this copy because I laughed a lot while
reading it. Send $2 for just one issue or $8 for an annual subscription (cheap
skate, you should order a subscription) to PO Box 22754, Brooklyn, NY 1120;
inky@erols.com; www.ayunhalliday.com
Miranda #9
Kate Haas
is also a mother who writes a zine. Miranda is so much more then a zine about
being a mother. This is a perzine in the classical sense. She writes a cool
piece on getting a tattoo in Morocco, which made me so jealous because Morocco
is on my places to visit before I die list. Plus, I really liked her tattoo.
There is a recurring theme to Miranda in that Kate seems to be trying to be a
person and not just a mother and I really admire that. I like that fact that
she worries about finding time to read grown-up books and that she joins a
writing group. I also like the fact that she worries about being pregnant and
raising her kids. This zine is a great read and a nice little peek into the
psyche of young mothers. Send $2 to Kate Haas, 3510 SE Alder St, Portland, OR
97214, www.mirandazine.com; bruceandkate@juno.com;
Burnt
#5
When we put zines in basic categories we often just don’t know
where to put them. We try to limit our categories to a basic few, which means
that some are jammed packed and some are looking for more entries. I would have
to put Burnt in the Compilation/Variety section just because there are so many
different things going on in this zine. There are poetry, stories, music
reviews, and all sorts of goodies. The reviews are really good, which is nice
because I find writing reviews to be kind of hard sometimes. I think that some
of the ideas are kind of half realized, but that could be the point. I mean if
you can’t try out ideas in a zine like this, then where can you try out
stuff? Send $1 to Franco Ortega, PO Box 5757, Parsippany, NJ 07054;
burntzine@yahoo.com; http://burntzine.i85.net
Christoph Meyer
PO Box 106, Danville, OH
43014
Hello, my name is Christoph Meyer and I publish a
little fanzine entitled Twenty-eight Pages Lovingly Bound with Twine.
What follows are a few reviews of independently produced publications that I
have recently enjoyed reading* and all of the following reviews are thus
positive reviews. I don’t want to waste your time or mine bashing other
people’s work. Some of these are things that I bought or traded for and
some were sent to me by Davida. Many of the ones Davida sent to me I had to
send right back because I didn’t want to write a dishonest review full of
praise or an honest review panning someone’s work. I just want to share
with others the fanzines that I enjoy reading. Some of these reviews may seem a
bit self-indulgent since I discuss myself as much as the publications being
reviewed. My justification for this is that I think writing about how a fanzine
makes me feel reveals more about it than just describing it’s contents.
But then again, it’s probably just my ego run amok. *There is one
exception; I reviewed one fanzine that I didn’t read.
Poetry!
Yay Poetry! [sic]
Assemblage with Crow: Poems for discussion
and activity
$5 Gregory Hischak, Post Office Box 2151, Seattle, WA
98111-2151
Why are so many fanzine reviewers against poetry? Well, you
know what? I like poetry! I like reading it and I like writing it and I
ain’t ashamed to admit it. So there.
This is a beautifully constructed
chapbook of poetry. It’s printed on high quality paper and laid out nicely
with interesting little illustrations here and there. Oh yeah, and the poems
aren’t half-bad either. In fact, they’re half-good, nay! - more than
half-good! Although I’m enthusiastic about these poems, I know that even
among poetry lovers, tastes vary widely. Allow me to quote two bits I really
liked from poems that I really liked so you can get a little taste and see if
your tastes are similar to mine. This is from a poem entitled “Keyboard
Commands (for Macintosh)”:
By hitting Command/Shift/W or
Command/ option/W
I could either save the whales or free Tibet-this becomes
very high tech-remember it’s a Mac and while we like to believe that it is
intuitive, deep down we know that it isn’t.
I once tried to free
Tibet but mere]y ended up italicizing everyone there. As if living under
foreign oppressors wasn’t bad enough without being ruthlessly
italicized.
And from a poem entitled “Poor India”:
Two thirds of a human body is composed of water. Two thirds of the
earth is covered by water. Over two third of an iceberg lies beneath the water.
Iceberg lettuce is two thirds water and if you throw it into water-and some
people do this-two thirds of that lettuce will float beneath the surface of the
water that’s why they call it iceberg lettuce.
Two thirds water.
I’m so happy when I read the first few poems in a poetry
chapbook and I’m hooked in. There are so many books of poetry that are
okay and have a few bright spots but aren’t exceptional, so it’s
exciting to enjoy a book from beginning to end. These poems, or so I’m
guessing, are the work of someone who has been developing their poetic skills
for some time. If you were interested in the quotes I’ve pulled and want
to read some more, send Mr. Hischak 5 bucks and get your own copy of this
beautifully constructed chapbook full of beautifully constructed poems.
The Future Tense of Ash by Miram Sagan.
A Modest Proposal
Chapbook.
$2 ppd (checks payable to Don Wentworth) Contact: The Lilliput
Review, 282 Main Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201.
Do you want to read some
poetry by this woman:
I know that her picture has nothing to do with the
quality of her verse but it was on the back cover of her chapbook and I really
really really like when people put pictures of themselves on the back of their
publications. It’s better if they have their chin resting on their fist
but I guess I should be happy with what I get.
The highlight of this
chapbook is the first and longest poem entitled “A Widow in Korea”. I
enjoyed most of the other poems too, but this one was particularly well done.
There was one poem entitled “Genji” which seemed rushed and lacking
in poetic oomph, but poetry is a personal thing and it’s rare to read a
chapbook and like every single poem. All of the poems have Asian themes and
that ties the entire book together nicely.
A Fanzine that I VERY
Highly Recommend
The Secret Life of Snakes #2 by Cullen Carter.
News: Cullen
Carter was seriously injured in early April. Read more about the accident and
how to help on Asha Anderson's website:
http://www.ashabot.com/misc/cullen.htm
for
now Clint Johns of Tower Records is stepping in to fill orders for Cullen's
zines:
Clint Johns
Magazine Division
Tower Records
2550 Del
Monte St.
W. Sacramento CA 95691
attn: CULLEN
1403 N. 52nd St., Milwaukee, WI 53208.
$2
U.S./$3 everywhere else.
When I read Burn Collector # 11 a few weeks ago I
was very happy to have found a fanzine with good writing that could stand above
most mainstream publications. But since I had read many glowing reviews of Burn
Collector I was expecting that it might be good. The Secret Life Of Snakes,
however, was an unknown; just one of many fanzines that Davida had sent to me
for review. I read the first piece, a tale of car-troubles which is actually
about being a father, and it was pretty good. Next was a short piece of fiction
with a funny O. Henry style ending. I was enjoying TSLoS but it wasn’t
until the third piece that I realized that this guy is a really good writer.
That piece was just a scene from his life but it was told in the form of a
short play and it was very very well done.
Wow, a good writer. I started
the next piece, a longer short story, with some hesitation; although I was
really enjoying this fanzine, I was afraid that I had already read the best
parts. I love discovering new, good fanzine writers but I don’t find
really good ones often enough. After I read the next story, which was the
highlight of the issue, I knew that this guy could write. The story is based on
a not too original science fiction premise and the ending is foreshadowed and
you see it coming a mile away. But what made this story so good was that even
with the unoriginal genre idea and the predictable ending, the polished writing
carried the story brilliantly.
And after this great story, I read the three
following book reviews as a kind of afterthought only to discover that they too
are well done and interesting. This is a good fanzine by a serious writer. Get
it.
3 Fanzines That Don’t Have a Common Thread That Would Make
For A Catchy Heading
Untitled Mini Comic by Missy Kulik.
460 Sunset Dr., Athens GA 30606 (Missy runs Starting Small Distro)
When I received this little wordless mini-comic I quickly “read”
through it, then cast it aside, not giving it much of a chance. Luckily, my son
Herbie (age 21 months) saw the elephant on it’s cover and said,
“Book! Little book! El-phant!” So I sat down and “read” it
to him a couple times and I’m glad I did. The story of a boy going to
sleep with his stuffed elephant is told through simple drawings and only takes
a minute or two to look through. It’s very very cute- probably too cute
for most people’s taste but I really liked it once I gave it a chance.
Thanks Herbie.
Passions: A Cooperative Press Association. #24
$3.50 (checks payable to Ken Bausert) 2140 Erma Drive, East Meadow, NY
11554-1120.
This is an interesting concept. Everyone in the Passions
Cooperative shares the costs of printing and postage and sends their works to
Ken Bausert who acts as an editor/assembler/mailer. As with any collection by
various authors, the quality between various pieces varies but the parts that I
enjoyed might be the parts that bore you and vice verse. One person’s
trash...etc. The interesting thing about Passions is that the pieces are so
diverse. Usually, a collection has a theme or unifying principle but with
Passions, the only unifying principle is that everyone writes about what they
are passionate about. There’s an odd assortment of passions which range
from a tribute to Joey Ramone to nostalgia for long-lost sugar-encrusted
breakfast cereals to comments on old, popular comic strips. Passions makes for
a pleasant reading experience mostly because it’s so very, very
unpredictable and odd.
Derogatory Reference #101 by Arthur D.
Hlavaty
206 Valentine Street, Yonkers, NY 10704-1814; $1 in U.S./$2
outside U.S. arranged trade or letter of comment.
Wow, issue #101 This may
be the last issue of DR but Mr. Hlavaty writes that if he does cease publishing
DR, he will start a new fanzine possibly entitled Equal-Opportunity Crone. I
really enjoyed DR and here’s a quote to show you why: “I’m over
60, I’m getting crankier, I’ve reached the age where even the
grown-up oppressor music of my adolescence sounds better than the noise these
kids listen to, and I like to talk about the Good Old Days.” I do like
reading rambling, slap-dash fanzines by teenagers who can barely put two
sentences together before their ADD- MTV hyper-active mind jumps to an
unrelated subject. But I see those often enough and I rarely see a publication
from the older generation of self-publishers. Hell, I’m an old crank at 28
so I feel more in tune with 60 year olds than people my own age or younger. Mr.
Hlavaty has an idiosyncratic writing- style and sense of humor that I enjoyed.
Give him a try.
3 Fanzines That Should Be Given A Medal For
Publishing Often & Regularly
Atomic Blue Ribbon
FLyer
$1 or trade/$10 for a 1-year sub.
1305 Green Street, Durham
NC 27705
Well, this one already received the blue ribbon’ but I guess
it can have a medal too. This is January 2002 issue. I guess that it’s
monthly but I’m not sure. That would be very cool though if a fanzine were
monthly. I actually don’t know if ABRF fits under the above heading at all
but let’s pretend. I’ve had this fanzine forever and I should have
just written the publisher and asked but now it’s too late; these reviews
were due 3 days ago.
ABRF is constructed from 2 letter-sized pages folded
and held together with a single staple. Each of the three pieces is interesting
and well-written and the entire issue can be read in fifteen minutes. There are
also a few short fanzine reviews. I was pleasantly surprised to see an article
about an artist named Henry Darger whose work I once saw at an exhibit and
admired greatly.
Out of the Blue
$3/ $18 for a 1 year sub
of 6 issues
Larned Justin, Post Office Box 471, House Springs, MO
63051
Larned puts OOTB out as regular as clockwork every two months -
that’s bimonthly. If bimonthly means once every two months then why does
biannually mean twice a year instead of once every two years? Where’s the
consistency?
Every issue contains pieces by the regular columnists along
with lots of submitted comics, writing and art OOTB is open to submissions).
There are also plenty of fanzine and comics reviews. I really enjoy OOTB’
s format. The reviews are usually accompanied by images from the publication
itself so you can get a good idea of whether or not you’d enjoy it. OOTB
is just fun to read because of the variety in each issue and the variety from
issue to issue, since besides the regular columnists, everything is just
submitted works. Oh, and when you check it out, be sure to read the writings of
a particular columnist named Christoph Meyer. Yeah, this review was just
leading up to a dumb self-promotion. Sorry.
NeuFutur
$1 or
trade UB Box 6074
408 S. Locust St. Greencastle, IN 46135
This fanzine
is published bimonthly during the school year and monthly during the summer
months. I have to make a confession: I haven’t actually read anything in
it except for the inside cover and that’s where I gleaned the first
sentence. If you read the review of Atomic Blue Ribbon Flyer above, you’ll
know that I’m late getting these reviews to Davida. It’s like
I’m back in high school or college and I have a report due and I put the
damn thing off until past the last minute. I’d really like to apologize to
the publisher of NeuFutur for how terrible this review is. It’s really the
worst review that I’ve ever written but I felt that I had to include it
because it fit so nicely under the heading. How can I review something
I’ve never read? I don’t know. All I know is that I’m gonna
print out these reviews and mail them to Davida this morning with a note of
apology for their tardiness and hope that she’ll give me a grade, any
grade, even if it’s just a D or an F. I think my previous reviews were
good enough to bring up my average so that I could pass. If I get a 0 on this
though, it’ll bring my semester’s grade for Fanzines 101 way down.
I’ll probably fail. Please Davida don’t let me fail! I promise that
I’ll do all my assigned reading and turn in my reports on time from now
on. Please Davida, for the love of God, don’t let me fail! My
parents’ll kill me if get another F.
Eric Lyden
224 Moraine St., Brockton MA 02301
Ericfishlegs@aol.com
Funny thing about me - no matter how
long I have to do something I almost always wait until the last minute. I had a
whole month to finish these reviews and now here it is the day before the
deadline and I’m just finishing them now. Now I always get them done when
I say they’ll be done and I don’t think they’d be any better if
I did them earlier, but just once it’d be nice to not be doing these at
the very last minute.
Mr. Peebody’s Soiled Trousers and Other
Delights #16
This zine here is one of my favorite per-zines. First of
all, it’s one of the only personal zines out there (besides my own) done
by a fellow male and that’s almost enough of a reason to recommend it
right there. Plus is usually makes me laugh. The basic idea of the zine is this
- Jay lives his life, then every day he writes a short journal entry about what
happened that day, then takes a months worth of entries and publishes it in
zine form. This issue covers the month of Sept. 2001 and to tell the truth I
wasn’t looking all that forward to reading it because the idea of reading
one more person’s thoughts on 9/11 was enough to make me want to smash my
head against the wall. Yes, we all have our own individual thoughts and feeling
regarding what happened and everyone’s thoughts are valid and to be
respected, but I’m just sick of the whole damn topic and wasn’t
especially excited about reading a zine about it more than a year after the
fact. However, I’m happy to report that Jay keeps the 9/11 stuff to a
minimum and at no point is there any danger of it becoming the focus of the
whole zine. Despite 9/11 it still managed to be a fairly lighthearted read.
Swank cover, too. Send $2 or a trade to Jay Koivu, PO Box 931333, Los Angeles,
CA 90093; JayKoivu@yahoo.com
Hillbilly Ghetto #2
Y’know, every so often you’ll read a zine and think to
yourself “This is just such a perfect idea for a zine. Why has no one done
it before?” This is one of those zines. Basically it’s a zine about,
as the cover puts it, “True tales of Neighbor Nastiness.” Just such a
perfect idea because we’ve all, at one point or another, had awful
neighbors (when I was in high school we lived next to an extremely paranoid
racist. He used to claim that people would break into his house when he
wasn’t home. They never stole anything, but sometimes things wouldn’t
be where he left them so obviously someone must’ve broken in. Then
sometimes he’d see people on their porch smoking pot, which I grant you
isn’t the brightest move, and he’d sit in his house with his shotgun
aimed at them debating whether or not to shoot. At least that’s what
he’d tell us. But this is all neither here nor there...) so this is a
topic we can all relate to on some level and in my mind anything we can all
relate to makes for good reading. Very good zine that, with some more good
contributors, has the potential to be great. No price listed, but $1 or $2
sounds good. Mandy Willeford, PO Box 412, Greensburg, IN 47240;
www.hillbillyghetto.com
Greenzine #12
A while back I was
reading a zine called Platform (a fine zine I reviewed here last issue and if
you haven’t checked it out by now you really should) and in this zine the
author mentions how several people have told her that her zine reminds them of
Cometbus. This annoyed me beyond belief because Platform in no way resembles
Cometbus. Cometbus and Platform are both fine and wonderful zines, but they are
completely different in both tone and content. Then I figured out what was
happening - Cometbus is probably the most popular zine out there and is read by
a lot of people who aren’t necessarily well versed in zines. So when
people who aren’t that familiar with zines, but have read an issue or two
of Cometbus, see another zine they enjoy they say, “It reminds me of
Cometbus” because from their point of view they’re both zines, and
they enjoy both of them, hence they must resemble each other. There’s some
logic there if you look hard enough. Not a lot of logic, but some. Anyhow,
after I noticed this I thought to myself “Well, from here on out when I am
writing reviews I will completely abstain from using the phrase “It’s
like Cometbus” because using such a phrase usually just conveys ignorance
and makes it look like the only zine you read is Cometbus so as a result people
will take your opinions with a grain of salt.” Not every zine is like
Cometbus anymore than every band is like the Doodletown Pipers. Anyhow, to get
on with the point of this review, I read Greenzine and my first thought was
“Wow, this zine really reminds me of Cometbus.” In tone and in
content and even in the design, this zine has a lot in common with Cometbus. I
tried to think of something new and original to say about this zine without
comparing it to Cometbus, but I just couldn’t do it. Because, dammit, some
zines really are like Cometbus. So I guess if a zine really is like Cometbus
it’s OK to say it reminds you of Cometbus. This issue is “a six part
narrative on travel” and it features... umm... yeah, that’s what it
is. All of which is very well written and accompanied by some beautiful
illustrations and a few comics, which are nice touches. But y’know, I did
notice that in many of the illustrations people are doing odd things with their
hands. Either pointing or making odd gestures or... whatever. It just struck me
as odd once I noticed it. Send a couple bucks (I guess) or a trade to Cristy C
Road, 14222 SW 83 St., Miami FL 33183; croadcore@yahoo.com;
http://croadcore.cjb.net
Hitch #32 Winter 2002
Man,
y’know, this zine reminds me a lot of Cometbus. Nah, I’m just kidding
with you. If ever there was a zine that was nothing like Cometbus it would have
to be this one. Depending on your POV this may not even be a zine. It’s
very magaziney looking with paid ads and a glossy cover. But I guess it’d
still be considered a zine because it doesn’t have a bar code and
it’s all in black and white, even the glossy cover. Truth is, I don’t
really care whether you consider it a zine or a magazine, I like it and am
going to review it. Hitch is, as it states on the cover, “the journal of
pop culture absurdity” and that’s a pretty good basic description.
Although not all articles in here are pop culture related, if you have little
or no interest in pop culture you might be better off spending your $5
elsewhere. Issue to issue I think my favorite section would be Hitch-bits,
where Rod prints any stray and random bits that can’t be stretched into a
full length article, including the continuing serial (I guess you’d call
it a serial) “The Paper” in which Rod writes about his experiences
working on an Oklahoma City newspaper, pranks he pulled on his innocent
children and other good stuff (and a few lamer bits, like the checkers article
and that gossip column on celebrities in heaven, but most of it is funny.).
Special notice goes to Louis Fowler’s “TV Party Tonite” column
simply because he confirms that the TV show “What a Dummy!” did
really exist and wasn’t just some bizarre fever dream I had once. The main
cover stories this issue is a good interview with Bruce Campbell, an update on
the “Country Life” girls (who I had never seen or heard of until
then. Sorry.), and a funny piece on Star Wars musical knock offs. It also
features a lot of music, movie, and print reviews, all of which are well
written and some of which are quite funny (doesn’t hurt that they seem to
mirror my taste for the most part, either.) and a few pages of comics which
range from really funny, to a tad lame though not totally unfunny. Recommended.
Send $5; Hitch PO Box 23621 Oklahoma City OK 73123-2621; rlott@aol.com
www.hitchmagazine.com
Rich Mackin’s Book of Letters #16 and
17
This zine is a little more like Cometbus than Hitch, but that’s
like saying that the band Pavement is more like the Doodletown Pipers than the
Ramones are because it still is nothing like Cometbus. I’ve noticed that
Book of Letters has actually become on of those zines that’s become so
popular that it’s becoming cool to not like it. So I should give this zine
a lousy review so I can look cool and ahead of the curve. Because y’know,
there’s nothing people like more than people who hate and mock what others
love. But I just can’t bring myself to do it because this has always been
one of my favorite zines. The basic concept is this - Rich writes funny
letters, mostly to big corporations questioning their business practices or ad
campaigns, sometimes to politicians like Al Gore or GW Bush, and one to a
couple guys who arrested for molesting plastic reindeers. Some of the letters
are just plain silly, but most actually have serious points behind them so you
actually learn, as you’re entertained. Funny = good. Funny +
thought-provoking = even better. He also prints the responses he gets from the
letters, which are almost always form letters, but you gotta give props to the
companies that actually do give a real reply. I have 2 new issues here, 16 and
17. I ‘d recommend you order both, but if you can only afford one I’d
go with 17, which is just a smidgen funnier in my opinion. One of my favorite
zines. Oh, and Rich also goes on tour reading his letters, so if he comes to
your town you should check it out. Or don’t. I don’t care what you do
with your free time. Also, if you live in the northeast you oughta try to make
it to Beantown Zinetown Mar. 29 at Mass Art College. I’ll be there and I
really don’t think you need any more incentive to show up than that.
Anyhow, send $3 per issue (or selective trades) to Rich Mackin, PO Box 890,
Allston MA 02134; Richmackin@earthlink.net www.richmackin.org
Adult Ramblings #12
One annoying thing about this zine I have to
mention before I get started - in it Anastacia (the author) refers to herself
as her cat’s mother. Ummm... no. I know you love you cat and take care of
it and that’s wonderful, but your cat is a cat and you are a human so
therefore you can never have a mother-child relationship with your cat. Sorry.
Anyhow, what we have here is a nice, solid, basic personal zine. Everything in
here is good (in particular a story about a car accident and about the death of
her great grandmother) but nothing really stands out as being great. Still, for
a buck you could do a lot worse than ordering this zine. She kind of goes font
crazy, though, but that’s something you gotta deal with in zines. I think
I may be the only zine person out there who couldn’t care less about
fonts. Anyhow, send $1 or a trade to Anastacia Zittel, PO Box 365, Douglas MA
01516; adultramblings@therapids.net
Drunken Master #6
I
wasn’t gonna review this zine because I had a letter printed in here and
it somehow seemed like a conflict of interests. But then I figured it would be
silly for anyone to think I’m recommending they read a zine just so they
could read a letter I wrote, esp. when the bulk of the letter in question
pertains to the name of the pro wrestler who wore the mask of Tiger Mask. And I
think the letter isn’t even totally accurate - there was a third Tiger
Mask I forgot about. Funny, I’d be willing to bet I know at least twice as
much about pro wrestling as anyone reading this review, yet compared to the
hardcore fans I don’t know shit. Anyhow, I like this zine a lot. This is
another one of those zines with amazing production values - glossy color cover,
fancy lay-out, tons of pictures. Good stuff along with an eclectic mix of
articles including some comics, an interview with a phone psychic, an interview
with Ken Casey of the Dropkick Murphys (may be the first time a zine has ever
had an interview with a punk musician I’ve actually cared about),
punchlines to jokes that the author never got around to writing, and some other
stuff. A sort of hard to describe mix, but trust me when I tell you it’s
an entertaining mix. Send $3 to Drunken Master c/o Shino Arihara, PO Box 51033
Pasadena, CA 91115-1033
For the Clerisy Nov. 2002.
Well,
form the high production values of Drunken Master to the lo-fi look of For the
Clerisy. I like the lo-fi look so there’s no problem there. No fancy
layout, very few graphics, and one staple in the upper left corner. Nice basic
look. This zine refers to itself as “Good Words for Readers” and
that’s pretty much what it is - some long book reviews, a page of
interesting quotes, some movie and zine reviews, and a fairly and an in depth
letters column of which a good portion of is used to discuss Star Wars Episode
2 of all things, which at once struck me as fairly odd and somewhat charming.
It made me really wish I’d seen or read anything he discussed this issue
so I could take part in the letters column of a future issue, but other than
the zines, I haven’t so as a result I just feel left out. Damn. But this
zine also features a recipe for fried Twinkies, which I mention just because I
feel like it. For some reason even though I can’t really cook I still
enjoy zines that feature recipes. Send a trade or a letter or something to: For
the Clerisy c/o Brent Kresovich, PO Box 404, Getzville, NY 14068-0404;
kresovich@hotmail.com
Maria Goodman
2000 NE 42nd Ave. #303, Portland,
OR 97213
Aren’t some zines awesome & some zines
super awesome? Yes is the answer to these zines listed below. You also might
find Secret Mystery Love Shoes awesome, once you try it. Androo Robinson and I
do it together. OFTEN. Write to Maria Goodman and Andrew Robinson at the
address above.
Doble Sentido
poems by Fabian O.
Iriarte
translations by Donny Smith
digest, 40 pages, $4.00; Donny
Smith: Box 411, Swarthmore PA 19081 USA
Fabian Iriarte: Almafuerte 3449
B7602FRQ, Mar del Plata, Argentina
One of the trademarks of Dwan, Donny
Smith’s publications, is simple, beautiful presentation. “Ohh,”
I said when I pulled this book out of its envelope and saw the calm blue paper,
the delicately drawn face on the cover, and the transparent sheet, also inked,
bound around it all.
And then Donny beautifully presents these short,
dreamy poems. He says, in his preface, “There’s a place where one
language no longer suffices and a second one bursts in, where the first is
about the break under the weight of emotion and the second arrives to prop it
up (or vice versa).”
I wish I knew Spanish. I wish I was fluent in
another language and had more words at my disposal to express myself. Imagine
the vocabulary Donny must have to choose the precise adjectives and verbs to
translate POETRY, the most scientific of all literature. One false step, and
the sentiment is ruined.
A lot of people don’t like to read poetry
because it is layered and takes some time to digest. I will confess that I get
impatient, too. But these are poems you can take little ‘bites of—
some of them are little bites themselves—and see and feel for awhile
afterward. Quite filling. One of my favorites:
the swimming pool
secretly at night
under the coolness of the tall trees
under
the time/whispering old secrets
it simply is
suggesting nothing/not
even a metaphor
At the end of the book there is an
“intraducible postface” in Spanish that, in my ignorance, I could not
read.
Junie in Georgia #11
by Julie Dorn
digest, $4
pages, $2.00 ;
junieingeorgia@hotmail.com
Good god, this is fun.
It’s so much fun that I’m sorry out you will not be able to do
laundry or get to bed on time because whenever you think you’ve reached a
stopping point you’ll glance ahead for just a SECOND and see something
like bad resume critiques or napkin drawings and before you can decide
“All right, I’ll read one more page,” you already did.
This
is the chattiest zine ever. I love it. Junie is funny and hyper and draws the
craziest little pictures. Listen to what’s in this issue and tell me you
aren’t dying to hang around with her: her obsession with becoming a bounty
hunter (for real!), including a criminal catalog she mace with her sister when
they were little kids, INCLUDING actual little kid illustrations, handwriting,
and spelling; the results of a tarot reading to see whether she shou1d pursue
this career path or not; her ride along with a police officer; her trip to a
gun show (and the humiliating story of going hunting with her dad when she was
twelve and had a bad perm—I tell you, her honesty is relentless); reviews
of bounty-hunter novels and an interview with one author, Janet Evanovich;
annoying customer cartoons (the aforementioned napkin drawings) drawn by her
and her fellow waiters; the saga of hiring a new ,waiter, with actual weird
letters and resumes she got back; sex toy reviews; the tale of moving to Africa
with her boyfriend (the article’s title, “Africaaaaaaaa!” tells
you a little about her frazzled frame of mind); and zine reviews! Whew! Whee! I
am a fan for life. The only sad thing is that since Junie is now in Africa and
has no mailbox, you can’t write to her unless you have access to a
computer. But she says there will be a Junie in Ghana zine, so whoever hears
something, please tell me, and I’ll do the same. (ed - She now has a PO
Box in GA! P.O. Box 438, Avondale Estates, GA 30002).
Dirt and
Sky
by Mark Hain
digest, 76 pages, $4.00; PO Box 411, Swarthmore,
PA 19081
giant_turu@hotmai1.com
The way Mark writes is so
converationa1, and his topics so personal, you forget you