Xerography Debt #2

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Xerography Debt #2

Xerography Debt is a Leeking Inc., publication. It is scheduled to appear 3 times a year. Issues are $2.

Send cash, zines, and correspondence to:
Xerography Debt
Davida Gypsy Breier
PO Box 347
Glen Arm, MD
21057 USA
Email: leekinginc@hotmail.com
8 January 2000

In the last 4 1/2 years I have published 27 issues and two minis and I am still making plenty of mistakes. I naively thought I could mail Xerography Debt #1 without using an envelope. It would save me a few cents, a piece of a tree, and I could thank the postal carrier for delivering my mail. Well, either there are some postal carriers who took my sincere attempt at postal praise and self-mockery the wrong way or zines just aren't safe without protective manilla sheaths. It is safe mailing for me from now on.

If this is your first issue of Xerography Debt this should clarify things: Xerography Debt is, if all is going as intended, a catalyst for zine writers and readers to find one another and continue the exchange of ideas and images. It is a review zine for zines. It is supposed to make you go to the bank and get a fresh stack of $1 bills and send away for some of the best independently published writers and artists you'll ever find.

Xerography Debt is a bit different from other review zines. My vision is to create a hybrid of a personal zine and review zine. All of the reviewers also publish their own zines. You should be able to get a glimpse of the reviewer as well as the reviewee. I did not send the reviewers zines, they chose the zines they reviewed. There are some zines reviewed multiple times, as well as a few unplanned cases of mutual love amongst the reviewers. It seemed a bit incestuous, but what can you do with these people?

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 all love zines. We have an obsession. We want to share our obsession with you.

We are individual artists and writers coming together to collaborate and help keep zineland flourishing. To further promote this effort, Tom Hendricks of Musea has agreed to host Xerography Debt on this website. #1 went online just a few weeks after paper copies went into the mail. It will be available for free online or paper copies can be ordered through me.

One of the reasons I am doing this is that I feel I owe my present life to zines. While that is starting to sound dangerously hokey, let me explain. Until I started Slow Leek I didn't realize that I truly enjoyed writing. The only type of writing I felt comfortable with was research-based, which was "safe." As long as the facts were correct and clear, it was hard to look foolish. Once I let go of this fear venturing into more personal writing, everything changed. I not only started to enjoy writing, I started becoming a better writer. The feedback I received from readers and the interactions I began having with other writers and artists made an immense difference in my life. That brings me to the present day. I am now working as a writer (among other things) and I have found my passion. I often wonder what my life would be like if I hadn't discovered zines. I doubt it would be as rich. Xerography Debt is part of my attempt to give back some of what I have been given. One of the other reasons I am doing this is because it completely sucks to wait all day to drive to your po box and find it empty! It is all about mail.

Something I have grudgingly come to realize is that there is no way I can review everything that is sent to me. I will do the best I can for you. So will the other reviewers. 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.

If you are interested in reviewing for Xerography Debt, please contact me by mail or e-mail for some rather vague, but seemingly helpful guidelines. All you need to do is write five reviews that will excite people to send money, stamps, or a trade. I hope to have #3 done around April or May, so the deadline for reviewers is April 1st, 2000.

Corrections from the last issue. New Addresses:
Roadside
Sarah Oleksyk
PO Box 4789
Portland, ME 04112

Throwrug
Karlos
PO Box 3155
Bellingham, WA 98227

Barrie Lynn's email address is buttwig1@aol.com
Rachael Buffington's website is: www.mindspring.com/~rachaelbuff/teaworthy.html

The Illustrious Reviewers:
Androo Robinson (note: artwork has been reduced and should be seen in print)
Fred Argoff
Betty Maple
Donny Smith
Bobby Tran Dale (note: artwork has been reduced and should be seen in print)
Cali Ruchala
Jason Adams
Scout Finnegan
Davida Gypsy Breier

Androo Robinson

Hi! I'm Androo Robinson. You may know me for my utter lack of fashion sense, or my dismayingly lackluster housekeeping habits, but it's more likely that you know me as the Ped Xing comics guy. Actually, it's far more likely that you don't know me at all. Credentials having thus been established, lets talk Motown!

Flashback to, I dunno, some soon after 1994. Id begun my assault on the minicomics scene, and was casting about for kindred spirits. If found 'em in a Motor City anthology called Five O'Clock Shadow. Four of these minicomics artists remain at the top of my list and I'm gonna tell you about 'em.

Matt Feazell is th' zen master of the minicomic. His drawing and storytelling style is simple and direct; deceptively so. He makes it look as easy as it ought to be. YOU TRY IT! In fact, if you do pick up a sharpie and start a minicomic, you're playing right into this cartoon guru master's plan. Resistance is futile.

Fred Argoff

Hello! I thought I'd introduce myself before plunging into my zine reviews. That way, at least you'd know where all this is coming from. My name is Fred Argoff, and I'm a zinester. I first got involved in this craziness with Roller Sports Report in 1990 (and I put out an issue once a month, every month, every month, until 1995.) I also produced 22 issues of the map-obsessed TOPOzine. These days I have two zines running concurrently: Brooklyn! Is devoted to my hometown, and I've finally gotten up off my butt and revived Watch the Closing Doors after eight years of urging from subway fans.

When I asked Davida for guidelines, she said there weren't any! [ed. I've since created some, but Fred was just too damned eager to get started. That's ok, he followed them without knowing he was.] So I spent a week or two trying to come up with a clever theme for my reviews, couldn't, and decided what the hey -- I'll just write about zines that have caught my fancy. If you're interested in my zines -- or want to give me hell about my reviews -- you can reach me at 1204 Avenue U (#1290), Brooklyn, NY 11229. Otherwise, let's see what's been filling my mailbox lately...

You know, it's funny. Despite the way everyone's behaving lately, the Age of the Internet hasn't quite taken over the world yet. Some people still take pleasure in communicating through real, honest letters. For this elite group, the place to turn is THE LETTER EXCHANGE. Each issue contains listings from people all over the world, grouped according to their interests. You answer listings by writing that person's "Lex Number" care of the zine -- the idea is to preserve the person's anonymity and weed out the wackos. It's their option to write back, you see. I will tell you that I've already made more than one real, true friend through this zine. You can get a sample copy for $9.00 -- not cheap, but once you get involved, it'll seem worth every penny. From Steve Sikora, Box 2930, Santa Rosa, CA 95405.

Can you get enough zine reviews? No, you can't! The last place you might expect to turn might be Finland, but that's where MUUNA TAKEENA comes from. It's absolutely loaded down with zines, CDs, tapes, videos, and who-knows-what-else, reviewed in English, thankfully. And the reviewers aren't "yessers." If they don't like something, you'll now it. Timo Palonen is responsible for the zine; if you're a zinester, he'd love to see your latest in trade. If not, why, stamps or chocolate will be fine! Oritie 4 C 24 FIN-01200 VANTAA FINLAND.

Hey, you want weird? Then you're not going to do much better than THE WEIRD NEWS. Editor Don Busky says everything's for true, though when I questioned him about some stuff, he elected to maintain a dignified silence. Each issue also highlights a Great Moment in Stupidity. I'd like to ramble on about the worldwide panorama of strangeness in the zine, but I think I have an allergy to multisyllabic words! And the best part is, the zine is free. That's right: there's no free lunch, but you can have all the weird news there is just for the asking. Don's at 7393 Rugby St., Philadelphia, PA 19138.

You like to laugh, right? Of course you do; you're not some kind of freak. So let's put aside the concept of political correctness, and appreciate something funny. There's this comic zine out there, see, called MOB GUY COMICS. Each issue has the recurring characters of Mob Lieutenant, Hitman, and Og (barbarian turned mob enforcer). If you don't mind my getting into the spirit of the thing, I think there's an offer here that you can't refuse: avoid the possibility of something happening to you (if you know what I mean) and send $2 to Clay Holman for the latest issue. P.O. Box 3671, La Crosse, WI 54602.

Do you remember stuff like Koogle (the peanut butter spread) ... Sir Grapefellow cereal...or the original rendering of Lucky the Leprechaun from Lucky Charms cereal (he was a devil-may-care character, as opposed to the bland, easygoing Lucky you see in ads today). Well, if you remember this sort of stuff, you're gonna think you fell into a gold mine with SNACKBAR CONFIDENTIAL. This zine is devoted to junk food! It isn't just a fun zine -- it's the fun zine. Honestly, I have no idea where Lance Laurie gets the stuff he puts in the zine, but I'm glad he's got it laying around. $3 should land you a copy and hey, pass me a Scootie Pie! P.O. Box 895, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.

Betty Maple

[ed - Betty Maple does Yard Art, a new zine about...well, yard art. It is a nifty idea and available for $2. Betty Maple 12827 Salt Creek Rd. Millfield, OH 45761 Cg3@eurekanet.com]

Thrift Score Issue #14
c/o Al Hoff
PO Box 90282
Pittsburgh, PA 15224 USA
$1.00 cash/check made out to Al Hoff
It is with a heavy heart that I review this final issue of one of the best zines to come down the pike. Why bother, if it's the final issue? 'Cause Al Hoff still has a boat load of back issues she needs to get rid of. They're all worth getting, now at bargain prices. Bobby's Review
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This ender is a little lean, but still mean. Al's an entertaining writer and can find the humor in the sometimes grubby world of thrifting. Her short bit on refusing to be scared off the record bins in a Chicago thrift by some gentleman, who is, shall we say, polishing his helmet nearby had me simultaneously laughing and grossed out. Her intro pages explain her reasons for ceasing publication, providing me with some food for thought on the whole subject of zines. I don't agree with all her reasons, but at least she had the guts to come right out and end it, instead of just fading away with no explanation.

This zine was my intro to the zine world, and I don't think I could have found a better one. Pick up Thrift Score #14 for a buck and you'll get the score on getting all the back issues for as little as .50 each.

The Delineator #1
Art Penn Studios
c/o Patrick Dowers
515 E. Denny Way #304
Seattle WA 9812
price $3.50
Copyright free clip art is always difficult to find when you're putting together a zine. There's lots of books out there, especially by Dover, but that can run into some serious bucks, bucks that need to go into your printing costs. This fat zine of images just may save your day. Patrick has done a compilation of hundreds of images to meet your illustration needs. Reproduction quality is pretty good and should repro well. Images aren't just thrown together, but categorized inside the front cover for easy reference. There's no wasted space or wide margins, just tons of art. This zine could end up being a valuable resource for the home publisher and I look forward to issue #2.

The Flamingo Conspiracy #1 & #2
c/o Phutz H. Flamingo, Esq.
PO Box 380849
Cambridge, MA 02238
Price $3.00
Something about this zine leaves me cold, and I can't quite figure out why. It has lotsa good clip art, it's well laid out and it's jam packed with articles and clippings, all stuff I normally like. Perhaps it's the narrow range of the sexual content. Lord knows, I love a good fuck book as much as the next person, but Phutz's kinks are so specific I have a hard time whipping up any interest. I jumped right into the article "The Gender-Specific Clothing Conspiracy" in issue #2 because even though I'm a garden variety basic vanilla hetero type female I generally wear mostly men's clothing. As Phutz so rightly points out, it's actually sized by measurement in inches, not by some bizarre made up system that bears no relationship to actual body proportions. This could have been a more general interest piece, but she's compelled to steer it all back toward her personal fetishes. I don't care why she has her particular sexual focus and a little humor would have lighted these zines up a lot. I guess that's what having your own zine is about, but you also can't expect a world wide audience for your personal preoccupations.

Infiltration #11
PO Box 66069
Town Centre PO
Pickering ON L1V 6P7 Canada
price $ 1.00
Whilst cruising around town, you spot a gigantic building project, a multistory office building or a sports complex with a deep underground foundation. Come on, you know you're dying of curiosity, but are held back by a perfectly rational fear of death or dismemberment. Well, Ninjalious ain't no chicken, he'll sneak right in and explore for you. Infiltration goes where I would fear to tread and brings back a detailed report of the intricacies of monster heavy equipment. This issue goes into the digging of a new Toronto subway line, letters from equally intrepid readers and tips on dressing for an exploration. Get your thrills vicariously and safely with Infiltration.

The Hungover Gourmet issues #1-4
PO Box 4
Doylestown, PA 18901-0042
price $2.00
Editors Emil Nitrate and Dan Taylor have put together a homey cooking, cocktail and travel zine that's about what people really eat and where they really go to eat it. Sure, we'd all like to have pheasant (or mushrooms) under glass, but the reality is more likely a pot of chili or a trip through the fast food drive-through. Issue #1 debates the thorny topic of grills, and a trip to Niagara Falls. Issue #2 tackles and scores with a great crock pot BBQ recipe, and examines the horror of army cooking. Issue #3 goes for chili in depth and some Polish cooking nostalgia. Issue #4 covers Pittsburgh's regular-folk attractions and a profound article about potato chips written by this humble reviewer. All four issues have cooking and equipment tips, recipe web site addresses and zine reviews in a pleasant to the eye layout. The Hungover Gourmet is a practical guide to real life cooking and more.

Bobby's REviews

Donny Smith

The past few years I've been drifting away from zinedom. I never order new zines anymore. I read what's sent to me and have a few regular trades.

My job exhausts me; my non-zine projects take up my free time; and overall I just don't feel as alienated as I used to (at least not alienated in a way that doing a zine can help). But a few reliable publications continue to inspire. (So for now I'm still putting out Dwan)
Donny Smith
Box 411
Swarthmore PA 19081 USA
dsmith3@swarthmore.edu
http://www.geocities.com/WestHollywood/Village/6982/dwan.html

Lilliput Review
I know how my heart sinks when I open an envelope and see that I've received another poetry zine. But not Lilliput. Sometimes I tear through it in fifteen minutes, sometimes I make the little thing last a full week.

The poems are all short, usually three or four lines, usually Zen-ish. I think the short poem forces poets to cut the crap. In three lines they're not going to write "the Great American Poem" or start a new movement in "l-a-n-g-u-a-g-e"; they have to concentrate on what's at hand.

Short poems are usually about a passing feeling or a passing scene. Less often they're about a passing thought, "the philosophy of the moment." Maybe the poem has been there for years, but suddenly consciousness opens like a curtain being pulled back. I keep going back to Lilliput 82 to re-read "Il gran rifiuto" by Alex Gottesman (to quote in full):

I had the 'No' in me
a hundred years before I was born.
Before I was, it was
just a 'No' floating in the abyss
of unspoken words and forgotten memories,
waiting for my flesh to summon it
as my lips would part
while it rides upon a breath out
from between my teeth

Of course, for every poem in Lilliput I call good, there are nine I call bad. But out of those ten poems, you will call a different one good. And good enough to make the reading worthwhile.

Current issue: 106 (September 1999)
($1 - 3 1/2" x 4 1/4" - 15 pp)
Don Wentworth
282 Main St
Pittsburgh PA 15201 USA
http://donw714.tripod.com/lillieindex.html

Extranjera a la intemperie: hojas de poesía de Susana Cattaneo
Sometimes an image passes by that's strange and strong enough to jostle your mind. Here's something translated from the latest Extranjera, the last six lines of "Hotel del desierto" ("Desert Hotel") by Santiago Bao:
Beauty was retreating
in the face of plastic flowers
and in the air was floating
smell of primitive sadness,
presence of abandonment,
like a giant invisible bat.

And here's a stanza, translated from "Las gemelas rusas" ("The Russian Twins") by Lola Arias:
-To kill the father.
The twin kisses her sister on the mouth.
Immodest snow falls on that impossible kiss.
That country, that father.

Every new Extranjera points me toward places I need to be going in my own writing. (The main problem for Anglo readers will be that it's all in Spanish.) The "Russian Twins" again:
They cross the desert on chargers, to the land of the ogre.
"No doubt, no fear, no trembling."
Current issue: año 2, numero 6 (Noviembre 1999)
(no price (2 International Reply Coupons?) - 7" x 8 1/2" - 20 pp)
Susana Cattaneo
Casilla de Correo 206
Suc. 12 B
(1412) Buenos Aires ARGENTINA
susanacattaneo@ciudad.com.ar

Holy Titclamps
Larry-bob's one of the smartest faggots in zine-land. Every new HT brings up all kinds of questions for me. I've put together entire issues of my zines in response to editorials in HT (I won't tell you which ones). Bobby's Review

Lately, Larry-bob has been delving into the past, publishing lots of biography and obituary and inviting past contributors to contribute again. (As Magenta said, "How sentimental!")

current issue: no. 17 (10th anniversary issue; June 1999)
($3 cash; $4 overseas; free to prisoners - 5 1/2 " x 8 1/2" - 60 pp)
Larry-bob
PO Box 590488
San Francisco CA 94159-0488 USA
larrybob@io.com
http://www.holytitclamps.com

Boys Who Wear Glasses
First of all, this is my boyfriend's zine. So I'm not looking at it with a neutral eye. Nonetheless, and despite the fact that we've been together eight years, I always find out something new about him. And it's something useful to me and would be useful even if I didn't know him.

Which isn't to say that this is just another introspective personal zine. The focus is female pop and jazz singers-Dusty Springfield, Kay Starr, Annie Lennox, Anita O'Day, and company. And since music is one of the hardest things to write about (I think food is harder), the good music zines are rare. The good ones, like BWWG, bring you to a love of the music.
Current issue: Five (Fragments and Marginalia, Part I; 1999)
($2.50 cash - 5 1/2" x 8 1/2" - 57 pp)
Mark Hain
Box 411
Swarthmore PA 19081 USA
mhain@pafa.org

Batteries Not Included
Here you'll find articles about porn trade shows and porn award ceremonies and sexology conferences, the ongoing memoirs of a dominatrix (the wonderful Lisa B. Falour), reviews by a dyke adult bookstore employee, interviews with porn actresses, analysis of current events (like the only worthwhile commentary on the whole Lewinsky Clinton affair), "Fags on Film", reviews of people like photographer Jan Saudek and illustrator Edward Gorey, "The Sexual Family", lots of detailed descriptions of the making of X-rated videos, lots of leering over the body parts of certain women, and lots of pleas for better porn of all kinds.

I'm not sure I can explain it, but BNI has reached a spiritual plane not usually attained in the "world of small-press publications", all the while concentrating single mindedly on the world of pornography.
Current issue: Volume VI #11 (November 1999 (I can't keep up; it's monthly)
($3 or checks made out to Richard Freeman; $4 foreign - 8 1/2" x 11" - 12 pp)
Richard Freeman
130 W Limestone St
Yellow Springs OH 45387 USA
BNI@aol.com
Bobby's Reviews

Cali Ruchala

[Ed - Cali is responsible for Aspirins & Kalashnikovs: The Scaredy Cat Guide to Living Dangerously, Degenerate, and Delusions of Grandeur. Look for reviews on pages 22 and 29.]

Zines that Make Me Depressed that I'm So...
Jaded: SemiBold #6
1573 N Milwaukee Ave.,PMB #403
Chicago, IL 60622
semibold@aol.com
($2.00)
SemiBold has become my religion. No, seriously. Just when the grind of poverty and disgust begin to form a pattern, like a little white dove perched on a windowpane in a bad movie, a copy of SemiBold comes into my mailbox and immediately makes me believe again.

These words might sound cruel, considering the misfortunes that editor Kathy Moseley goes through between issues. The first SemiBold contained a story about waking up with a mysterious ailment that caused double-vision. Issue two raked over the coals of a doomed relationship. In issue six, the dreaded double-vision has returned. I cannot begin to imagine the horror of walking to the grocery store and seeing four sets of headlights screaming at you ahead of two mirroring irrate drivers. Actually, I'm not sure if the "cure" -- or at least attempts at diagnosis -- was any less terrifying: a spinal tap, hospital pokes and proddings, and the coffin-like confinement of a CAT scan. On the night before: "I couldn't stop thinking about being in that tiny tube, feeling it close in around me, suffocating me -- how would I ever make it?"

Yet if SemiBold were just a catalog of Kathy's misery, I doubt it'd be all that provo-cative. The double-vision story ends, and we find a wonderful account of a trip to New York. Frankly, if I'd just been through all that (once, much less twice), doing anything but rocking back and forth in a corner while singing apocalyptic Biblical hymns would be too much. It's a kind of innocence, or even a joy for life, in spite of life.

Rational:
Your Attention, Please! #1
1040 N Cordova St.
Burbank, CA 91505
yetilvft@earthlink.net
($2.00)
"Contemporary folk art environments are handmade, personal places containing large-scale sculptural and/or architectural structures built by self-taught artists, primarily during their later years." This is the first sentence of YAPzine's first issue, dated Summer 1999. Normally, any sentence containing the construction "and/or" causes the little man inside my head to turn out the lights and take a nap. Whether he'd pounded a couple cups of coffee or some cosmic formation realigned in the heavens above me, I stayed awake for all of YAPzine and read it from cover to cover. I'm glad I did.

One of the main reasons that I can't handle this kind of "thinking" is that I can't visualize all these abstract concepts at one time. You know, the kind of writing that your middle-aged poly sci teacher just adored, with "cultural transparencies" and "sexual agencies of the object" and such. Thankfully, Suzanne F. Hackett takes pity on people with this ailment and presents concrete examples which you can subsequently look up in the Brittanica, as well as gloriously reproduced greyscale images of her own.

What is this about? It is about "an individual's ability to accomplish something tangible and monumental in a complicated society where it seems harder and harder to sort things out." Suzanne takes some of those tangible, monumental things (Simon Rodia's Towers in Watts, Salvation Mountain) and extrapolates upon the idea of a self-taught visionary building an art that goes beyond the pretty boundaries of the canvas and spills out into the rest of the world. Heady stuff, no? Sometimes it gets a little too cite-happy, but it's an occupational hazard. All in all, YAPzine is something that there's just not enough of in zinedom: people so literate, they're frightening.

Non-Iberian:
Traveling Shoes #3
PO Box 206653
New Haven, CT 06520-6653
($2.00)
If I could have had a choice about which tribe I was born into, I'd like to have been a Spaniard. If I could rectify that with good intentions, then I'd like to write about them. Failing that, as I have, I'd like to mingle among them. H.D. Miller continues his yearly installment of Traveling Shoes by doing the last two, delivering 48 pages of gorgeous zinemeat.

If you're not familiar with Traveling Shoes by now (previous issues covered Las Vegas and Morocco), here's the genre: it's one part travelogue, one part history. And for his part, H.D. Miller reminds me of a kind of traveling historian. He guides us from disembarkation to departure, with fascinating trivia and short scenes in the midst of the larger text. For instance, in the midst of a discussion of King Pedro, the Black Death and anti-Jewish pogroms, we join Miller on a Labour of the Damned: to find a genuine "una hamburguesa americana". Traveling Shoes is also quite funny. While taking Spanish immersion courses in Seville, he has a run-in with a pair of middle-aged Danish civil servants. With a few words of description, you can paint a vivid picture of two dry, cold Danes wearing tube socks and going on endlessly about the evils of America -- in this conversation, about America's Cuba policy. Miller writes, "Although I wouldn't be unhappy if Castro were Mussolini-ed... I'm not a big fan of America's Cuba policy. Yet I found myself blindly defending that policy to these Danish bureaucrats. For a moment, I was on the verge of validating every stereotype of the violent American -- raised up on a steady diet of Clint Eastwood movies and televised pro-football -- by breaking his nose."

This is probably the definitive Seville, or at least as definitive as any topic of a 48 page zine can get. It's a great feeling to read someone's zine and know instantly that you'll come across their name again -- either an announcement in the paper of their upcoming speaking engagement, or in a bookstore when you come across their name on half a dozen spines. H.D. Miller never lets historical facts become mere recitations, which points to his strength as a writer. He also has an exceptional eye for detail (which is invaluable when describing what could be any of hundreds of identical cathedrals, towers or mosques). Enjoy this one before you've got to start paying through the nose to get a sample.

Out of Touch with Nature:
Leeking Ink #21
PO Box 963
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
leekinginc@hotmail.com
($2.00)
I know, I know, I'm sucking up. The cynical among you can think that if you want. However, if you care to look back at my own zines, you'll find Davida Gypsy Breier exalted to royalty well over a year before Xerography Debt existed. That was from my first taste of the World According to Gypsy, as ready by a gypsy, and the excitement over getting a new copy of The Zine Formerly Known as Slow Leek has only grown more hysterical over time.

For whatever reason, I start to feel far too uncomfortable with my attitude towards nature whenever I read a Leeking Ink. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the only trees I ever see grow out of the cement in the permanent shadow of city streets. Perhaps it's that Davida has a schedule that makes my life look like a cakewalk, and yet still gets time to commute out into the small patches of nature left in America to explore, observe, and occasionally liberate the odd gilled creature. Leeking Ink #21 seems more focused on nature in general than before, though, featuring two trips into places where trees grow out of this grainy substance called dirt.

The high point of #21 for me was the brief story of hiking in Shenandoah National Park. Davida has an accident, gets caught in the rain (these nature people... she seems to like it), runs into a local yokel at the bookstore, and learns to play Scrabble for the first time to end the night. I can't quite put my finger on it, but the language Davida uses is so stripped of ornaments, it's almost like an extended conversation. With some perzines I get the uncomfortable feeling that the writer is simply being an exhibitionist. With Leeking Ink, I get the not-necessarily-uncomfortable feeling that the reader (ie, me) is simply being a voyeur. It's all too rare, particularly in zines, and particularly in writing about real-life experiences.

The journal entries only encourage this feeling. I'm not sure if they're edited or not (I've never asked. Well, editor, you're reading this -- are they?) [ed- sort of, but not really], but the collision between thoughts on consecutive days often bears hilarious results. The recurring theme for the time period covered in LI#21 (June through November) seems to be an awareness of getting older, or maybe of just changing. I still don't know how someone can write a journal, knowing it will be published, and not have that impact the manner in which they write; maybe I just need to do a perzine and lay all of my own worries and minor annoyances out for the world to see to experience it for myself. [Ed- I would love to read this. It would probably be the first perzine with footnotes and a bibliography.]

Serious:
YIP #31
958 Rambleberry Ave
Pickering, ON
L1V 5Y5 Canada
($1.00)
This is the "Depression and Boats" issue, and the first copy of YIP I've seen. I swear to God that it won't be the last.

YIP is, without a doubt, the funniest zine I've ever read. The editor, Milky, writes almost like an 8 year old with manic mood swings, or a guy in his twenties who has bouts of extended adolescence. I don't know which one is true, and it frightens me that I'm even trying to pick out some kind of far-reaching philosophy behind the fabulous monstrosity that is YIP. The content is like a special issue of Highlights for Children edited by Antonin Artaud. On page three, you're assaulted with a drawing of a boat in a storm (with the crew singing "Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily..." as they sink to their death); an advertisement for women's curling on CBC Sports (captioned with: "Curling on CBC: Because you've got to find some way to kill the time until you die."); a discussion of Black Humour which emphasizes that the pinnacle of the deadpan genre was achieved in the film *Doctor Whacked love, or, How I Got Learned ta Stop Worrying and Hunt for Boo-tay*); and, finally, a cute bunny with the caption: "Pat the Bunny... if you can somehow rouse yourself to do so in this hollow, godless universe..."

A few more tidbits? Well, there's an article on "Writing an Effective Suicide Note" ("Avoid Smileys: These cheerful little fellows can totally 'kill the mood' of an otherwise somber note."). There's "Depressing Stories from the Sea" which involves inter-species rape and a nightclub drama that not even VH-1 can top. Intentionally bad poetry, short columns and more sight-gags than is wholesome in any moral universe round out issue #31. This is a kind of terrorism; and if Milky & Co. had half as much fun writing it as I did reading it, it's no wonder they've cranked out so many issues to date. Do yourself a favour and order at least two copies of each issue; #31 lasted in my house for all of two weeks before being snatched by a friend.

Jason Adams

[ed- I have many nice things to say about Jason's zine on page 26. Jason Adams, 390 Roxboro Pl., Florence, SC 29505, Jason_a@earthlink.net]

What Is Success?
(Or, Five Zines That Do Their Jobs)
Before burnout and hysteria over nonexistent wine zines took their toll, before Factsheet Five was lured like a lame horse to the glue truck behind the woodshed, before there was an urgent need for a zine like this one. That's when Factsheet Five ran "success stories" from a few different zine publishers (I believe Jen Angel, Jim Goad, Paul Lukas, Pagan Kennedy, and Al Hoff, among others, contributed, but I'm not sure). Few of them are even currently publishing zines, and none fit any conventional definition of success (except Kennedy, who briefly slummed in early nineties zine culture to flesh out her hipster rQsumQ). So is it money, mainstream publicity, true originality, progress, finding a mate, the possession of punk show reviews from thousands of miles away, scaring the mailman, remaining sane, getting a good review, earning enough spare dollars to live off ramen noodles, alienation, popularity, holding a piece of oneself in front of one's face, a wealth of loose stamps, or something else that signifies success? Should we even throw words like success around when we talk about zines, vanity publications that are the literary equivalent of a car bra?

Teenage Death Songs
"Maybe Tara puts it best. 'Kim, you're like the moment just before the big thing when the big thing never comes.'" Well, yeah, Tara was right. There's a morbid anticipatory vibe throughout the whole zine. You expect to see a piano suspended by a string of dental floss over Kim's head as she smells the posies, a target painted on her ass. In case you can't tell yet, this is a rave review. I feel so lucky to have gotten this zine in the early months of this year, especially since Kim hasn't sent anything since. Few zines, on a good day, are better than this. Hell, the poetry is even good. In what seem to be personal reflections that are organized like short stories, Kim seems to be most interested in making you feel what she feels. Every paragraph evokes subtly, carefully, emotions you may have forgotten you had. Like fragments that hit you one day like sun in your eyes, or naked Twister covered with baby oil. Never missing a step, doing exactly what it's supposed to do, I call this zine a success. I'd feel like a success, too if Kim would write me back, or maybe just lucky. "After all, how many chances at hope do we get", she wrote.
Current Issue #11
Kim
PMB #5664
Richmond, VA 23220

Leeking Ink Conflict of interest? Why, what on Earth is that? Half a dozen zine publishers I know of (all but one of whom are women) do the spinning plate routine like expert coke-addled carnies, keeping two or three zines going at the same time while producing a pile of one shots to boot. Struggling as I do to complete my only zine with any regularity, I can't help but shiver with furious envy (or envious fury - I can't decide.) How do these people manage to eat, sleep and work in addition to finishing a zine every month? Conspiracy. Has to be a big, huge conspiracy. Davida Gypsy Breier, of the Leeking Ink / Glovebox Chronicles / Xerography Debt/ Signs You're Doing A Zine / probably-ten-more-I-haven't-even-heard-of media empire, continues to make her flagship zine a wonderful little object. The layouts are always interesting and original while being clean and simple, just like the journal entries that always seem to describe that one small moment that defines the day. Actually, Davida's zine contrasts nicely with Teenage Death Songs. While Kim writes about her life from the distance of time in a style that feels like fiction, Davida gives you a piece of cold reality as it happens. No regrets or obsessive rumination, just something that seemed important on that day, as clear and simple as an obituary. In addition to the journal entries, there are longer pieces that read much the same way, and at the end Davida discusses her vegetarianism without sounding self-righteous or didactic, for which she deserves praise from those who share her views and thanks from those who don't.
Current Issue #21
Davida Gypsy Breier
PMB #963
Havre de Grace, MD 21078
leekinginc@hotmail.com Degenerate
You need to get things like this in the mail every couple months. Zines like Degenerate are frightfully effective cures for the

common zinester (which my spell check suggests I replace with "sinister") ego trip. There I was, pretty satisfied with myself after having gotten a few enthusiastic letters and good reviews on my latest issue, and I trudge in what passes in the South for the cold to my mailbox, and what do I see? Cali has a delightful, subtly witty style in what apparently is his second language. His extensively researched articles of the relatively obscure assholes of history are funny, fascinating bathroom reading (Degenerate spent a week on top of my toilet, making it difficult for me not to spend most of an hour on the porcelain throne), and on top of that he knows a thing or five about layout. Herein we have four big pieces. The first is about Gabrielle D'annunzio, Fascist hack poet that took over the city of Fiume and ran it like a bad opera, and was there-fore a big influence on Mussolini. Next was a fascinating summary of Enver Hoxha's reign of terror over Albania, in which the battered citizens of an entire nation suffer at the whims of a petty, paranoid man who lied about his quite bourgeois background. And how, exactly, did such a cruel and perverted man as the Marquis de Sade become who he was, and how did a dynasty that ruled Florence for centuries degenerate into easily overtaken fools? Eh? Guess you'll just have to get the zine, won't you?
Current Issue #1
Bobby's Reviews Cali Ruchala
100 E Walton #31H
Chicago, IL 60611
CMacvayia@aol.com

Thrift Score
As sure as work can never be fun; book deals seem to kill zines. Of course, Al never says Thrift Score The Book is what made her decide to give up Thrift Score the zine. Regardless of mainstream exposure, eventually all topical zines will totally exhaust their subjects. Rather than becoming repetitive and dull, one clear Pittsburgh day Thrift Score committed suicide, and that was brave. Issue fourteen tapes up the boxes, locks up, says goodbye and drives away nicely, leaving us with a couple excellent pieces (one about a style of shoe peculiar to Pittsburgh, the other about a thrift-related car crash). Like the previous issues (all highly recommended), it made me want to jump in the car and hit the thrift stores. Get it while you can.
Current Issue #14
Al Hoff, Girl Reporter
PO Box 90282
Pittsburgh, PA 15224
al@girlreporter.com
http://www.girlreporter.com

Farm Pulp
By the time y'all read this all of that apocalyptic hysteria will be finished, so the Millennial Dinner Music issue of Farm Pulp may have a completely different meaning to you than it did when I reread it today, on New Year's Eve. I pulled out my Prince tape too, I listened to "1999" and was reminded that everybody's got a bomb, that the only logical reaction to the absence of logic is to par-tay. Greg writes, in his vivid, sensual and surreal that I can only hope to half-imitate, nine different end-of-the-world scenarios that range from horrific (knowing that the you'll be humming the last song you hear for all eternity, and unable to escape an ice cream truck as the world ends) to sublime (the end-of-the-world bake sale, the mot amiable and warm apocalypse imaginable). Like every issue, the one's a beautiful object, and it's no big surprise that Greg's a graphic designer in "real life". Various sizes of paper are folded into flaps and the interplay between the images is always a surprise (I know that really doesn't explain it. You'll have to see it.) The fascinating thing is that early issues were just clippings from other sources, laid out in Greg's amazing style, and over the majority of this decade (and thirty-seven issues), he grew into writing his own pieces. As things stand now, very few people have a comparable record of making consistently great zines. Farm Pulp is the only zine that, with the demise of Thrift Score, I still pay for. And it's worth it, friends.
Current Issue #37
Gregory Hischak
PMB #2151
Seattle, WA 98111-2151
Greg.Hischak@THINKinc.com

Scout Finnegan
[ed- Scout does a personable little zine called...well Scout. It's available for $1. Scout Finnegan, PO Box 48522, Sarasota, FL 34230; scout@liquidbutter.com]

Zines That I Quoted to Other People

Vacant Lot Barrie Lynn never ceases to amaze me. I first read her 52 Hours With 52 Strangers months ago. She recently sent me a copy of Vacant Lot hot off the presses and it was delicious. Her writing and drawings are always so personal, touching, sad, and funny.

Vacant Lot is a collection of odds and ends from Barrie's past and present. The story that touched me the most was the one in which she describes how she was insulted by one of her college professors and left school because of it. She didn't touch a pencil for five years afterwards. I was floored when I read this: "That is dumb. I don't know why you're wasting your time here. You're wasting everybody's time working on crap like that. Work like this is NOT going to get your scholarship renewed for next year."

I just can't believe that people can be that cruel and get paid for it. I guess people like that are the reason so many of us still don't have college degrees. Anyway, the story has a happy ending, and Vacant Lot overall is very upbeat and amusing.

Barrie doesn't seem to have decided if this is issue # 1 or merely a one shot deal, and the issue is still brand new so hopefully she will (for the sake of her readers) continue with a second issue.
$2.00/ 8.5" x 5.5"/ 40 pages
Barrie Lynn
Buttwig Productions
P.O. Box 297
Reno NV 89504
Buttwig1@aol.com

Mystery Date Mystery Date is a fun collection of stories about historical girl issues. I was really disturbed by what I read in Lynn's story about feminine hygiene products: "That's rights, Lysol the same foul smelling liquid, originally developed as a substitute for carbolic acid, used to scrub bathroom floors was for years promoted for use as a douche." I was horrified to read that "Lysol was implicated in the deaths of at least six women," and immediately told every girl I know this horrifying story. I hope that women today know that they are not rotten cesspools teeming with germs and odor.

Also in this issue is a history of the bra, tips on bra shopping, and reviews of celebrity advice books for teens. Lynn clearly does her research and knows what she's talking about. It's so nice to read a zine that is both outraged and intelligent at the same time.
current issue: # 6
$2.00/ 8.5" x 5.5"/ 28 pages
Lynn Peril
P.O. Box 641592
San Francisco CA 94164
peril@sirius.com
http://members.tripod.com/~Mystery_Date

Ten Foot Rule
TFR #3 is a collection of various artist's comix put together by Shawn Granton. Shawn's comix are great. His art is beautiful and his subject matter is always right on the money. I loved his piece "Jake the Disgruntled Retail Flunkie: Hippie-Dippie-Do!!" He says: "The 'hippie' thing is old and overdone, okay? Sure, it had validity and cultural impactin the 60's when it was new and fresh, not in the 90's! You're just going round in circles, the blind leading the BLAND!" Although the story does have a surprising ending, I liked the ideas expressed there.

I also loved the picture on the back cover, "Sometimes I wish I could turn off my brain...then I'll be happy." How true.
Current issue: #4
$1.00/ 8.5" x 5.5"/ 16 pages
Shawn Granton
170 Beaver St.
Ansonia CT 06401

Cometbus Cometbus makes me feel very old and very young all at the same time. I found myself jotting down several quotes from this fantastic zine. Aaron's writing is some of the best in the zine world. His text-only zine is the only one that I know of that could contain no art or fancy layout and still be an easy read. Reading Cometbus is like diving into Aaron's brain and not coming up for air for hours.

My favorite part: "I hate them for trying so hard, I hate their dishonesty in trying to change and be accepted instead of just accepting themselves and waiting for everyone else to catch on or fuck off."
$2.50/8.5" x 5.5"/ 64 pages
current issue: #45
Aaron Cometbus
PO Box 4279
Berkeley CA 94704

The East Village Inky
Since I recently vacationed in New York City, I was dying to get my hands on some NY zines. I was thrilled to get my copy of EVI. This zine is thoroughly charming. Included in this issue are Ayun's thoughts on motherhood, as well as zine reviews, book reviews, and recipes. The funniest part is her story about her tiny New York apartment: "I just can't hack living in this dirty, mouse-besieged, overpriced footlocker any longer...even if it does make for amusing reading."
$2.00/4.25" x 5.5"/ 40 pages
current issue: #5
Ayun Halliday
122 Dean St #3
Brooklyn NY 11201
Inky@erols.com
www.neofuturists.org/ny/ah/ah.htm

Davida Gypsy Breier

To make things as easy as possible, I mainly reviewed zines I received between the last issue and January 1, 2000. If I received it after the 1st, it might appear in #3. Bobby's Reviews ***This symbol indicates a favorite.
My picks for this issue:
1000 Interlocking Pieces
Burn Collector
Delusions of Grandeur
Haircuts Abroad
Miranda
Thoughts on Technology
Vacant Lot

[Note: many of these zines will trade, but don't be cheap, support other writers with a few bucks or stamps, it won't kill you.]

ZINES TO READ WHEN YOU'RE SICK IN BED

There was a review of Slow Leek a few years ago where the reviewer mentioned she liked to read my zines when she was sick in bed. I didn't realize what a compliment that was until this week. As I languished in bed with the flu, I started hoping certain zines would appear in my po box.

***Burn Collector
I enjoyed the first issue I read so much that I ordered all of the back issues. Each issue was rather different, so as you read on you'll see this zine listed in a few other places. Al's writing is so adept, that I thought it alone should be enough to get you to send for his zines. I would recommend getting several, as each offers a different literary experience.

"Now, they have the exact chemicals you need to filter out all your bummer thoughts worked out to a T...I find the 'jiffy lube' approach to human happiness and well-being very disturbing, but then again, I'm the kind of unamerican communist nutcase who gripes about them building malls and parking decks, too." (issue #7)

"The question of the artist versus the ambulance driver, I've come to realize, isn't a simple question of how to live. It's a question, too, of how to promote living, how to stave off dying. The ambulance driver does it by simply entering the fray, plucking the wounded off the pavement and trying to sew them up. This is a noble thing. It's this nobility which makes the artist look bad, because how do you pluck the wounded off the pavement? How do you pluck yourself off the pavement?" (issue # 9)

"There is, someone pointed out to me, no German for nerd. This is because the term would be so non-specific and all-encomp-assing when applied to an event such as this as to be rendered meaningless." (issue #5)
Current issue #10
(#'s1-7 .50/#8 $2/#'s9-10 $1/8.5x5.5/ page counts vary from 12 to 108 pgs)
Al Burian
307 Blueridge Road
Carrboro, NC 27510

***Vacant Lot Damn this is good! It is a departure from Barrie's other zines and just goes to show that her talents as a writer and artist are nicely matched. From the introduction:

"A Vacant Lot is usually a space between buildings with no building on it. It usually has the characteristics of the original terrain; desert or grass or whatever was there before the buildings. It is a reminder of what is hidden beneath the surface of the city, Sometimes a vacant lot used to have a building on it and sometimes there never was a building. A vacant lot is a peaceful void in the chaos of the city. I was nearly tipped over by the relevant symbolism of the vacant lot to my creative rut. The vacant lot WAS my creative rut on a street lined with build-ings that were my accomplishments. Rather than quickly trying to build something on it, I decided to stroll out into the middle of it and have a picnic; see what was there; inspect the shrubs and lizards that were living contentedly on it before I bulldozed them."

If that isn't enough to motivate you, she also has the most amazing visual surprise near the end of the zine.
(December 99)
($2/8.5x5.5/40 pgs)
Barrie Lynn
PO Box 297
Reno, NV 89504
Buttwig1@aol.com

To make things as easy as possible, I mainly reviewed zines I received between the last issue and January 1, 2000. If I received it after the 1st, it might appear in #3.

***This symbol indicates a favorite.
My picks for this issue:
1000 Interlocking Pieces
Burn Collector
Delusions of Grandeur
Haircuts Abroad
Miranda
Thoughts on Technology
Vacant Lot

[Note: many of these zines will trade, but don't be cheap, support other writers with a few bucks or stamps, it won't kill you.]

MORE ZINES TO READ WHEN YOU'RE SICK IN BED

***Vacant Lot Damn this is good! It is a departure from Barrie's other zines and just goes to show that her talents as a writer and artist are nicely matched. From the introduction:

If that isn't enough to motivate you, she also has the most amazing visual surprise near the end of the zine.
(December 99)
($2/8.5x5.5/40 pgs)
Barrie Lynn
PO Box 297
Reno, NV 89504
Buttwig1@aol.com

NEW ZINES

***Haircuts Abroad
Haircuts Abroad is Patrick's account of visiting England with his mother and aunt this past fall. He took detailed notes (probably on old business cards) about his interactions and surroundings, and his interpretations are keenly funny. He offers a compare and contrast of the various types of urinals to be found in the UK. These include the urinal egg, the piss trough, and the dribble wall.

"Things came to a mock-head at dinner. Three days of driving on the 'wrong' side of the road were clearly taking their toll on Janet, who had been listed with Avis as the principle driver. 'I think we're too noisy for Janet,' Sue said at the dinner table. 'She's used to silence, and we're...' 'Just too edgy,' I finished. Janet just sat there and said nothing. Two hours of listening to Sue's new 'Welsh Harp' CD in the car had robbed her capacity for argument."

He is verbally gifted, with a sense of humor, and an absurdist view of life. In other words, order a copy, chances are you'll really enjoy it.
November 1999
($1/8.5x5.5/28 pgs)
Patrick Tandy
PMB 113
3 Church Circle
Annapolis, MD 21401

Noise
There is something energetic and happily youthful about this issue. The layout is clean, helping the disparate topics hold together, however loosely. Safety pin bracelet, recipes, lists, Beastie Boy love, and music, book, and movie reviews. Included is a conspiracy theory claiming that The New Kids on the Block were really space aliens. Reprint of an internet chat with Luscious Jackson. Still a bit raw, but shows potential.
Current issue #1 (December 99)
($1/8.5x5.5/20 pgs)
Trickchic
PO Box 403
Mason, OH 45040
Trickchic@yahoo.com

ZINES OFFERING EXQUISITE DETAILS ABOUT LIFE IN SOUTHERN US CITIES

***1000 Interlocking Pieces
You know a zine is good when you sit down to read a few pages over a small lunch and realize you keep making excuses to yourself in order to keep reading. I was 1/3 of the way through the issue before I realized how absorbed I was and decided to delay life while I finished it. Jason's writing voice, self-perception, and observations are exceptional, especially for someone so young. "Beige and olive drab and black and white and gray. Lots of gray, and all of it's urban camouflage designed to aid my invisibility. Writers and serial killers dress like this, hoping to go unnoticed." This is one of the best zines I've come across. The current issue is devoted to observing life in his hometown of Florence, SC. A great mix of vivid descriptions, excellent writing, deadpan humor, and sharp perceptions.
Current issue #6 (November 1999)
(trade or couple of stamps/5.5x8.5/20 pgs)
Jason Adams
390 Roxboro Pl.
Florence, SC 29505
Jason_a@earthlink.net

***The Burn Collector
"...this is me, fourteen years old, with my greasy, stringy seventies hair (and, yes, this is the mid-eighties I'm referring to; an indication of not only my own innate lack of fashion sense but also my fruity European family's inability to grasp what kind of social indoctrination havoc occurs when you allow a fourteen year old boy to go around looking like Mary Tyler Moore)" (issue #6)
(.50/8.5x5.5/16 pgs)
Al Burian
307 Blueridge Road
Carrboro, NC 27510

The Long Walk Nowhere
That bastard Al Burian can not only write like the devil, he can draw too! This is a comic version of his life in North Carolina. In "Part 1: The Metal Years" we see Al wandering the street late at night. He is still doing this during "The Filler Years."
($2/8.5x5.5/28 pgs)
Al Burian
307 Blueridge Road
Carrboro, NC 27510

Potatoe
After having read two issues of Potatoe, I feel like I have visited Arkansas. #4 offers a close look at Berryville, AR , population 3230. Robert takes us all around town and explains the places that shaped him growing up. "The way I feel about Berryville is the way a neglected child might feel towards their abusive alcoholic parents. You hate them for the way they are. The way they beat you down, body and spirit, and told you that you were worthless. But you also realize that they inadvertently made you a stronger person. You grow up, learning along the way to deal with them and all of their shortcomings."
($1/8.5x5.5/40 pgs)

#5 offers a present day look at Fayetteville, complete with late nights at bars, finding what appears to be a dead body, but isn't, mosquitoes, crustaches, friends, coffee, dreams, and a band playing in a drainage tunnel. He also goes to Chicago and does a few things that in retrospect were either miserable or amusing depending on your point of view.
Current issue #5 November 1999
($1/4x6.75/40 pgs)
Robert
PO Box 1891
Fayetteville, AR 72702-1891

ZINES THAT START WITH THE LETTER "R"

Recycled Art
Editor Sharon Silverman hopes to turn Recycled Art into a forum for artists, writers, photographers, and performers to showcase their work. The layout and printing in this first issue are very sharp, and the reproductions of the artwork included are quite nice. There is a two page story written and illustrated by a young girl with degenerative brain injury. This young girl's story seems to exemplify Sharon's drive to publish Recycled Art. There is also an interview with Vonda Shepard
Current issue #1 Fall 1999
($4 pp/8.5x11/20 pgs)
Sharon Silverman
PO Box 1212
Haverhill, MA 01831

Rejected Band Names
I have been enjoying Jerianne's reappearance in the zine world with Rejected Band Names (she formerly published A Shattered Mind). The issues are very personable and show the flux of reorganizing her life in the Bay area after moving from rural Tennessee. She has Thanksgiving dinner far from home and is faced with "a pureed pasty orange soup of undetermined contents." She has helped solve many of our problems by exposing the Biblical scriptures that clearly state that Christians shouldn't be involved in politics. "Around Town" is about her first trip into the Mission district. I was surprised that her account of a two week trip to Scotland wasn't longer, but I enjoyed what she did write. She also details her daily life in her new neighborhood, which just happens to be infamous Berkeley, CA.
Current issue #3 (December 99)
($1/8.5x5.5/28 pgs)
Jerianne
PO Box 13838
Berkeley, CA 94712
jeriannet@hotmail.com

Roadside
I find very Sarah's art quite appealing. There is something that seems quickly sketched, yet immensely detailed about it. I had read "Old Men Overheard" in another zine, but I was happy to read it again. "The World is Full of Psychoes!" examines her various scary roommates including one who tried to push her out a window. "Long Lost" is a wordless story about missing a friend.
Current issue #4 (Sept. 1999)
($2/8.5x5.5/ 24 pgs)
Also by Sarah is Ok, Not Ok. It helps clarify life's little questions:
People who invade your personal space-not ok
Slugs-ok
Wearing your entire keychain on your bondage collar- not ok
Those wind spirals of leaves on sidewalks- ok
Current issue #2 (July 99)
($1/7x4.25/16 pgs)
Sarah Oleksyk
PO Box 4789
Portland, ME 04112
Roadsidecomix@yahoo.com

ZINES TO READ ON PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

20 Bus
I enjoyed this while riding the bus to work one morning. There is something weird about buses and other public transportation. It is like putting human beings in a blender. Kelli sees this and embraces it. She journals her experiences on buses and also her life as it pertains to being on the bus. Some of her experiences are funny, some are edgy, and some are surreal. Get this while you still can, it is the next to last issue.
Current issue #9 (Sept. 1999)
(20ó+ a stamp/4.25x5.5/32 pgs)
Kelli Williams
PO Box 170612
San Francisco, CA 94117
Bottle_blond@hotmail.com

***Burn Collector #2
"But you get what you pay for, and I am, in paying the eighty dollar special fare to get from New York City to Portland, Oregon, also receiving, as a fringe benefit, a three-day safari into the realm of the damned, a suck at the teat of the dankest, most sordid American cultural underbelly you might even willingly end up subjecting yourself to. Welcome aboard the hound." (issue #2) Current issue #10
(#'s1-7 50ó/#8 $2/#'s9-10 $1/8.5x5.5/ page counts vary from 12 to 108 pgs)
Al Burian
307 Blueridge Road
Carrboro, NC 27510

Jar of Pennies
Kalah captures the funny, the sweet, and the sad that life offers and her trips on the bus tie it all together. Her brush work is very fluid and deft. The small size of the zine makes the artwork especially crisp and powerful. This is a very labor intensive, handmade zine, which explains the price.
($5/4.25x5.5/114 pgs)
Kalah Allen
PO Box 2044
Portland, OR 97208

***Watch the Closing Doors
One of the things I've always appreciated about Fred is his never ending obsession with things that are quintessentially New York. I've also come to realize that I don't trust people who don't have at least one obsession. Watch the Closing Doors is about Fred's obsession with subways, especially those serving his beloved Brooklyn. He explains the history of the NY subway and what all those acronyms mean. He also takes you on little trips, describing the stops and scenery along the way. My favorite bits are the overheard conversations and interactions with his fellow straphangers. This issue also includes "Baltimore Bound," about my daily commute.
Current issue #9 (December 99)
($10 for 4/8.5x5.5/24 pgs)
Fred Argoff
1204 Ave U. (#1290)
Brooklyn, NY 11229-4107

THESE ARE SOME OF MY FAVORITE ZINES

***Delusions of Grandeur
I dare you to find another zine accurately illuminating gypsy life and culture, which also happens to share an embarrassing personal account of trying to buy a sex doll. Each time I think this zine couldn't get any better it surprises me and does. DoG contains excellent writing, by some of the least heard voices. It is an exceptional worldly zine that shows the similarities between people kept separate only by ideologies. A constant theme in the issues is the very real effect that racism and hatred have and how whole cultures have been destroyed by this madness. No jargon, no rhetoric, real lives.

This issue is about the idea of home. In this case home was supposed to be Montenegro, Timisoara, Prague, and Hungary, but as it turned out, home was everywhere. Much of the issue is dominated by Cali's compelling personal account of his trip to Montenegro. About visiting his father's grave, "The fact the death got to him before I did still hurt somewhere deep down, in the place where definitions fall apart and the convenient labels we slap on complex emotions cease to have meaning." His struggle with "the bed (or, as I came to think of it, The Existential Slaughterhouse)..." was one I knew well.

Intelligent, extremely well-written, unusual, and lots of other adjectives which basically mean this is a damned fine zine.
Current issue #6 (December 1999)
($3/8.5x5.5/ 74 pgs)
Cali Ruchala
100 E. Walton #31H
Chicago, IL 60611
CMacvayia@aol.com

***Infiltration This zine is so good, that when Ninja neglects me and "forgets" to send an issue (quiet weeping), I actually go out and buy it. This issue held special importance for me, as Ninj went "Under Degrassi High," a show I watched religiously in high school. He even found part of the show's opening credits to use for the title image. "Explorers" takes you inside an abandoned missile silo in Roswell, NM. It was creeper than most episodes of the "X-Files" because it was true. I felt claustrophobic just reading it. Perhaps that is partly why I find Infiltration so appealing, I know I would probably be too claustro-phobic to go into the tunnels, silos, caves, and basements, so I am very content to just read about Ninj and his peers' adventures.
Current issue #14 (August 99)
($1/5.5x8.5/28 pgs)
Ninjalicious
PO Box 66069
Town Centre PO
Pickering, ON Canada L1V 6P7
ninja@infiltration.org
www.infiltration.org

***Miranda
Just when I was thinking this issue was difficult to finish before I left for the UK, Kate manages to finish her latest issue before she gives birth. She finished the issue just a few weeks short of her due day! Her writing can seem deceptively quiet and matter of fact, but then realize how vivid her words are when they stay with me for several days. Whether she is speaking of the past or present, she is an excellent storyteller. I often feel as if she has opened a scrapbook and is describing particular photographs. The images are not always happy or pretty, and she tells them without the gauzy cloud of nostalgia. In this issue she explains what her first trimester was like, "I know people with sensitive stomachs, who throw up at the least little thing, and don't consider it that big of a deal. I'm not like that. I also know people who cry easily, at every farewell and sad movie. I'm not like that either. Thus what really sent me around the emotional bend was the fact that not only did I begin to throw up on a regular basis, but I also found myself bursting into tears on each occasion."

"Fourth of July, 1973" could just as easily been an excellent short story. She also explains her hatred of math, introduces us to Joe California, and shares the recipe for Group Therapy Chocolate Cake.
Current issue #5 (December 99)
($1/8.5x5.5/28 pgs)
Kate Haas
3510 SE Alder St.
Portland, OR 97214

***Musea
The newspaper for art revolutionaries and the zine community. Issue #84 asks "Who Should Own Dallas? Citizens or Big Biz, The Upcoming Civil Civil War." He creates a dialog between "business as usual" and the "new city" using facts and quotes to show how business as usual is running the city into the ground. #85 offers a play of "Daedalus" and "quatros" a new form of poetry. "Taste of chocolate, Explain:" In each issue is "Hard News," culled by Tom and Alden Scott Crow, and "Art Surfin'," which takes a look at art in many forms.
Current issue #85 (Dec/Jan 1999/2000)
(free/8.5x5.5/8 pgs)
Tom Hendricks
4000 Hawthorne #5
Dallas, TX 75219
112374.474@compuserve.com
http://musea.digitalchainsaw.com

***Throwrug
Karlos never seems content with Throwrug and I just don't get it. It is consistently one of the best written, best produced zines I read. It tries to be funny, and actually succeeds. It is now longer, which contents me if not Karlos. He has some excellent contributors. Devon shares a story of a crush that starts with frozen peas and lasts for several nervous months. Nikki reinvents the haiku, breaking Throwrug's 100% poetry free rule. Alexarc Mastema has a motorcycle accident and gets all sorts of new parts...and monkeys. MiKeK and Karlos review those free videos you can order from late night TV. While I was ready to start gagging violently (with my own hands wrapped around my throat) if I read one more Y2K article, Melissa's armageddon pantry story was actually quite funny. Funnier was the following article, which explained how useless it was and that bad hand washing techniques might be the death of mankind afterall. Lots of nice long zine reviews and "Review Jam" where they listen music and evaluate the band (usually sarcastically).
Current issue # 24 (December 1999)
($2/8.5x5.5/64 pgs)
*Note new address
Karlos
PO Box 3155
Bellingham, WA 98227
karlos@telcomplus.net

***Thoughts on Technology
Wow. That one, rather simplistic word was omnipresent in my mind as I read Thoughts on Technology. I wish I had written this review right after I read the issue, because it had my synapses jumping. This thick, text driven zine is a split between Jen Angel of Fucktooth and Theo Witsell of Spectacle. It was inspiring to see what two writers can do when they work together.

The subtitle of this zine is "A collaborative effort examining the effects of technology (& its corporate control) on our lives and the world." While this is heady stuff, Jen, Theo and the other writers do an excellent job breaking down large issues into clear, concise essays. Jen starts with the luddites, and the class and social issues concerning technology. Other topics include hacking, nuclear arms in Israel, lifestylism, the media, biotechnology, and computers. There are interviews with two young people trying to make a difference, both of which are interesting and hope inspiring. Excellent writing that teaches, agitates, and inspires. The layout is also very professional looking.
May 1999
($3/8.5x5.5/100 pgs)
Jen Angel or Theo Witsell
PO Box 353 PO Box 251766
Mentor, OH 44061 Little Rock, AR 72225
Jenangel@mindspring.com or
Ctwitsell@ualr.com

ZINES BY PEOPLE WHO LIKE WORDS

84 a lit zine
No one ever mentions the unpredictable nature of reading zines in public. Zines really attract the weirdos. Also, you never know when you are going to turn the page and encounter a cartoon of a man displaying his oversized member or some such thing, something that we as urbane zine readers have grown wearily accustomed to seeing.

And what does this have to do with 84? Well, as I was informed by a man at the train station, a phone number would fit nicely in the white space on page 6. He also wanted to know what the issue was about and while I was vague and evasive with him, I will tell you. 84 is an ingenious literary idea fueled by beer.

Sarah and her friend Liam got together one night and came up with a list of ten words to write about. To add structure, what they wrote had to be contained to 84 words. The paragraphs were spontaneous and absolutely true. Words include "glasses," "twenty dollars," and "gym class." (Oh, and for the record, there are no oversized male members in this zine. That incident happened with another zine. Also, telling a woman she's got "New York Style" will not cause her to allow you to mar her zine with your phone number.)
($1/5.5x8.5/16 pgs)
Sarah Oleksyk
PO Box 4789
Portland, OR 04112
Roadsidecomix@yahoo.com

For the Clerisy: Good Words for Readers
Once this zine thing is in your blood, you can't stop. Just ask Brant, who decided to take a break after his last issue. He was back before we even had a chance to miss him. The break seemed to do him good and renew his focus. This issue has him sharing his knowledge of the Okinawan folklore he picked up while living there. He has what I can only describe as conversational essays about some of his favorite artists and draughtsmen (Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Brueghel, George Grosz, and Robert Crumb). He also offers his usual reader mail and response.
Current issue Vol 6, No. 36 (Oct 99)
($2/8.5x5.5/16 pgs)
Brant Kresovich
PO Box 404
Getzville, NY 14068
Kresovich@hotmail.com

Freaks, Geeks, and Pipsqueaks
A Small Literary Collection
The premise is "Two found stories by complete strangers." You will want more. There is something so inexplicably appealing about this zine.
Current issue Vol 2 (Fall 1999)
($1/2.75x4.5/20 pgs)
Andy
PO Box 21533
1850 Commercial Dr.
Vancouver, BC V5N 4A0 Canada

Rabbit Hole
In addition to owing zines for my love of writing, I owe a few writers for my love of reading. You seldom have any sort of "contact" with known writers, which is one of the reasons Rabbit Hole is so pleasantly unusual. It is a newsletter for fans of Harlan Ellison, edited by his wife Susan. As some of you know, his books are often hard to find, and along with the newsletters you will receive an order form. Not only are the books surprisingly inexpensive, Harlan Ellison will also sign them for you. There are also tapes of his books and stories available. #23 offers a recollection of a young fan's first meeting with Harlan Ellison in 1967. Due to HE's need for porn (for research) they later become good friends. If you like HE, you'll like this.
Current issue #23 (Fall/Winter 1999)
($10 for 4 issues/8.5x11/4 pgs)
The Harlan Ellison Recording Collection
PO Box 55548
Sherman Oaks, CA 91413

Verses Without Choruses
Despite a widespread societal phobia to poetry, which is often justified, this is well worth your time. Zeb's poetry speaks volumes with few words.
Speech
Some people talk because
their ideas exceed the size of their heads
Some people talk because
the laughter of others is better than sex

Close
"I love them but I don't like their work."
is identical to:
"I love them,
but I don't like the way they smell."
Volumes one-four, December 1999
($5 for 4 volumes or $2 ea./4.5x5.5/76 pgs)
Zebulun
710 N. Bishop
Chicago, IL 60622
mail@insatiable.org

A WHOLE BUNCH OF GOOD ZINES

***Bitchy Strips
This was among the stack of stuff I got from Roberta Gregory at The Expo last fall. I was really impressed by the issues of Naughty Bits and compilation of Butchy Bitch that I bought. I recommend both of those you and should be able to find them at your local comic book store. However I have a feeling that Bitchy Strips is something you will need to order from her. Bitchy Strips offers selections from the "Bitchy" weekly newspaper strips that appeared in several newspapers from 1996-1998. The ones with her inner child and inner slut fighting with her are hysterical.
September 1999
($1/8.5x5.5/16 pgs)
Roberta Gregory
PO Box 27438
Seattle, WA 98125
Roberta@drizzle.com
www.robertagregory.com

Drunken Master
Hmmm, I'm not quite sure how to describe Drunken Master, because it has so many different facets. It is rather arty looking, yet it shows a clear interest in Mexican masked wrestlers. It has comics and also interviews. All this in 24 pages. I especially liked the interview with "Too Much Coffee Man" creator Shannon Wheeler. Some of the art looks quite cool. Did I say too little? Too much?
Current issue #3 (Fall 99)
(2/8.5x5.5/24 pgs)
Kiyoshi Nakazawa
3324 Rowena Ave #A
Los Angeles, CA 90027
Knakazawa@earthlink.net

Limousine
I had read about Limousine for a long time, and due to the similarity between her Glovebox Zine Distro and my Glovebox Chronicles, we've even been mistaken a few times. I finally wrote for a copy and I wasn't disappointed. The issue has the comfortable conversational feel that you usually only find in letters. The articles are all rather separate, but her writing voice is consistent, tying it all together. Topics include going to the gynecologist, her hatred for Bill Clinton, feeling like her life is a lie, tv, books, and movies that she enjoys, zines, gardening, Norwegian Black Metal, and lots more.
Current issue #9
($2/8.5x5.5/40 pgs)
Libby Lampert Donovan
PO Box 11
San Mateo, CA 94401
www.glovebox.org

Now We're Cooking With Food
This is cooking gone bad...very bad. A cookzine like no other. I think I just have to reprint a recipe to explain:
Cali's Famous Noodles
Five steps to fillin' the hole.
Ingredients: 1 box of noodles, some salt
Preparation
1. Buy box of noodles.
2. Boil.
3. Stand in front of open refridgerator door for 10 minutes.
4. Repeat in front of cabinet.
5. Say "aw hell" and sprinkle with salt.
Now We're Cooking With Food is too funny for words.
December 1999
($40 US/Can or a trade/5.5x4.25/28 pgs)
Jeff
PO Box 66069
Pickering, ON L1V 6P7 Canada

Q.U.E.E.R.
I like the mix of subjects and content from a queer punk perspective in Q.U.E.E.R. #5 offers rants from Editor Avalokitesvara Rowland that range from finding unpleasant substances in public bathrooms to shopping malls. Interviews with Venus Flytrap and Pedro Angel Serranno, a gay Puerto Rican skinhead. Interesting article on Dean Corll, a serial killer from Houston. Record, video, and zine reviews.
Current issue #5
($1/8.5x11/32 pgs)
Avalokitesvara Rowland
PO Box 52812
New Orleans, LA 70152
khwerrouge@hotmail.com

Queer Exotic Piss
This is yet another fabulously creative one-shot zine from Jesse Reklaw (Concave Up). Basically he rounded up a bunch of artists (Dylan Williams, Craig Thompson, Jon Van Oast, Ed Stastny, Androo Robinson, Emily Nilsson, Megan Kelley, Dan Howland, and Kalah Allen), folded a sheet a paper into four segments, and told them to play the game "Exquisite Corpse." The creatures that were created are completely demented. Jesse also has some nifty tiny zines, such as The Origin of Barbie, so enclose some extra money for these.
($1/4.25x11/20 pgs)
Jesse Reklaw
PO Box 200206
New Haven, CT 06520-0206
Reklaw@nondairy.com
www.nondairy.com
[ed-: Jesse has a great website, and even has fonts (both free & for sale) on it.]

Sticky Crawler
I picked this up at The Expo. Most of the issue is devoted to the story of Ollie and Mina, two young girls in love. Stories like that never end simply though, do they? There is something very appealing about Amy's art with lots of blacks and capturing brief moments. Also in the issue is "Skull Baby," a Tim Burtonesque world with all sorts of freaks and skaters.
($3/8.5x11/24 pgs)
Amy Ahlstrom
4814 N. Hoyne Apt 2F
Chicago, IL 60625

Wishbone
While Wishbone may not appear very often, it is always a dependably solid zine when it does. This issue is a mix of politics, personal, lists, info, and more. Bunnigrrrl reprints an article that ran in a local magazine titled "In Defense of Wealth" and solicits a response from Shaun Richman, director of the Young People's Socialist League. She details the differences in age between herself, GenX Bunnigrrrl and Boomer Bunniman in a pair of humorous lists. Together they comment of the overbuilding happening in Orange County, CA. A personal essay about watching her friend go from abusive father to abusive husband. Lots of reader letters and responses, links to websites, bunny love, and newspaper articles.
Current issue #9 (fall 1999)
($2/8.5x5.5/36 pgs)
Bunnigrrrl
PMB 200
32158 Camino Capistrano, A
San Juan Capistrano, CA 92675
Wishbone@exo.com
www.wishbonezine.com

ZINE ESSENTIALS

Grammar Q & A
Answers your grammar questions. If you question the difference between whatsoever and whatever, you really should send Scott some stamps and start correcting grammar mistakes you don't even know you make.
(1 33ó stamp/8.5x11/2 pgs)
Current issue #19 (January 2000)
Alden Scott Crow and Misti Crow
PO Box 445
Clements, CA 95227
pmc@lodinet.com

Zine Guide
This is about the biggest listing of zines you are going to find. It is thick enough to keep you busy for days. This issue has a long article about zine libraries. Contact information and comments about the libraries are rather extensive.
Current issue #3 (Winter/Spring 2000)
($6/8.5x5.5/160 pgs)
Brent Ritzel and Jenn Solheim
PO Box 5467
Evanston, IL 60204
zineguide@interaccess.com

ZINE CONFERENCES

Underground Publishing Conference
Bowling Green, Ohio June 10-11, 2000
Jen Angel and Jason Kucsma are putting together the Underground Publishing Conference. They are hoping to have panel discussions, which are still being organized. I was impressed by the fact that the registration fee is just $5, but that no one would be turned away of they couldn't afford that. If I can manage it, I hope to attend. For more information write to UPC, 216 South Church St., Bowling Green, OH 43402; upcon@yahoo.com; (419) 353-7035.

A FEW BALTIMORE RESOURCES

If you happen to be near the Baltimore area there are two things the city offers to zine readers and writers. You can visit Atomic Books at 1806 Maryland Ave, about 2 blocks from Penn Station, (410 625 7955) for a nice selection of independently published zines, magazines, books, comics and more. If you aren't local, you can visit the store on the web at: www.atomicbooks.com

Baltimore's free weekly paper, City Paper offers a zine column that has become more frequently recently. If you want to send your zine in for review direct it to: City Paper, Zine Pool, 812 Park Ave., Baltimore, MD 21201.

Out of curiosity, are there any other free weeklys out there supporting independent publishers like this?

Factoids:
1) Androo was the first official contributor.
2) 1000 Interlocking Pieces was the first review I wrote for this issue.
3) The name Xerography Debt happened spontaneously in an email conversation between Cali Ruchala and myself.
4) Paper Cuts was the second choice for the title.
5) There are 74 zine reviews in this issue.
6) This zine is set in "Mom's Typewriter" and "Univers Condensed"
7) Elephants can communicate with sounds we can only feel as vibrations.
8) I couldn't sleep at night trying to think a way to pay for this issue. Then a small miracle happened.
9) There are about 13,000 words in the issue.
10) Reptiles of the Mind was the first zine I read. Ped Xing was the second.