Xerography Debt #9
Table of Contents
| Xerography Debt Issue #9 October 2002 Davida Gypsy Breier, Editor Fred Argoff, Brooke Young, Dan Taylor, Maria Goodman, Rick Bradford, Androo Robinson, Donny Smith, Mark Hain, Matt Fagan, Christoph Meyer, Erin Quinlan, Zebulun, Josh Bowron, Eric Lyden, Gavin J. Grant, Bobby Tran Dale, Violet Jones, & William P. Tandy, Reviewers Androo Robinson and Matt Fagan, Artists Little Ivan and Emilio, Office Assistants 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 © October 2002 #10 Due out February 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 |
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Introduction
I am excited about this issue. The list of reviewers keeps growing and is ever more impressive, the page count keeps expanding, and cooler still, there are new columnists. XD started out as such a small, simple idea and hasn't stopped growing. Unfortunately, to let the zine keep making progress, I've had to increase the cover price. If this is a major concern, please write and let me know, but I think the additional features and reviews are worth it. Xerography Debt will never be a money making venture. I aim to try and break even, if possible. The more you support the zine, the more it will help support the zine community.
I planned on including a column of my own, but there just wasn't space for it. I am currently writing a (hopefully) monthly zine column for the Atomic Books website (www.atomicbooks.com) if you are interested. The first two columns are online, and the next one, "Font Use 101," should be online as soon as this issue hits the mail. XD reviewer William P. Tandy also has a column on their site devoted to all things Baltimore. I've updated the "Basic Stuff You Should Know” section, to explain some of the inner workings of this zine.
And this is completely tangential, but I wanted to mention that my high school English teacher is now counted among the XD supporters, which I think is unbelievably cool.
Recently, I've heard a lot of whining that "zines are dying," "there are no good zines anymore," and that "the golden age of zines" is over. Bullshit. At this point, FACTSHEET 5 only lives on as a whispered specter that the old folks get all misty-eyed over. Well, you know what, zines don't need F5 to survive; I think the last five years have proven that. Other review zines have sprung up to fill the void. Yes, F5 was a great help, but things change, and clichéd as it is - nothing lasts forever. I know some great zines have either disappeared or gone on permanent hiatus, but plenty of new zines are born every year too. Open your eyes to what's new and quit crying in your beer and coffee about DISHWASHER and every other old favorite that is gone. Zine culture is very much alive, but to keep it alive we've got to quit getting hung up on the past.
Keep reading and you'll see that zine culture is not only alive, but flourishing.
Davida Gypsy Breier
October 2002
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.
If you are interested in reviewing for XEROGRAPHY DEBT, please contact me by mail or e-mail for some rather vague, but supposedly helpful guidelines. All you need to do is write five reviews that will excite people to send money, stamps, or a trade.
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.
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:
Al Cene, DB Pedlar, Jeannie McStay, Androo Robinson and Maria Goodman, Donny Smith, Patrick, Janette, Earl, Owen Thomas, Anne Thalheimer, Josh Bowron, Matt Fagan, Leona Drizin, The Salt Lake City Library, and a few anonymous benefactors.
We love letters…
Thanks to my (self) exposure in XD, Quimby's in Chicago contacted me to
carry Ugli Fruit. I feel like I hit the big-time!
Mark Hain,
Swarthmore, PA
"…the same thing is happening in the libraries in Japan as one of
the writers wrote. They waste our money by buying tons of megahit books and
trash many of valuable ones. (Worse, they even don't sell their unnecessary
books. They just throw them away!) That's really terrible..."
Hiroko
Kato, Tokyo, Japan
Announcements
"The details of the SevenTen Bishop tour of the near east are now available on our website. Our campaign of 'chalking' the sidewalks of everywhere to broadcast our message is underway. Please follow the links from our homepage www.seventenbishop.com to Sidewalk Bombardment. There you will see photos of our tour and text transcriptions of the spontaneous writings we performed in the various cities. We drove 2500 miles in five days through Norfolk, VA; Baltimore, MD; New York, NY; Toronto, ON."
"Kyle Bravo here. I'm writing to let you know that we've moved. The How2 Zine, How2 Distro, and These Are the Days are no longer residents of Richmond, VA. We got married and moved to Chapel Hill, NC so I can go to school to study printmaking. The new address is: PO Box 788, Chapel Hill, NC 27514; how2distro@hotmail.com. Also, me and Jenny are starting a press, if you want a catalog or any other info about it get in touch."
"Welcome to The Postcard Project. I'm collecting hand-made, one-of-a-kind postcards from around the world for a future art-exhibit. As for the future gallery show, there are no immediate plans. This is a long-term project, and so I'll wait to see how many cards come in. If anyone has ideas or suggestions, please contact me. Thanks, and I look forward to seeing a postcard from you! Christopher Thinn, The Postcard Project, 509 St Clair Ave W, PO BOX 73599, Toronto, Ontario M6C 1C0 CANADA; http://thepostcardproject.cjb.net"
Bobby Tran Dale will no longer be receiving mail at his old Potomac St. address. Use this one to send fan mail and Bride of Frankenstein toys: 7932 Winthrope St., Oakland, CA 94605; botda@aol.com
Submissions
Baltimore - city of a million stories, most of them untold. And whether you're a native, a transplant, or just passing through, chances are that one of them is yours. Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore! celebrates all things Baltimore, good and bad. From the routine to the quirky to the downright bizarre, Smile, Hon is interested in your stories, everything that defines what it means to live - or simply be - in Charm City. Work, home, neighborhoods, pastimes, nostalgia, Saturday night, Sunday morning, and everything in between, good, bad, and ugly. Submissions/queries are welcome via e-mail at esp@leekinginc.com, or by writing to Attn: W. P. Tandy, c/o Smile, Hon, You're in Baltimore!, P.O. Box 963, Havre de Grace, MD 21078
CALL FOR ENTRIES 12 Items or Less: A Grocery Shopping Zine
Currently seeking stories, ruminations, tales, and essays about grocery
shopping for "12 Items or Less," a new comp zine from Low Hug Productions. Did
you fall in love in front the deli counter? Ever drop a jumbo sized jar of
tomato sauce in the middle of the aisle? Do you just love the endless rows of
products? Do you visit grocery stores in other cities you are visiting? What
was your favorite grocery store or food market to shop at, ever?
Guidelines: 500 words maximum. Comics will be accepted, but keep in mind
the finished product will be square-sized, that is, 5.5 x 5.5 inches.
Submission Deadline: Nov. 15, 2002
Submit to: Send your
submissions via e-mail to lowhug@yahoo.com or regular mail to A.j. Michel, PO
Box 2574, Champaign, IL 61825. Compensation: Like crime, Low Hug
Productions doesn't pay. You will receive a copy of the zine.
The Columns
The Home of Zineland Security
By Donny Smith
[Dwan, PO Box 411, Swarthmore, PA 19081]
dwanzine@hotmail.com;
www.geocities.com/dwanzine
Well, although I'd like to start this out with a long rant about how "security" is just an excuse for right-wing politics as usual, I figure you can read the papers yourself.
But here's something maybe you didn't know. Even though you "might not be deemed 'respectable' or 'reliable,'" your writings "are needed . . . to track public attitudes, political opinions, alternative perspectives, and counter-culture events"! (This is according to the president of Ardito Information & Research.) Smart librarians have known this for years and have hoarded every "alternative publication" they could get their hands on. Many libraries accept donations of zines, either for their general reading collections or for their "locked-room" collections.
Of course, not every library is collecting zines-which is where you come in. If you want more exposure for your zine or for zines in general, maybe you should become involved with your local library. Offer to lead a zine-making workshop, or volunteer to organize and catalog a zine collection. Or maybe set up your own library or infoshop.
Library workshops aren't usually intimidating to lead. Susan Steider, a young adults librarian at Lincoln (Nebraska) City Libraries, ran a zine program last year. The library provided books about zines, clip art books, and a list of good websites. She considered it a success because the two young women who participated produced three zine titles, one of which is now in the library collection. (One of the young women also became a "citizenship issues" volunteer at the library.)
If your local librarian seems averse to zines, keep in mind that she might already be pressed on all sides by people who
Zines do create controversy, since people aren't really used to free expression. (For example, a zine exhibit by Tom Trusky at Boise State University in 1992 "drove people [in Idaho] wild-with delight & hatred." According to Trusky, his "unabashed delight in discovering a free press" and his "democratic approach" brought demands that the exhibit be closed and his tenure revoked, or at very least that he "be required to go into the display cases and, like Casper's dresser, place small cloaks over the most offensive titles.") But don't get discouraged. Most librarians really believe in their mission of free access to knowledge for all.
Even if you don't have the time or inclination to volunteer in a library, you can mail in your zines. For instance, the Walker branch of the Minneapolis Public Library is interested in "fattening up" the zine collection that it's taking over from the main branch. To see what they already have, go to http://mplwebcat.mpls.lib.mn.us/search/d?SEARCH=fanzines. They accept donations: Moira Cross, Walker Public Library, 2880 Hennepin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55408 USA. Boise State also accepts donations of Idaho-related zines and artists' zines ("unique or exceptional in terms of materials employed, format, and/or layout/design"): Tom Trusky, Director, Hemingway Western Studies Center, Boise State University, 1910 University Dr, Boise ID 83725 USA.
Of course, the more people who have a chance to read your zine, the more weirdos you'll hear from (for good or bad). Here's some practical advice on dealing with the prisoners, child molesters, fundamentalists, psychopaths, and everyone else you'll meet in zinedom. You can take it or leave it, mix and match, it's up to you:
1) Get a PO Box.
2) Use your first name only, or use a pseudonym.
3) Trust your instincts. If you get a bad feeling from someone, don't correspond with them at all.
4) Ask questions. If you get an odd request, don't send your zine. Instead ask the person something like, "Who are you? Why are you interested in my zine? How did you hear about it?" Watch for evasive or defensive answers. (Read Davida's Notice about Bill Price below.)
5) Be suspicious if a correspondent wants to meet you in person, especially if you're a woman, a transperson, or a gay man. No matter how well you think you know the person, always meet in a public place the first time and always let a friend know where you're going and who you're meeting.
6) Don't correspond with prisoners who mention that they're getting out soon -not unless you're prepared for the huge emotional, financial, and possibly legal risks of having them show up at your door. (But if you are prepared for that, ex-cons need all the help they can get!)
7) If you have any concerns at all about a prisoner, write to the warden. Just take the address the prisoner gave you, take off the prisoner's name, and write WARDEN. Include the prisoner's full name and prisoner number in your letter. (If you have online access, just type the name of the prison into a search engine or the name of the state plus the words "Department of Corrections.") But be judicious in what you say to the warden, because prisoners get disciplinary action over the slightest things.
8) If you get mail from a non-prisoner that's threatening, asks too-personal questions, or gives you a weird feeling, don't send your zine to that person. In fact, don't even respond to their letters. If necessary, consult with your local postmaster. The Postal Service can send that person a letter saying to stop sending you mail. The relevant forms are Postal Form 1500 Pornographic & Undesirable Mail, if someone's been sending you "obscene materials, violence-inducing materials, and some types of mail relating to lotteries," or Postal Form 8165 Mail Fraud Complaint Questionnaire, if there's been any money involved. I'm not sure what the form number is for creepiness.
9) Give some thought before you exclude prisoners entirely from your mailing list. They're human beings too, and this is the reading material they have available:
a) Prison libraries. In some cases a paltry collection of donated materials picked over by Christian fundamentalist hicks.
b) Mail-order purchases. But prisoners can't use Amazon.com and, in some prisons, can't order from used book stores. And while prisoners pay "outside" prices, plus shipping & handling, they earn "inside" wages, well below minimum wage.
c) Whatever you send. Many prisoners rely on zines and newsletters for their sanity. We are often their only connection to people like themselves. Imagine if all you had to read was Sports Illustrated, Walmart's Top Ten Bestsellers from 1997, and the Bible.
DIRECTORIES OF ZINE LIBRARIES & INFOSHOPS
FURTHER READING ON ZINES & LIBRARIES
FURTHER READING ON THE FUTURE OF U.S. DEMOCRACY, ZINES, YOUR RIGHT TO PUBLISH, & SO ON
Notice About Bill Price:
Bill Price is a twice-convicted child molester. In 1984, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison for molesting a 9-year-old girl. He went to jury trial with 5 counts of child molestation. In the early 90's, he repeatedly molested two girls starting at ages 5 and 6, respectively. In 1993, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He is approximately 50 years old.
He has published three zines: Bars, Ishi, and Fem Zine. The first issue of Ishi is written as if he is a sexually abused, young girl, and attempts to appeal to the same. Fem Zine is a listing of zines by young women. Zinewriters have reported an increase in orders from prisons after being listing in Fem Zine, which implies he is distributing this to other prisoners.
Distros and zinewriters have reported that he has shown particular interest in zines with topics of rape, abuse and sex, and zines by young women, heavy-set women, and lesbians. He is having some of his zines and letters mailed from outside the prison, so that people he contacts do not necessarily know he is incarcerated. He was released on parole in May 2001.
"Hi! I am a zinester, now kiss my ass!
(or How great thou art, ya brokeass, no distribution having
mofo!)"
By Bobby Tran Dale and Sue Donimh
7932 Winthorpe
St., Oakland, CA 94605
botda@aol.com;
www.homoeroticon.com
So you wanna become a cool zinester, a small press publisher, a comix artiste or yet another voice for the free press, do you? Well, welcome dear one, c'mon in! Someone else's work has just been ripped to pieces and we won't be seeing them for a while, so there's room for you to join our elitist club of disaffected free thinkers who've made it through the years! Not to mention, we're always in need of fresh meat. Heheh...
It's no secret that the small press is a haven for those of us who need a release from our day jobs, need a hobby, need a forum for our thoughts, it is a place to find other off-beat creators, where burgeoning talents hone their skills, and last but absolutely not least, it's the last remaining hold-out from the mainstream's forced socialization and behavioral modification. How strange is it then, that in such a funky, supposedly accepting place where even Quasimodo might find solace, entering it can be as hard as trying to get your ass into the latest nightclub if you don't know someone inside?
Alone and with a bad outfit at a club will keep your ass standing in line with the rest of the filler hoping to eventually get in on the same guest list. Likewise, a crappy zine will throw you in with the rest of the suckers who can't even get a bad review that says what a crappy zine they've put out (and by the way, getting no review space at all is always worse than getting a bad review). In both cases, having your finger on the pulse of the scene will, of course, keep you current. But what's "current" is debatable depending on where you are standing at any given time as things evolve. So if you are just now getting into the swing of things, and ya don't know shit, things might be a little difficult. Buckle in, it's gonna get bumpy!
In no particular order, we've compiled some items that we've noticed through the years in this lovely land of xerography and debt that might help one sift through all of the shit and myths that are out there- and maybe even get you a little higher on the small press food chain if you work it right. It is by no means definitive, nor claims to speak for the masses but it might be a start for some newcomers and yet another reason to bitch for others. And with that, we say: "Welcome, we're pleased to eat you!"
1) MYTH: My zine must look like shit to be a true DIY product! This is for the people who think that they are following some type of ethic simply to increase their street credibility, or so they think. It has boggled our minds over the years that people have had an aversion to polishing up their zine's aesthetic because "cleaner" looks too mainstream blah, blah blah-if this isn't you, then join us in laughing at these poor souls. It's one thing, for example, if you have political beliefs that make you refrain from computer technology or your resources, cash or otherwise, are limited and you're doing what you can. But there's no harm in taking a moment to think about LAYING OUT your publication with both eyes open no matter who you are. We know everyone's not a graphic designer or an artist. But you needn't be. Scribbling a bunch of incoherent shit all along the borders for "artistic" effect or handwriting a bunch of "profound" stuff in between articles (that only you and your friends "get") to fill space and whatnot can work in capable hands, but let's face it, many aren't capable. It doesn't make you punk, it doesn't make you funky, it doesn't make you artsy etc etc. It's distracting and makes your shit look like shit. If you're not an artist, don't try to be. Folks, there really ARE some things that you shouldn't try at home and some things that OTHERS do better.
Yet another example is it that doesn't take a genius to realize that a third generation photograph printed via copier will look like Godzilla slipped on it and gave it back to you. If it looks like shit to you, it will look the same to your readers-this isn't brain surgery, folks. Find out what image copying options are available at your printers and try them. There are also books filled with copyright free images that you can use as well. Lay out your work like you give a shit and make an effort beyond fondling the gluestick. Being DIY does not mean being sloppy.
2) OBSERVATION: Should I trade with prisoners? Donny Smith has written a pretty damn accurate primer on how to deal with prisoner trading. If you aren't sure about such things we suggest that you read it elsewhere in this issue. Here, we'll take it even further by mentioning a few things not included in his piece. If you're into the mystery and excitement of trading with prisoners, we say go for it. Danger IS quite sexy. But be sensible if your street sense is lacking, seriously. We've had some cool correspondences from prisoners and have hopefully, given them some fun reading in return. But there have been instances when some letters have creeped even us out. If reading detailed accounts of why your potential inmate correspondent was incarcerated, for example, "...and I shot him five times in the face with a double barrel shotgun at point blank range..." etc, etc, creeps you out, then be prepared, most inmates have lots of time on their hands and many are willing to eventually, if not upfront tell you why they're in. This is not to say all are in for murder of course, but you get the picture. If you don't know what you might get into, don't waste your time and their stamps. Also, our experience has dictated that we do not write correspondences with any zine that we have sent. Mail letters separate from the zine that you send. Others may have had luck sending both together, but we've always been told that publishers supposedly don't write letters to their readers (eh?!?). It's rather impersonal, but hell, we didn't make this shit up. We say try both and see what works for you. And last, but yet again, not least: If you have a publication that depicts penetration (of the sexual type, dears) or lots of violence (violent penetration?), be prepared. Everything is censored going in and out of the system. It just takes one censor with their pantaloons in a bunch to get your work shipped back to you faster than the Space Shuttle on reentry. The two above examples have never fared well with us trying to get into the joint and have specifically been pointed out to us as the cause for return. As a result, we've spent tons of money sending stuff that intermittently ends up coming right back. Be wise and you may fare better.
3) YOUR FUCKED, DEPT.: "I'm gay, where do I send my zine?" Hello faggot. Here's some coffeetime, to wake up. We don't want to discourage queers from joining this hootenanny of counter-culture revolutionaries, but the truth is, queer zines aren't as prevalent as they were a few years ago, and you better have some good shit, not to mention, ACCESSABLE shit if you want to get noticed-otherwise, it's back of the bus for you, queen, and take yer zine witcha. If anyone has disputing information, please step up and pass the love. It's ironic that the rejected of the rejected in the underground and "normal" society are the least prolific and visible in their output. This is not to say queer zines are dead, because they're not. But they simply do not come close to the output and presence of their str8t counterparts. You're a little fish in a big ocean. But you do have other members in your school as well as sympathizers but you gotta find them, little Salmon-boy. The prime movers and shakers in zineland are straight flavored pubs for disenfranchised str8t folks that may include queer stuff, but not be centrally themed around this fragment of the community. If you're a gay male, people are not as likely to be as moved about your survival from cancer and the death of your lover as they would John Doe's angst ridden breakup with his girlfriend or the true horror of his parent's refusal to give him yet one more month of rent. This is not to say the vast majority of people are shallow idiots because there truly is a lot of intelligence and diversity that exists here in zineland, and you CAN cross platform your zine with str8t readers, You're just far outnumbered and will need to shout a little louder to make your voice heard and your zine visible. Dykes and their zines have it a bit easier all around. It's our theory that Str8t males make up most of the zinesters out there (this is not scientific, but serves this example well and we've heard others state the same so we'll just run with it) and given that idea, they make up the most reviewers that will get your work noticed. Think in terms of real life: Many, NOT ALL Str8t males, despite most of their claims of being accepting/liberal etc etc, will cower when it comes to publicly dealing with gay related issues, especially gay male issues, but will likely have no problem dealing with the concept of two women together (kinda think porno here, for example). The sisters are usually a bit more palatable to the overlords. Str8t males can relate to boobs, gay or str8t before they'll be able to even THINK of just your chest hairs (we won't even go there and mention the "P" word in a gay context). It's unfortunate, but this is what society does to its own, and the effects trickle down to even these underground depths. This is what you, if you're a gay male, are up against. Time to get that boob job, fellas, and seek out queer or queer-friendly reviewers who might give you more than just a patronizing line or two. Until you find your sources, don't be shocked to read such lines from your reviewers that go something like this: "I'M NOT GAY BUT, I LIKED THIS PUBLICATION blah blah blah". They may often have such proclamations of its author's Hetero orientation to distance themselves for sake of saving face to their readers from a publication that they've liked but happened to be a QUEER product. Just overlook this obviously brittle social stance and the reviewer's lack of faith in their own reader's intelligence that they won't lynch them for guilt by association. And never mind the ridiculousness of the fact that if the tables were turned, just about every review typed from our fingers here would have to begin the same way: "We're not Str8t, but we liked blah blah blah..." Just get used to it. If you're just starting out, you'll need all of the reviews that you can get. Believe that. For resource starters, you might try www.holytitclamps.com for you tech-whores, or write: Larry-bob, Box 590488, San Francisco, CA 94159-0488, for you snail mailers to get info on possible queer resources.
4) YEAH, AND?, DEPT.: "I'm So Angst Ridden And Rejected, I Wanna Die Zine": Well, then shit or get off the pot. We will never be accused of demeaning the impact of another person's experience. But in this instance, understand, that amongst fellow freaks, rejectoids, militants and mutants, depression and suicide can easily be called passé and uninspired amongst the jaded, not to mention, many have simply been there, done that with their own zines. Think of it this way: It's like any slasher movie series. Same ol' shit, different players though we desperately look for the newest plot twist that never shows itself. We love perzines, but if you are planning to do one with your funk being the large percentage of the content, then be creative with it and get the most out of the therapeutic workout. Therapy and validation are possible benefits from putting yourself out to people in your zine. But you will get neither when you get clowned for putting out mopyass shit that doesn't have any more edge than the 100 other zines that came before you.
5) LICENSE TO BE A BITCH: When you finally get to meet real zinesters, things to avoid, dept.: OK, this is going to get tricky. Virgins take notes. We can see the fragile egos of the crowd clogging our mails with vitriolic letters of rebuttal already. The more stable of the population will sit back and nod knowingly. Throughout the course of the years, it has pleased us to no end to finally meet and attach a face to the words and comix that we've seen & read. In many instances we've not been disappointed. It's the deer-in-headlights of the bunch, those in social gatherings of zinesters, at conventions, etc, etc, that are the real, walking, breathing nerdgeeks that you thought existed only in the movies and are clueless as to how one should interact in social gatherings. It starts us to wondering at times, just what the fuck are we doing in this crowd. Listen folks, we know the underground is full of an eclectic assortment of colorful and eccentrics personalities. What would it be without them/us? Why would any of us even be here without such company? And given that, differences will occur. It has amazed us (for we amaze easily, as you can tell), that so many people in the zine scene are either without the most rudimentary of conversation skills and/or are rude as fuck, with the concept of civility being as foreign as Osama Bin Laden in a Victoria's Secret commercial. CONVERSATION SKILLS: For example, most conversations are two-way affairs. You give some info, the other person reciprocates and, give or take, it becomes an even exchange of ideas and information. When the conversation starts leaning primarily towards the interests of one party, that is called an IMBALANCE otherwise known as being ONE-SIDED (the guilty party should quietly or loudly acknowledge this and make an effort to correct the problem). If said perpetrator fails to realize the error of their ways as well as that god is watching this social blasphemy unfold, it then spirals uncontrollably into the realm of social Satanism. Yes, the horrible culmination of events, when "I" becomes the lead into every other sentence, the affliction that can only be attributed to demonic possession-that which is called SELF-AGGRANDIZING BULLSHIT. A good excor-therapist or a nice smack in the face will assist them in snapping out of this dysfunction (don't try to walk away, they'll just follow you!)." On RUDENESS: Can't we all just get along? Why is it the least visible of the underground are always the ones with the fattest egos and the most shit to talk? That's not to say that some of the heavier hitters don't need a house dropped on them either, but we swear, this more so is a phenomena amongst the less connected. OK, fine, you may know this and that person, but what exactly is it that you do and why should we give a f*ck? Well, this is all kinda like the above example (but you get the picture) so we'll move onto people who don't know how to reply to comments except but in two or three word sentences and no follow up: "That's cool", "That's neat etc, etc. How sad that this is the extent of their opinions gallery. The English lexicon is a shiny happy resource, abuse it, explore it, be free with it, hell, IT'S FREE, so USE IT! If this is you, PLEASE work on a few things before exposing yourself and others to more social torment.
6) I'VE COPIED EVERYBODY ELSE'S WORK AND STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT TO PUT IN MY ZINE: A zine is one snapshot of its creator's truth at the time of publication. It's your hardcopy of that which is in your head and a calling card for others to know you by. This is not to suggest that each publication that you'll put out will be a revelation of profundities to you and your readers, but that for the most part, most zinesters will not likely put in even filler that doesn't have a minutia of significance to them: i.e. poetry zine creators will not likely put a report on the Soul Train Awards into their work simply to fill space. We all get a little paranoid when it comes to putting our work or issues out. We'd bet money that even the most militant zinesters hope there's someone out there who will receive their work well. Otherwise, why do it? We've read about some of the most mundane shit like someone being stuck at his or her office working all day. Who'd give a shit? But the writing was creative and engaging, and surprise! We enjoyed reading about that person's boringass day at work and moved on to finish the rest of the issue. If your content feels right, it probably is. If it feels a little off, well.
7) COMIX ARTISTS WHO SUCK, DEPT.: HA! Gotcha with that title, eh? No...as above, there will be no particulars cited. Just some peeves that are handed out on the SUCKgestion platter. Fellow artsy-fartsies, and we're addressing those of you who haven't been hipped to this yet. But, hey, can you get a firmer grasp on the medium in which you work in? The copy machine is not an exacting instrument of reproduction, nor are its capabilities easily harnessed, but you can come close.
PREPRODUCTION: If you do a mini, you'll likely will only need to draw a half or a size up if you don't work 1:1. We suppose this advice could be said for whichever size your printed comix happens to be. If you work 1:1, which means, the same size as the printed piece with no reduction, then by all means, find an art paper or board that doesn't allow your ink lines to bleed. Without any reductions, the bleeding/feathering effect is easily visible and looks pretty bad when spread out over numerous panels in an issue. Of course, this is the zine arena and there's room to breathe, but flexing your creative muscle and being lazy are two different things. If you don't know how to fix this, here ya go: Bristol board will offer probably the best paper density that minimizes bleeds. Sketchbook paper tends to be thinner and more porous and doesn't withstand long holds of the pen without it absorbing ink in a sponge-like fashion. TONES: If you work in tones, then you'll need to utilize toning features available at the printer or on, say, Adobe Photoshop to capture the shades. Otherwise, all of that work drops out of the final, or remnants are visible that just makes your work look muddied and unclean. Zipatone (those rub-on dots) are near impossible to find, so axe that. Work backwards, see what your printer is capable of doing in reproducing your art and incorporate that into your project's conceptualization and execution. TECHNIQUE: Find your own technique that makes you comfortable. This isn't art class.
TALKING SHIT ABOUT OTHER ARTISTS/CREATORS: Hey, art is highly individual and not one person is the preeminent critic or artist. The critic who unmercifully rips apart a creators work without constructive elements in their criticism tends to be the least creative of the two but just possesses the linguistic skills to deconstruct that which he/she cannot create on his/her own. Likewise, an artist/creator who is first to throw a paintbrush tends to be the one with the least amount of grip on their own work and thusly starts shit to remove focus on his/her utter lack of comprehension of their own creations. That said, watch your mouth if you think that you're the small press comix pimp-daddy. You may want to watch your back, since there're about 100 others ready to knock you off your pedestal and are working on doing so right now. But get past some of the bullshit, and there's a new horizon of equally quirky artisans awaiting your arrival. And who knows, if you're lucky, they might be nice to you.
8) ZINEOUS OUTPUTUS PROLIFICUS: Dispel any notion that the more prolific that you are in putting out a zine is not an indicator of the quality contained within your publication. Double digit issue #'s LOOK pretty, but what's inside counts. If that's one of your driving forces, then stop, the devil done led ya wrong. Few people have put out numerous issues that are consistently high in quality as well as content. If you think you are able to be among the Cometbus's, Murder Can Be Fun's, Ped Xing's etc, etc, then go forth young zinester, go forth and multiply them thar publications. To the rest, take your time. It's quality, not quantity. Size does not matter. It's what's inside, dear. Shall we go on or are you having "mommy" and Godzilla flashbacks yet?
9 And beyond) ETCETERA, ETCETERA: In closing, this list can be added too by us as well as you reading this, right now and years from now as new experiences are garnered. It's open ended. As we'd said, it is by no means all-inclusive nor do we claim it to speak for everyone. Wherever you end up standing in the trappings of the underground press will dictate the evolution of these and other ideas to fit your own experiences and course. They may even not speak to you at all. Whatever the case, let the good and bad of the zine world serve as the catalysts, the inspirations to your own creative endeavors. The tools and resources are right here in front of you. Now come kick our asses with your work.
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.
WHY I LOVE BAD REVIEWS...
...in which Jeff Somers plucks his head out of his own ass for a moment to explain why he wishes all the reviews he got were bad reviews
I AM NOT a proud man. I've begged for my drinks. I've crawled on the floor looking for loose change. I've begged people to read my zine[1]. Lord knows there isn't much I'm ashamed of any more, and pretty soon I expect all that residual shame from childhood to be burned out, leaving me as some sort of Homo Superior, ready and willing to take charge of this planet. Until I evolve those Jedi Mind tricks, however, I bide my time publishing and contemplating the world around me. And drinking[2].
Not being a proud man, I've never worried much over reviews. A zine is usually such an idiosyncratic production that it cannot, by nature, achieve a large audience. That's why movies and bestselling books suck so badly: in order to appeal to that many paying customers, the Entertainment in question has to satisfy a broad range of tastes and expectations. In other words, in order to appeal to that broad an audience, most stuff has to be bland, obvious crap. It has to suck. Zines, for the most part, are far too personal, and far too specific in their appeal, to ever garner nationwide love[3]. This usually means that even in the relatively small world of zine publishing it's hard to please a large number of people, and even the most well-regarded zines or ziney-writers have their detractors[4].
Add in the fact that everyone in zinedom seems to be reviewing everyone else-and I mean everyone-and you're pretty much guaranteed to receive some bad reviews in your time. I, for one, don't view this as a bad thing. I like bad reviews. I prefer them, actually. Good reviews are nice and all, but give me a snappy, well-written bad review and I'm much happier. The reason for this is simple: bad reviews offer much more by way of snappy advertising slogans. Like Matt Dillion's character Cliff in Singles says: all this negative energy just makes me stronger[5].
BAD REVIEWS A-GO-GO
The best bad review I ever received is easily from Vic Flange on the web site fleshmouth.co.uk. This inspired little gem went: "Inner Swine is a site about a zine about something or another, and unfortunately tries to be a catalogue for various publications, plus a sampler, plus a web site. There is much that suggests this should be good...but it tries too fucking hard to stay on the right side of mass appeal. So what does that mean? It means it's wank. Come on, stick your fucking necks out. You have nothing to lose but your fucking heads." It gives me the instantly memorable slogan The Inner Swine: It Means it's Wank! The second-best bad review I ever got appeared in Ten Things Jesus Wants You to Know: "This is an honest zine, so I will be honest. Most everything in here I didn't need to read." This gives us the equally snappy The Inner Swine: Most Everything in Here, You Don't Need to Read. See how this works? Good reviews, while heartwarming, don't offer up this kind of advertising fodder, and lord knows accolades don't pay the bills. I mean, a slogan like The Inner Swine: Not Bad for a Jersey Zine just isn't snappy, dammit, and The Inner Swine: Jeff Somers is a damn fine looking man just sounds made up[6].
Plus, good reviews are wasted on a smug bastard such as myself, because they simply meld in with the chorus of congratulatory voices in my head, singing Oompa-Loompa songs which rhyme zine with keen[7].
What I really enjoy about bad reviews are when they're wrong. Not about the quality of my writing or of my zine, which is wholly subjective, but about actual facts. Checkable things. Like once a reviewer from maximumrocknroll got all bent out of shape because the 'fake letters to the editor' weren't very funny. This was best explained by the fact that they weren't fake[8], which I think would have been obvious to a gas huffing moron. Or when the reviewer for Punk Planet recently worried over the DIY nature of my zine because it's distroed in Tower Records, when Punk Planet itself is distroed in Tower Records. Things like that made my day, because it gives me an opportunity to be sarcastic. Nothing gives me greater joy in life than being sarcastic[9].
It's one thing if a bad review discusses specifics in an intelligent and critical manner-I've had plenty of bad reviews I can't really argue with. It's the smug, no-substance reviews that boil down to "I didn't like this because I got a bad feeling from the cover, so I didn't actually read it, and you shouldn't either" that bring me joy, because quoting them in big block letters just makes the reviewer look bad. Joy! I mean, how hard is it to do basic factchecking with zines? Okay, considering that most of our zine publishers pack up and move every three months, I guess it could be kind of hard to factcheck a review. Of course, you could actually read the damn zine, even if you were handed twenty zines and asked for reviews in three days. But then, I suppose having the correct information and informed opinions goes against everything that zines stand for. They certainly go against everything my zine stands for.
Until next time, friends, treasure your bad reviews. Paste them in big letters on the front covers of your zines. Print up vinyl stickers at stickerguy.com with choice phrases. March into your local libraries and shout them out at the top of your lungs until the cops drag you away. Be proud of your bad reviews, because you can measure how cool you are by how many people hate you.
FOOTNOTES
---------------
[1] please read my
zine
[2] Jack Daniels, yum
[3] which is not to suggest that zines
cannot suck, because many-oh so many, and probably yours-do
[4] even I have
my detractors, which is shocking to me every time I think of it
[5] Matt
Dillon is one fine-looking man
[6] which it is.
[7] Charlie and the
Glass Elevator is the little-known sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
on which the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was based. Little known
because it sucked.
[8] though they were right about one thing, they weren't
very funny
[9] except buying liquor and cigarettes for underage kids, of
course
The Reviews
Dan Taylor
PO Box 5531, Lutherville, MD 21094
www.dantenet.com; dante@dantenet.com
Dan Taylor moved to
Maryland six months ago and is still discovering the joys of Pit Beef. He
currently publishes The Hungover Gourmet: The Journal of Food, Drink, Travel
and Fun, hangs out at thrift stores and auctions, and is not a bad guy,
despite what some people would have you believe.
Jack #1
($2, 24 pp. Digest-sized)
234 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA. 19106 (Note:
the Boston address listed in this issue is out of date)
Jackmagazine@yahoo.com; www.geocities.com/jackmagazine
Ratting out the
crappy goings-on of your workplace surroundings is fun. My best "worst job"
involved emptying and inventorying crates at a music publishing warehouse. The
days were long and dull but we were able to spend the day recovering from the
previous night's activities. Oh, and we were ripping off the book publisher
that shared the other half of the warehouse. Good, cool coffee table books and
reference works that I still have. My worst "worst job" was working as a
marketing director for a chain of retail stores. The commute sucked, the hours
sucked. The owner was a money-grubbing weasel who I'm pretty sure was coked out
of his mind 90% of the time. When I decided to walk out the door he was in the
process of falsifying financial data in order to make the company look better
to investors.
JACK comes to us courtesy of "Jack Masters," who works as
a journalist covering the world of technology. Okay, so it might not sound ripe
for a fun and funky little zine. Then again, great zines have come from less.
"Jack" uses the zine as his sounding board, a place to share the stories about
creepy hardware reps, lying companies and the day-to-day minutiae that only his
friends were privy to. Granted, it drifts off into preachiness on occasion, but
hey, it's a hell of a job for a first effort.
I'm not sure if JACK will
reach the level of great workplace zines like TEMP SLAVE, FAST FOOD JANITOR or
WORKING FOR THE MAN. For that to happen I have a feeling that "Jack" will need
to open up the pages to outside contributors after another installment or two.
That said, it's an excellent debut and I'll be looking out for more.
UNSHAVEN CHI #1
($2, 32pp, digest-sized)
Ben Steckler
PO Box
7273, York, PA 17404
I feel sorry for today's kids. Sure, they're growing
up in a world made more uncertain by terrorist attacks, the threat of war, and
- of late - a sniper making the rounds of the suburbs here in Maryland. But far
worse than that is the state of cereal and Saturday morning TV! I long to get
up on a Saturday morn, crack open a box of Sugar Corn Pops and sit back with a
few hours of good old non-PC Bugs Bunny and Road Runner cartoons. Maybe even
some Josie and the Pussycats, Hong Kong Phooey, Lancelot Link or Touche Turtle.
Sigh. Today they get force-fed Jackie Chan or (worse yet) educational
programming while their parents WATCH WHAT THEY EAT! Aigh!
Apparently,
I'm not alone in these desperate times. How else do you explain Ben Steckler's
UNSHAVEN CHI #1 showing up in my mailbox? It's got a Fall '99 date on it yet a
higher power somehow saw fit for it to come my way. Why am I getting all
sugar-high freaky on you? Well, this is one big issue-length love letter to the
cereals, marketing and mascots of those marshmallowy glory days. Reading it and
rediscovering fallen comrades like Professor Goody and Sugarman was a
lightly-frosted trip down memory lane.
SCATOLOGICAL THINK CAP
#3
($2, 36 pp., digest-sized)
Josh Bowron
PO Box 13085, Macon,
GA 31208
Anybody that has had to deal with them knows that realtors, in a
word, suck. My roommate and I rented one of three units in a house located in a
snooty Jersey suburb. The house stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the
historical homes surrounding us, and we didn't help matters by carousing till
all hours. Regardless, the cheap rent came with a couple caveats: one, the
landlord offered no assistance if problems arose; and, two, he might just sell
the property without notice.
The latter came true in the spring of 1995
and we found ourselves at the mercy of an obnoxious, bottle-blonde realtor
named Suzie who had an annoying habit of "forgetting" to call us about
appointments to show the place and once left the keys to every unit in the
house on the front lawn for an entire day.
All of this means that I
could feel, I mean really feel, for what Josh and Brittany went through while
they housesat for an acquaintance. What began as a rent-free dream turned into
a hellish, realtor-driven nightmare complete with "forgotten" calls, surprise
visits, nasty notes and much more. To their credit, these two seem like they
handled it much better than we did, though the result was pretty much the
same.
The writing is fast-paced and conversational, like you're
listening to a close friend spin the tale over burgers, o-rings and way too
much coffee at the diner around 3 am.
WATCH THE CLOSING DOORS
#19
($2.50, 24 pp., digest-sized)
Fred Argoff
1800 Ocean
Parkway #B-12, Brooklyn, NY 11223-3037
When I first dipped my two into the
great big zine pool I didn't know what to expect. I was a film freak back in
those days and I didn't know anything existed outside my world of photocopied,
typo-ridden newsletters drooling over the latest gore flicks. As my exposure
broadened and I started getting more and more publications, part of me longed
to go back to that original rush of discovery.
WATCH THE CLOSING DOORS
was like a shot of adrenaline to my jaded senses. It's what got me into zines
to begin with. A topic, loved by its editor, celebrated, embraced, mocked,
loathed and exalted, all in the course of 24 wonderful pages. What pains me is
that 18 previous issues have come and gone under the radar and I want to read
them all!
My only complaints are of the most minor variety... the
Subway Diary is a wonderful piece, but too short at only a page. And the photos
are too dark to really appreciate the great commentary that accompanies them.
In other words, somebody get this man a scanner... QUICK!
CRYPTOZOA
#2
($1.00, 16 pp., mini-digest)
Androo Robinson
C/o Ped Xing
Comics, 2000 NE 42nd Ave. #303, Portland, OR 97213
Regular readers of XD
are already familiar with Androo's work, so I certainly don't have to go into a
description of the talent and quality at work here. What we're offered in this
second installment of the series (he promises "There is more" on the back
cover) is a graceful and artistic take on the one-panel comic, which is truly
an art form of its very own.
There is no elaborate set-up at work here.
Sometimes there isn't even a punchline. Instead, we're offered snippets of
dreams and waking life that are sometimes thought-provoking, sometimes
laugh-out-loud funny, and sometimes the kind of sharp, witty sketches that
evoke a gentle, knowing chuckle.
SATSUMA #2
($2.50, 36 pp.,
digest-size)
Sara Schaefer
Satsuma_zine@hotmail.com;
www.yobobara.com
Right off the bat I have to say that I admire the hell out
of this ambitious blend of prose, poetry, art and commentary. I don't want
anybody to get the wrong idea. But something kept itching at me during the
course of reading it.
It's full of pieces that hit the mark and miss
wildly, sometimes within the very same piece. There are stabs at humor, a New
Orleans photo essay that I wished were more fleshed out, and an unfocused piece
about the director of Donnie Darko that seemed, well, out of place.
I'm
not a believer that every zine has to have a narrow focus, or a focus at all.
Hell, that's what makes zine publishing such a grand and cathartic endeavor...
no editors to cut pieces, no corporate ad giants to appease. But, reading
SATSUMA, I got the distinct feeling that there was a better publication lurking
beneath the surface. A great publication just itching to get out. And maybe
that's what made me feel so conflicted. There's potential here, and it's far
better than much of what lands in the ol' mailbox. But aren't we always harder
on the ones with the brightest future?
LADY CHURCHILL'S ROSEBUD
WRISTLET #10
($4, 48 pp., half-legal)
Gavin J Grant
Small Beer
Press, 360 Atlantic Ave., PMB #132, Brooklyn, NY 11217
True confession
time, gang. I am a certified, card-carrying pop culture junkie. B-movies on
cable. 70s power-pop on vinyl. TV shows that deal with superheroes and books
that rarely stray into an area that anybody would call "fiction."
Which makes me think that maybe, just maybe, I wasn't the person for something
with such a high-falutin name as this publication. I also have very bad eyes,
so 48 illustration-light pages all set in the same typeface made this, um, a
bit of a daunting task.
Now that I've gotten the nitpicky gripes,
physical shortcomings and guilty pleasures out of the way, I'll be the first to
admit that there's plenty to recommend here. First, you can probably tell that
I'm not "a novel guy," so I was delighted to discover that the bulk of the mag
was made up of short stories. They're the perfect length for my
short-attention-span brain.
Second, if variety is what you're looking
for, LCWR has got it in spades. A sprinkle of poetry (kept to a thankful
minimum while still achieving "literary" status), an intelligent film column
(though I'm not sure who hasn't discovered the work of Jack Hill after all
these years), and stories that range from the creepily-fantastic ("The
Mushroom" and "Lost Connections") to two tales that are exciting, interesting,
dramatic, funny and compelling ("What's Sure to Come" and "Born on the Edge of
an Adjective").
Like any good literary collection, not everything here
will turn you on, section your grapefruit or blow your skirt up. But each and
every page holds something for you to discover and take in.
Erin Quinlan
71 Storm St., Apt 2C, Tarrytown, NY
10591
DanAndErinQ@aol.com
Since I don't have the spunk
or stationary needed to assemble my own freestanding press release, I'd like to
commandeer this opportunity to vaunt the spring 2002 issue of ONE FINE
MESS, which is nearly in its final stages of production and just in time
for the holidays! This insuppressible, 34-page tour de force features in-depth
coverage of now-unseasonable subject matter, ambitious stabs at appealing page
design, and no more than four significant typos. Were my husband and I laboring
in a void, or merely avoiding labor? The matter can be settled only by you, the
white-hot tastemakers of today's boot-cut literati. Your calendar may scream
November, but spring hasn't sprung until you cozy up with a limited-edition
copy of ONE FINE MESS, your portable piece of sunshine.
MR.
PEEBODY'S SOILED TROUSERS & OTHER DELIGHTS
No. 15, 30 pages,
digest
Let me begin by stating that from time to time, I recline in my drab
little cubicle at work and wonder in a melancholy way about the lives of other
zine publishers and countercultural creative personalities, and without fail I
conjure a vicious swirl of productive, photogenic hipsters undertaking
interesting projects at offbeat hours of the day, shaking their oily little
haircuts into perfect formation, wearing imported sneakers and getting
magnificently high on exciting drugs, all while I suffocate from nine to five
beneath the reeking mattress I call my day job. MR. PEEBODY'S SOILED TROUSERS,
which is built mostly of Jason's daily diary for the month of August 2002,
offers an utterly refreshing perspective. This is due to its down-home manner
and complete lack of painstaking, premeditated coolness. I was infinitely
comforted to learn, for instance, that, like me, Jason is often too tired to
even go out drinking on Fridays. I am pleased that he occasionally subjects
himself to uninteresting films (Moulin Rouge, in this issue) and spends a good
deal of time just hanging out with his girlfriend. Other events include a
disappointing turnout - but a fun time - at the L.A. Zinester's Picnic, a dream
of a gruesome bear attack, the unholy heat of Los Angeles in the summer, and
sadness at his parents' newly announced separation. He also writes an
explanation of the zine's title, though a person could probably explain it
herself with help from an educated guess.
$2
Jason, P.O. Box 93133,
Los Angeles, CA 90093
RETAIL WHORE
No. 7, "The Stalking
Issue," 40 pages, digest
RETAIL WHORE is amazingly thorough in its
treatment of the theme. There are no recipes, no poems and no unrelated items.
The zine really is completely about stalking, mostly with regard to editor Kat
Raz's firsthand stalking experiences. The mood throughout, too, is unwavering:
gleefully and unapologetically off the rails. She offers an overview of
prominent zine boys and their stalkability (Al Burian: unstalkable due to
proliferation of groupies; Eric Lyden: too overexposed for authentic stalking
purposes); a timeline of real boys and celebrity boys who have captured the
editor's obsession since 1985, with notations made for those Kat has either met
or received letters from; an illustrated anatomy of a prototypical stalkee (big
brains, knobby knees, illness-prone); an interview with Caroline Sullivan, who
wrote a book about her adolescent obsession with the Bay City Rollers; tips for
carrying out your own stalking (Google your prey, dial his phone number from a
pay phone, dress like a supermodel and finagle your way into glitzy celebrity
events); and an interview with Krista Garcia, publisher of Scaredy Cat Stalker
zine. My favorite piece was Kat's recollection of writing a fan letter to film
actor Dante Basco. (Basco's talent agency apparently forwarded the envelope to
his home address without refreshing the postage, and the package was returned
to Kat with his coordinates slapped on the front of it. She found the
corresponding telephone listing, called him up, and had what sounded like a
very civil 10-minute conversation with him. What a pro she is!) It just goes to
show the victims of this volcanic bad-ass shouldn't feel hounded; they should
feel preferred. And they should definitely look into getting ahold of her zine
before she gets ahold of them.
$1
Kat Raz, P.O. Box 688, Evanston, IL
60204-0688; retailwho_re@hotmail.com
SECRET MYSTERY LOVE
SHOES
No. 1, Summer 2002, 42 pages, quarter
So. In a general way, I
can tell you this is a well-rounded and endlessly appealing zine built of
comics, how-to pieces and anecdotes, with some items typed and some presented
in Androo's terrific font-like handwriting. More specifically, I can tell you
my favorite feature was "Drawing Comics from Memory," where editors Androo and
Maria endeavored to recreate, without looking at them, characters from popular
Sunday funnies such as Garfield, Dennis the Menace, Dilbert and Blondie. They
provided word bubbles, too, that were so killingly funny and precise I was
obliged to pause and acknowledge that I had stumbled into the midst of stark,
raving genius. Genius! Also: appreciation for Frisbee, an accompanying glossary
of Frisbee moves, and advice on how to throw the damn things. (Maria may be the
sport's answer to Mr. Miyagi: "Think of your arm and the Frisbee as a cinnamon
roll," she writes, and it works!) Also noteworthy are Androo's "reviews" of
books he's never read, his illustrated list of things he's stolen and things
that have been stolen from him (the rubber hippo incident was particularly
heartbreaking), and the SMLS paper dolls insert. Oh, and Maria's captivating
home-improvement guide entitled "How to Decorate With Crap." In fact, the whole
thing is a gem, an esteemed bundle of really interesting, funny, splendidly
executed ideas brought to life by smart people. Please order it. I mean,
really. If I try to say any more, I'll just start stuttering.
$2/trade
Maria Goodman and Androo Robinson
2000 NE 42nd Ave., PMB 303, Portland, OR
97213
DRIVING BLIND
No. 1, 23 pages, digest
DRIVING
BLIND is the first zine effort of Erin H., a 19-year-old college student with
congenital muscular dystrophy. She'll cringe at that description, for sure,
since she writes that she's never defined herself as a disabled person
requiring round-the-clock medical attention; rather, she considers herself a
Superman-obsessed bookworm who loves to eat Pringles. And happens to have
muscular dystrophy, the way others happen to have blue eyes or big feet. But
since her wheelchair-bound perspective is relatively uncommon, it should be
noted. In this issue: feeling at odds with the handicapped community, a letter
to the grandfather she never met (and who, judging by his sultry Navy
photograph, was a full-on smooth operator), diary entries from last fall,
thoughts on the joy of reading, zine listings, and a page of obsessions. I also
really liked the essay she wrote about her grandparents' old house in
Elizabeth, New Jersey. She remembers the décor and the Cuban cooking and
the pet parrot and the Spanish game shows blaring from the television, and
wonders how so much could have fit into such a tiny place. A person kind of has
to wonder the same thing about this tiny zine.
$1 or trade
Erin H.,
P.O. Box 656, Keyport, NJ 07735
cubanerin83@hotmail.com
SHOT BY
A RAY GUN
"Alligator Alley," No. 1, Jan. 2002, 31 pages, slightly
larger than quarter-size
This combination photo-comic zine follows a
single, linear story: Billy's trip to Marco Island in Florida with his friend
Brad, to visit Brad's parents. The photos are nicely reproduced, and the
illustrations are thick-lined and memorable: People are depicted with bulbous
eyes and rounded teeth, their joints falling in unnatural places. As his
vacation unfolds, Billy receives an introduction to bluegrass music, visits an
eat-in movie theater, hops to a nearby island teeming with antiquated hippies,
rides an airboat, and nearly wins some pocket money in a game of bingo. The
story is told almost in the manner of a children's book, with simple, airy
sentences that force the eye to the images for more information. The story
takes an unexpected turn near the end, however, when Billy buys a strange
Aborigine sculpture at a flea market and stashes it in Brad's parents' house,
which is the apparent cause of a serious blaze that kills the family's cat(!).
This doesn't stop Billy from deciding the trip is the best vacation he's ever
had, and he's nice enough to thank Brad's parents on the last page. (Really,
though, after tracking a haunted bauble onto the premises and burning their
house down with its tribal curse, I'd certainly show a little thanks to my
hosts, too.) Oh, and I think it's really cool that Billy counts the illustrated
cover as page one, the mark of some well-deserved pride in craftsmanship.
$1, trade or a nice letter
Billy McKay, P.O. Box 542, N. Olmsted, OH 44070;
billyCSQP@aol.com
DORIS
No. 18, 48 pages, quarter
In
this issue, Cindy's mother dies from an unspecified illness. It's interesting
how Cindy doesn't focus on the actual event but rather strives to capture its
peculiar emotional aftermath. She's living in a New York squat at the time, and
as she roams the byways of lower Manhattan, sights and sounds come diving at
her with a gigantic and overpowering clarity, as though the loss of her mother
has sent the world careening through a warped magnifying glass. Other aspects
of her life are told in wispy tendrils: following a boy she loved to Miami,
living in mobile home, and so on. Her sentences are wistful, sober and vivid,
each one seemingly hung with a tiny weight, though the typewritten pages have a
pounding slapdash immediacy about them. There are also thoughts regarding the
erosion of abortion rights, recipes and a wheatpasting reprint. The whole
effort is almost unbearably heartfelt. I mean, somebody should be paying this
girl to write.
$1.50 or $1 and two stamps
Cindy Ovenrack, P.O. Box
1734, Asheville, NC 28802
Donny Smith
PO Box 411, Swarthmore, PA 19081
dwanzine@hotmail.com; www.geocities.com/dwanzine
So I'm done
with library school finally, and seriously looking for a job. I was turned down
after interviewing for my dream job of social science librarian and assistant
archivist at a local university. One college before they would even interview
me wanted me to sign a statement that, among other things, I believed "in the
vicarious death of the Lord Jesus Christ for our sins . . . His personal and
visible future return to the earth and that salvation is received only through
faith in Him"! Two former professors have given me sort-of job offers, but the
pay sucks and no benefits, so thanks but no thanks. The good thing is that I
still have a job, even if it bores me. And I've got at least 4 Dwans in
the making right now. Dwan available from Donny Smith, Box 411,
Swarthmore PA 19081 USA for $2 cash, usually (though recent issues have been
$4; always free to prisoners)
GUMSHOE MONKEY NUMBER NINE (JULY
2002)
available from Ellen Adams, 5025 Thacher Rd, Ojai CA 93023 USA
for $1 or trade or "a nice long letter from you"
save_ronnie@yahoo.com
on the cover: many pretty ponies running
(rubberstamped); "I'm not sleeping anymore"
inside: memories of
summer camp, holding hands, bad boyfriends, belittling parents, and swingsets
comment: Ellen writes lyrical descriptions of the briefest moments
in her life, full of nostalgia or hurt or yearning. But they're like distant,
separated lightning flashes, and everytime the landscape lights up it's
different. Over the course of several issues of the zine I've been building up
a picture of who she is, but it's always changing. Partly that's the nature of
a perzine, partly it's because she's young. Maybe the more she writes the more
her writing will stretch out and fill in a few of the ellipses.
quote: Stacy, Karin and I were all sitting in front of my cabin (Kari and
Ashley were asleep) and Karin said, "Let's memorize this moment so we can keep
it forever." So we listened to the wind and looked everywhere around us, trying
hard to get a hold of everything. We were quiet for so long. Except for our
stomachs growling. But it was beautiful.
MIME COMPLIANT 9 MEMORY
(MARCH 2002)
available from Jesse Reklaw, PO Box 11493, Berkeley CA
94712-2493 USA for a stamp or SASE
reklaw@slowwave.com
on the
cover: a color drawing of a woman (or possibly man) walking down a city
street
inside: the wordless story of the same woman (or man) walking
down the street and what she notices and remembers
overall: the
tiniest, charmingest comic book
P.5!'S PUSSY MAGAZINE #10 (WINTER
2001-02?)
available from Pelin Morawski, 287 Bedford Ave #12, Brooklyn
NY 11211 USA for $20 for 4 issues postpaid (the cover price is $4, so I'm
assuming you should add $1 if ordering a single issue through the mail)
pussymagazine@hotmail.com
http://www.p5spussymagazine.com/
on the
cover: a friendly pussy (cat) and lots of cut-and-paste faces and phrases
inside: Old-school zine-style collages (with lots of bare breasts).
Cartoons. Tranny news and views and movie reviews. Quiz: "Are you an annoying
customer?"
quote: 2001 has been quite a year and I'm not just
saying that because of September 11th although it sure does suck that that
happened. Call me selfish, cold, unfeeling, unpatriotic, whatever you want but
I have to admit I'm getting really sick of hearing about it already just the
same way I'm getting sick of seeing american flags and american flag
paraphernelia, Britney Spears, Harry Potter crap and Bin Laden every god damned
place I go! . . . And what about George W. Bush? My god, I literally cringe in
disgust every time I see that guy's expressionless face or hear him speak! And
why is it that every american flag I've seen has a "Made in China" tag on
it?
overall: sassy and slightly confusing
PAPING #6 (NO
DATE)
available from John Mejias, 60 St Marks Pl #4, New York NY 10003
USA for $3
speedymyshka@aol.com
on the cover: a three-color
silkscreen of teacher and students with flowers
inside: Cartoons
about teaching and grief and adopting a cat and getting locked out of your
apartment and many other things.
overall: moving and
funny
RAINBOW EVERYTHING: KATIA'S UTTERLY GAY
EXHIBIT
available from Katia Roberto for free if you have Internet
access
http://www.sarcastra.net/exhibit/
on the "cover": many
colors!
inside: Katia's story of how she put up a GLBT Pride exhibit
in a rural Illinois library, what made the cut and what didn't and what she
didn't even try to put in.
quote: I had some trouble getting the
exhibit approved. They thought it would be all about sex. They thought it would
be promoting a "lifestyle". (Obviously, this was what I deserved after
proposing a banner for the exhibit proclaiming, "Hey, Kids! Vibrating Dolphins
and Butt Plugs Are Your Best Entertainment Value!")
another quote:
Okay, so maybe I have one very small joke. You see that purple bookmark? The
one that says "Are You Bisexual? Do You Not Label Your Sexuality?" Okay, the
concept of not labeling your sexuality makes me all smirky for some reason. It
makes me think of clove-smoking juniors in college who've read a lot of
postmodernism.
Yes, I know I'm a jerk. Sorry.
another quote:
Right, so everybody remembers the male-on-male sex guide from the last page? It
puts the x in sex, correct?
Let's contrast it with the dyke sex guide . .
.
Please note the gently flowing rainbow motif. Gentle, like
wombmoon-born-wombmoons embracing their menstrual cycles in a quiet
pseudo-pagan ceremony in the woods.
overall: sarcastric!
REDDOG REVIEW #4 (SPRING 2002)
available from Asha Anderson, PO Box
1436, Gardnerville NV 89410 USA for $2 cash or equivalent trade
reddog@ashabot.com; http://www.ashabot.com/
on the cover: an
abandoned car in the desert
inside: An account of a car trip into
the Nevada wilderness and the things found there. Drawings by an artists'
model, Ginger Dunphy. A letter and poems from her uncle, a beat poet who
recently died.
quote: The junction is marked by two huge billboards
announcing the upcoming town of Winnemucca. On one there is an enormous, green
Frankenstein face under which it is written "Where Life Begins". The other sign
proudly announces, "Winnemucca, city of paved streets." After that, it's a
straight shot south for several more miles. I love it. To me, the desert is a
treasure providing a vast and rare view of the planet as it is, land adrift in
space, in an atmosphere of its own making, a breathing sphere, an island within
an unfathomed sea.
overall: poetic-I mean, in a good way
THE SECRET FILES OF CAPTAIN SISSY 4 (JANUARY 2001)
available from
Andy Cornell, 3907 Wedgewood Dr, Portage MI 49024 USA for $2 (?)
captainsissy@girlswirl.net
inside: A trip to Times Square and the
lessons about capitalism he learns. Thoughts on the racial implications of
white activists' body odor. A paper on the commodification of teen angst. A
lengthy self-analysis, including "Venn Diagram representing the
intersectionality of Andrew Cornell." A response to the question Can men be
feminists? An evening in a Midwestern resort town and the lesson about
patriarchy he tries to teach. A compare-contrast paper on rage and sorrow.
Journals from a summer internship organizing for the AFL-CIO in California.
Thoughts on punk as ethnic identity.
quote: We had been talking
about calling it quits before the cop even arrived, so we didn't put up too
much resistance.
Instead, I quietly asked him, "Do you think you could fake
an argument with me, and like put me in handcuffs, and kick the table over, and
then throw me in the back of your car or something?"
"No," he replied,
flatly.
"It really would make a great ending for our performance art piece
. . ." I groveled.
"No. Take it down."
overall: pretentious (but
the internship journals are heartening)
SPEAKING PHAIRLY (GROWING UP
WITH THE MUSIC OF LIZ PHAIR) REVISITED (JUNE 2002)
available from Low
Hug Productions, PO Box 2574, Champaign IL 61825 USA for $2
lowhug@yahoo.com
inside: A.j. reprints her 1998 zine Speaking
Phairly, with new commentary.
comment: The fact that I don't like
Liz Phair at all was no barrier here, because while it's definitely an analysis
of Phair's music, it's also an autobiography, which is far more interesting to
me.
quote: I still remember that morning, and the late May sun
streaming in the windows of his attic bedroom, the smell of the sheets, him
getting up, turning his back to me and ejecting me with his words.
another quote: Now I save up my resentment and rage and direct it toward
those people who really deserve it-like the former boss who still owes me
money, people who talk in movie theaters, and Republicans.
overall:
Everyone should write something that merits a second edition. And it almost
made me get out our copy of Exile in Guyville for a listen (but not quite).
WORDS THAT SOAK UP LIFE: A READING COMPILATION ZINE
(2001)
available from Celia Perez, 2527 N California Ave 1S, Chicago IL
60647 USA for $3-$5 (sliding scale) + $1 postage (cash or stamps)
perezeeb@yahoo.com
on the cover: someone with a device that allows
her to read and wash dishes at the same time
comment: I should have
reviewed this in the last XD when I was talking about "accounts of your
adventures in reading." But this zine was so overwhelmingly full of stuff it
took me several months to get through it.
inside: After reading a
textbook in which "the editor wrote as if . . . we all grow up being read to
and that books are easily accessible to everyone," Celia invited a bunch of
people from all over the United States and from the Philippines to write about
books and reading.
Stories of first visits to libraries, favorite
librarians, favorite books, recommended reading lists, analyses of the politics
and economics of books, discussions of books made into movies (but not, if I
remember right, of movies made into books), and so on. It's a lot of fun and
eye-opening too.
quote: This movie SUCKED. I saw it again recently
after re-reading the book and was APPALLED. Jodie Foster was the queen of suck,
and the book is so incredibly good. Everyone involved with this film will join
Spielberg in hell. -Jenna Freedman
note: All proceeds from the sale
of this zine go to Women's Prison Book Project and FirstBook.
Mark Hain
PO Box 411, Swarthmore, PA
19081
This latest batch of review zines reminded me how much
comics amaze me: the skill, the complexity, the consistency, the interplay of
text and image, all of it impresses me to no end. I think part of the reason is
that, in spite of my now long-unused MFA in printmaking, I don't think I'd be
able to create a successful comic. While struggling to earn my degree, I
realized making art, or at least making art in an academic environment, with
its huge focus on competitiveness and having to constantly worry "will I be
able to get this into a juried exhibition?", made me miserable. These comic
zines I've reviewed remind me of a long-lost pleasure in drawing, getting lost
in an art project, and satisfaction in a job well done.
Speaking of
which, I'm nearing completion on my first zine project in years. I know in my
last appearance in Xerography Debt, I said I'd soon be posting a website, but
it, like everything else I want to accomplish in my life, it's coming along
excruciatingly slowly. Plus, simply living often gets in the way. Stay tuned,
though- maybe my next zine will be reviewed in a future issue of Xerography
Debt (hint, hint).
Starting off with the comic
zines….
ME AND EDITH HEAD
16 pages
A
well-drawn, engaging comic, full of interesting visual details. Lieber's
drawing technique and style, high contrast without sacrificing a full range of
gray tones, is obviously influenced by the Hernandez brothers (Love and
Rockets) without being derivative. The text, by Sara Ryan, is likewise
engaging. High school student Katrina is disappointed to learn that she has not
been cast as Titania in the school's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream,
and instead must handle the plays costumes. A teacher encourages her to read
the autobiographies of famed Hollywood costume designer Edith Head, who advises
"Develop confidence in your appearance and dress to match that confidence."
Taking the lesson to heart, Katrina finds the formerly demeaning role as
costume mistress an outlet for her latent creativity, and fantasizes about
dressing a popular girl in the play in a McDonald's uniform. Throughout it all
her parents' marriage crumbles. Quite enjoyable, although it seemed to end too
abruptly- I wanted to find out what happened next.
$2
Steve Lieber,
1727 NE Multnomah #13, Portland, OR 97232, USA;
www.unrewarding.com
MIME COMPLIANT
Numbers 6, 7, 8, 9; 16
pages each
Charming tiny comic zines that accomplish the difficult task of
relating a narrative solely through visuals. In number 6, "Have Not," a
seemingly indestructible flower passes from person to person. Number 7, "Work"
features a young zinester laboring in a copy shop (question- has Davida Breier
become such a zine icon that artists are drawing characters to look like her,
or is it just my imagination?) In "The Bug," number 8, an office worker gets
stung by an insect, setting off a chain of crabbiness and ill-will. In number
9, "Memory", the finest of the lot, a young man walking down a city street
returns an ugly little animal to a man who looks just like it. Considering the
scale of this comic, the amount of visual information contained within "Memory"
is amazing, and it even spots a full-color cover! Each of these comics has its
own visual style: 6 is high-contrast and very graphic, 7 and 8 employ a more
spontaneous, nervous line quality, and 9, beautifully drawn, uses toned screens
for a richer effect. Amazingly, these little treasures are virtually free- well
worth checking out!
Stamp or SASE
Jesse Reklaw, PO Box 11493,
Berkeley, CA 94712-2493, USA
Partially comics….
PUMPKIN BOY, A HALLOWEEN RHYME
24 pages
Told in clever verse,
with many thickly-lined illustrations, Pumpkin Boy is the story of a slightly
too perfect pumpkin who longs to be a jack-o-lantern. Passed over because of
his lack of any distinguishing malformations, he must determine what lengths
he'll go to in order to present himself to the Crown Prince of Halloween.
Strongly reminiscent of a children's book, I in fact found myself wishing
Pumpkin Boy had a bit more edge or darkness. Maybe I've just grown too old and
mean and crabby to appreciate sweetness.
$1
Meniscus Enterprises, 1573
N. Milwaukee, PMB 464, Chicago, IL 60622, USA
SECRET MYSTERY LOVE
SHOES
Number One (summer 2002); 44 pages
Two of zinedoms most
revered, Maria Goodman and Androo Robinson, collaborate on a mini which is
thoroughly delightful - how could it be otherwise? The contents are all over
the place, but it's all good, little glimpses into the couple's life together,
graced with Maria's unique writing style that blends equal measures sassiness
and self-effacement. Both Maria and Androo contribute small illustrations and
comics, the high point of which is their attempts to draw syndicated newspaper
comic characters from memory (that this drawing project, coupled with grilled
cheese sandwiches, was their means of dealing with insomnia makes me think
they'd be fun people to hang out with. I was inspired to try to draw the mom
from "Family Circus", complete with torpedo bosom. I am America's most
breast-obsessed queer boy!) Best of all, Secret Mystery Love Shoes just glows
with a sweetness, freshness and sharp sense of humor that is all too rare.
$2/trade
available from Maria Goodman & Androo Robinson, 2000 NE 42
Ave, PMB 303, Portland OR 97213, USA
Comic-free
zone….
ABUFF
#1; (although it's numbered as 42
pages long, I only counted 18)
I love this kind of thing- a zine about a
way of life so alien to me, it's endlessly fascinating. Holly and her companion
Bert are naturists, AKA nudists, living portably. Although I know it's not the
lifestyle for me (chairs are considered "effete", dwellings are heated only by
human bodies, and, you know, people don't wear clothes), I respect a lot of the
principles behind that lifestyle, many of which are represented within Abuff.
Features anecdotes, ideas and various "Strip Strategies" such as "Sneak streak
or jail wail?" and "Can nudists learn from homosexuals?". Reprints from similar
publications, including Holly's other project Dwelling Portably, are complied:
helpful tips on making bug repellents and bug barriers, how to shower using a
plastic jug, how to deal with ticks and how to make warm footwear out of sheets
of foam padding. The intriguingly titled article "Memoir of a Strip-Club
Bartender", along with another piece on misogyny by the same scholar,
unfortunately read like a chunk of someone's long-winded master's thesis, which
in fact they are. More interestingly, Holly prints her rebuttals of the essays,
and the author's subsequent defense. Not the most visually attractive
publication, future issues may benefit from limiting content in favor of a less
crammed layout and less eye-straining type-size (parts are actually in 4-point
type. I got out my pica pole and checked!)
$2
Holly Davis, P.O. Box
190-abf, Philomath, OR 97370, USA
DOBLE SENTIDO
(a Dwan
presentation)
42 pages
Dwan, the famed queer poetry zine, is my
partner's publication, so you can't trust me for an unbiased assessment. Doble
Sentido, devoted to Donny's translations of work by the Argentinean poet
Fabián O. Iriarte, features a beautiful cover and crisp, spare design,
not to mention some mighty fine poetry, in both English and Spanish. See for
yourself why reviews of Dwan consistently state "I don't like poetry, but I
like this zine". $2 cash, usually (though recent issues have been $4; always
free to prisoners)
Donny Smith, Box 411, Swarthmore PA 19081 USA;
dwanzine@hotmail.com
http://www.geocities.com/dwanzine/
LOW HUG
#7, $2, 38 PAGES
Laundry Basket: Tales of Washday Woe, $1, 32
pages
Speaking Phairly (Growing Up with the Music of Liz Phair)
Revisited, $2, 32 pages
A.j. Michel, editrix of Low Hug, a "popular
culture perzine", appears to have been enviably prolific recently. In her
words, the mission of her primary zine project Low Hug is "to merge the
personal and the popular" The latest issue features three poignant essays on
the intersection of private life, the media, and the events of September 11,
2001. A.j. writes about what she was doing that day, her response to the media
coverage, and the media she sought out for comfort. Jack Perisco finds
parallels between his response to the terrorist attacks and the plight of Tom
Joad in John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Jason Pankoke relates how the
events affected his day to day life as production manager of an alternative
newspaper and assesses other media coverage. Roughly half this issue is also
devoted to reviews of films, television, music, and zines.
Especially
enjoyable is A.j.'s one-off Laundry Basket: Tales of Washday Woe, an enchanting
mini containing 17 very short laundry-related anecdotes by a variety of
contributors. Most revolve around trying to make the best out of the unpleasant
chore of visiting Laundromats of dubious cleanliness and suspicious clientele.
Romance, humor, dryer lint, loose buttons, defecating infants, panty-stealing
pervs, and the race to get that last open machine can all be found herein.
Almost as good as the tiny tales are the clever names of Laundromats from
across the country that appear at the bottoms of several pages.
Also
in mini-form, A.j. has updated and reprinted Speaking Phairly (Growing up with
the Music Liz Phair). I don't know why so many of us enjoy both reading and
writing a hybrid of autobiography and music criticism, but this is a good
example of how the marriage is supposed to work. Now that I think about it, why
am I imposing some separation between music and life? There's very little more
powerful than music, and how it colors and reflects our day to day lives.
Regardless of the fact that I just don't get everyone's reverence for Liz Phair
(I know that she's liberating female sexuality and all, but I just can't get
into the music), I found A.j.'s writing on the presence Phair's music in her
life experiences astute, interesting and highly readable. And I'm not just
giving it a positive review because A. j. cites an old issue of my zine Boys
Who Wear Glasses as an inspiration. (It's gratifying to know that of the 8 or
so people who ever read BWWG, at least a couple found some inspiration in it.
Maybe A.j.'s even inspired me to get off my slug-ass and do a reprint,
too!)
(As I was finishing these reviews, we received issue #8 of
Low-Hug, which includes, among other things, a comparison of the comic, film
and screenplay treatments of Daniel Clowes' Ghost World.)
All available
from Low Hug Productions, ;PO Box 2574, Champaign IL 61825, USA ;
lowhug@yahoo.com
THOUGHTWORM
#8, 24 pages
The special
little treat accompanying issue 8, an actual baseball card in a tiny plastic
sleeve stapled to the cover, relates to the lead-off article, "Getting Rid of
Clutter." Sean discusses his life as a recovering pack-rat, outgrowing
childhood collections, trying to simplify life and deciding what to do with all
those old possessions (guess what he did with his baseball cards?) This issue
also features an interview with Greig Means, zine librarian at the Independent
Publishing Resource Center; "A Tribute to Columbia", written on the cusp of
moving away; and "A Return to the Living", thoughts on finishing a master's
degree in library science. Being in a relationship with someone who just
finished getting an MLS, a lot of this sounds all too true, and really makes me
think twice about my own plans to go back to school. Themes of growth and
making home run through this issue, of finding one's place in the world and
partaking in simple pleasures. Thoughtworm is an unpretentious perzine with a
refreshingly friendly tone.
$2
Sean Stewart, 1703 Southwest Pkwy,
Wichita Falls, TX 76302 USA [new address]; www.thoughtworm.com;
sean@thoughtworm.com
Fred Argoff
1800 Ocean Pkwy. #B-12, Brooklyn, NY
11223
Hey, kiddies, remember me? I usually write reviews for
this zine. But guess what? The Post Office wouldn't let me send the review
packet back to Davida using media mail - although that was exactly how she sent
it to me - then managed to lose the whole thing, anyway! Hopefully, this mail
adventure won't re-occur when it's time for the next issue and in the
meanwhile, keep readin' those zines.
The following zines and reviews
were lost in the mail (issue numbers unknown, but at least had a list of the
zines, right?): TYPICAL STUDIES, MARKTIME, RETAIL WHORE, CORVUS,
PASSIONS, and HIERONYMOUS BUSH.
Brooke Young
c/o SLC Zine Library, 209 E 500
South, Salt Lake City, UT 84111
byoung@mail.slcpl.lib.ut.us
I work for the Salt Lake City
Public Library where I spend most of my time ordering zines for our very cool
zine collection. I like long walks in the moonlight and bad fiction. I am a
working for a futile history degree that will be used to go to more school and
someday write romance novels. I watch an enormous amount of soccer, especially
of the English variety. For a good time email me byoung@mail.slcpl.lib.ut.us
BROOKLYN #37
True love is neither pretty nor full of fluffy
hearts and kittens. Love is an uncomfortable feeling and a gradual acceptance
of one's partner, warts and all. Fred Argoff loves his hometown, Brooklyn, in
just that kind of way. He writes about the city of his heart with equal parts
joy, exasperation, and complete understanding. My favorite part about this zine
is that it made me want to write about my own hometown so that Fred and I could
compare local dialects. I have never been to Brooklyn, but when I read this
zine, it felt like home. It is unfortunate that for me Brooklyn will forever be
associated with the knowledge that English soccer star David Beckham and his
wife Posh Spice named their first son Brooklyn after the place he was
conceived. I don't hold this against Fred, but I still can't quite get over it
either.
Send a couple bucks to Fred Argoff, 1800 Ocean Parkway, #B-12,
Brooklyn, NY 11223-3037
CHICAGO ABC ZINE #1
Ahh! Nothing
gets the blood moving like a little injustice. This comprehensive zine argues
that "incarceration is criminal" (p. 32) using an impressive lexicon of
anarchist party lingo. I have read more then a few zines like it in my day, and
while this one certainly ranks in my top ten favorite rants against the
injustices of the American penal system, I had a few problems with it. One
glaring issue is the solutions offered to replace prisons made me laugh so hard
tears came to my eyes. The idea of asking Ted Bundy to try "non compulsory
therapy"(p. 18) seemed a bit weak. Another pet peeve is stating statistics
without citing them. There may be countries "where violent crime is almost non
existent" (p.10) yet without any idea as to what those countries are, or what
information that statement was based on, I can't accept it as true. There are
some very moving stories and worthy causes highlighted in the zine, like the
information about court kidnapping. The saving grace of this zine is the few
times it forgets most of the political jargon and focuses on individual people.
Send $2.00 to South Chicago ABC Zine Distro, PO Box 721, Homewood, IL
60430; chicagoabc@azone.org
SCATOLOGICAL THINK CAP ("S.T.C.")
#3
The moral of the story kids, is that realtors are evil and some
things are too good to be true. This is the charming tale of Josh and
Brittany's move into a tres cher home in Georgia for free and the ensuing
disruption it caused to their lives. The move upsets their cats, their walks,
and their sense of order in this mixed up world. The image of Josh defending
the home from evil-doers with an alarm clock will stay with me for years to
come. I highly suggest a voodoo doll for the evil villain of the story, played
by Jenny the realtor. Anyway, I liked this zine.
Send some cash to Josh
Bowron, PO Box 13085, Macon, GA 31208
PAPING #6
How cool is
this guy? Maybe I would be able to draw better stick figures if I had ever had
an art teacher like John Mejias. Some of his comics are amusing and a delight
to read, while others are heartbreaking and stark. An unfortunate incident
involving a friend and co-worker leaves John feeling particularly torn apart.
While the subject matter is sad, there is cathartic feeling that shines through
in his work that allows the reader to feel a sense of hope by the end of the
zine. Paping also includes the work of other comics, some of which I liked more
then others. (That is the point of art, no?) The art installation in the middle
showing a winged bug playing the piano and a bear with a gun in its mouth gave
me nightmares, but the other comics were less disturbing and had more of a
narrative quality to them. There is even a story about a three-legged cat, what
more can you ask for? Send$3.00 to John Mejias, 60 St Marks, NY, NYC 10003;
speedymyshka@aol.com
FOR THE CLERISY GOOD WORDS FOR READERS VOL. 9,
#46 JUNE 2002
Any zine with a mission and a manifesto might expect some
idiot reviewer to question the abundance of proclamations of purpose. I am no
idiot and I am pretty sure that Brant could ninja kick my ass with a dictionary
and some yoga. Mr. Kresovich is much smarter then I am and a lot more well
read, but that doesn't mean that I don't aspire to be like him one day. This
zine makes me want to give up my embarrassing reading habits and just read the
things that he suggests, even though I know I never will. For the Clerisy
reviews books, zines, and movies in an informed kind of way that made me feel
like I was learning while having fun. This gives me added bonus points when
showing off my increased intellect to people who know even less about
literature then I do.
Send $2 or trade to For the Clerisy Good Words for
Readers, PO Box 404, Getzville, NY 14068-0404, kresovich@hotmail.com
THOUGHTWORM #8
Thoughtworm is the type of zine I would love to make
but never could. It is simple in design, complex in ideas, leaving the burden
of entertainment to words alone. Sean has perfected the essay form in such a
way that he can give the simplest of pleasures added depth and meaning. Issue
#8 has a baseball card on the cover (this one has the Twins third baseman in
1979 Greg Gagne) and deals with letting go of collections, finishing library
school, and an interview with Greig Means who runs the greatest zine library
ever at the IPRC in Portland. I want to be just like Greig someday. I liked all
the essays in this issue even if I didn't always agree with them. As a history
major I would love to one day debate the importance of collecting a personal
history and tactile memories versus freeing yourself from your possessions with
Sean, but this isn't the place to spark a cross-reviewer debate. Send $2.00 to
Sean Stewart, 1703 Southwest Pkwy, Wichita Falls, TX 76302 USA [new address],
www.thoughtworm.com; sean@thoughtworm.com
Christoph Meyer
PO Box 106, Danville, OH
43014
Shameless Self-Promotion: I do a zine called
TWENTY-EIGHT PAGES LOVING BOUND WITH TWINE and I sometimes write about
child-related things. If you'd like to read about our ideas on childrearing and
my wife's pregnancy, or the birth of our son, Herbie (at home with a midwife)
then order issues #2 and #3 of 28PLBwT respectively. There will also be more
Herbie-related writings in #5 which should be out by the time this is in print.
My fanzine costs $2 per issue or 3 for $5. Trades welcome.
ALTERNATIVE PARENTING PUBLICATIONS
Attention moms and dads! If you
want to read stories and advice about parenting, you don't need to turn to
those big fancy-pants glossy-covered parenting magazines. There are
alternatives and here they are. I could have cared less about reading tales of
babies and child-rearing until 16 months ago when my wife and I had our own
little bundle-o-joy, now I can't get enough. Each of the following publications
is a good read for parents or those expecting lil' ones. If you know someone
who falls into either of those categories, a fun gift would be to write all
these people and order them a big pile of parenting literature that'll be more
fun and interesting than anything they could buy at Borders or Barnes &
Noble. The only complaint I have is that none of these are written by guys. Am
I the only guy out there who writes about his kids?
LONE STAR MA
FALL 2001 & SPRING 2002
4-issue sub for $15 single issue ?$4?
Post Office Box 3096, Corpus Christi, TX 78463-3096
This "Magazine of
Progressive Texas Parenting and Children's Issues" hails from the state I grew
up in, Texas. Texas needs all of the "progressive" publications it can get. The
Fall 2001 issue is the inaugural issue and Mariah Boone, a.k.a. Lone Star Ma,
writes most of the articles, but the Spring 2002 issue has articles by a
variety of folks. In her introduction to issue #1 Lone Star Ma writes, "Welcome
to the inaugural issue of Lone Star Ma, the magazine of radical - excuse me,
progressive - Texas parenting and children's issues. It far too often seems
like we're living in the world of Big Oil and Gun-R-Us..." I know how she
feels. My wife and I live in a very conservative, rural area and we're raising
our son as a vegan, without TV, without vaccinations etc. Out here,
breastfeeding is even seen as somewhat radical. But publications like this let
"progressive" parents know that there are like-minded folks out there,
somewhere.
This is a "reader written" publication and is looking for
submissions. Although it occasionally focuses on Texas specific issues, most of
the content should be of interest to parents who happen to reside in other,
smaller states. Inside you'll find articles on breastfeeding, Montessori
Schools, poetry, teen volunteerism, vegetarian recipes and more on
breastfeeding. And both issues have a 1-page article by Tom Thomas, a.k.a. Lone
Star Pa, so I guess I'm not the only guy who writes about kids.
THE
FUTURE GENERATION: A ZINE FOR SUBCULTURE PARENTS, KIDS, FRIENDS & OTHERS
#11/MAY 2002
$2
China, Post Office Box 4803, Baltimore, MD
21211
The first issue TFG was put out in 1990 and this issue (#11) is the
first new issue in three years. But that's what fanzines are all about. The
first thing I noticed upon opening TFG # 11 were pictures of a group of six
bikini-clad, tutu-wearing pregnant women all lined up in row with huge smiles
on their faces. Upon reading the article I discovered that they're members of a
pregnant synchronized swimming team! If that doesn't peak you're interest then
you're just far too jaded. I love the thought of these moms-to-be floating on
their backs~ bellies sticking out of the water, executing synchronized routines
to cheesy music.
There are a few articles by contributing writers but
my favorite part was by the editor, China. She writes about raising her "young
teen". I'm guessing that means a 13 year-old. She has put aside a lot of her
youthful idealism. Kids grow up and they aren't going to be what you tried to
mold them to be. (Did you do what your parents wanted you to do with your
life?) They grow up and have their own thoughts and ideas, and China writes
about how she's dealing with this.
THE EAST VILLAGE INKY #13
$2 or $8 for a sub (no trades) Ayun Halliday, 122 Dean St., Brooklyn, NY
11201
This may be the most popular fanzine about parenting. TEVI is
entirely handwritten with lots of little illustrations. The illustrations
really make it a fun, easy read. The stories are all well written and
interesting. It's a real page-turner. All the stories are personal tales from
Ayun's life and most revolve around her two kids, Inky and Milo. This
particular issue has a lot of September 11th content since Ayun is from New
York and lives close enough to the World Trade Center that her husband saw them
fall from the window in their apartment. But even the September 11th stories
are purely personal stories with no dull, overdone political analysis. This is
top notch fun to read, little light entertainment. If you want to read in depth
features on parenting "issues" you'd best look elsewhere. But why would you
want to read about boring issues when there's fun stuff like TEVI?
ZU-ZU & THE BABY CATCHER #1
$2
Rhonda Baker, 2535 NE 46,
Portland, OR 97213
This little fanzine looks suspiciously like The East
Village Inky. It's small, handwritten and filled with little illustrations. She
even acknowledges her debt to TEVI in a review of that publication: "It's
probably obvious...or, maybe not...that I have been inspired mightily by Ayun
Halliday, author of The Big Rumpus and that treasure of a zine, The East
Village Inky." The format of both Z&TBC and TEVI (1/4 sized, handwritten
with drawings) is a very simple and effective format and even though Rhonda is
borrowing it from Ayun, it just works well for these types of stories.
Inside, there are plenty of fun, whimsical anecdotes about this and that. But
along with the fun, Rhonda also writes about midwifery. There are plenty of
illustrations throughout and although I must admit that I enjoy Ayun's writing
more than Rhonda's, I do find that I prefer Rhonda's illustrations. And that's
a sincere compliment because I really like Ayun's drawings. So if you enjoy
TEVI, give this one a try.
MIRANDA #7 & #8
$2 each
Kate Haas, 3510 Alder St., Portland, OR 97214
Of all of these parenting
publications I feel most in sync with Miranda. Kate Hass writes stories that I
can relate to. Most of the stories are about Simon, a.k.a. Mr. Baby. One of the
things that makes me like Kate is that she is continually looking for little
bits of time in which she can cram in a little reading. She bought her son a
tea set (down with gender roles!) and he plays with it enraptured, for up to
half an hour, just pouring the water from cup to cup. And during this time does
she catch up on dishes or laundry? No! It's time to read! I'm the same way, I
try to find something that will occupy my son for 10 minutes so I can sit down
and read. Kate doesn't even own a TV! My wife and I gave our TV the old heave
ho over a year ago. We did it partially because of our son. We didn't want him
growing up spending countless sedentary hours in front of tube watching
commercials and crappy kid shows. Kate was raised without TV as a kid and now
lives a happy life as a TVless adult. It gives me hope that it's possible to
raise or son without ever having a television in the house.
PUBLICATIONS THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH KIDS
ADULT RAMBLINGS
#9 AND #? (MAY 2002)
$1 or trade (personal, lit or travel fanzines
preferred)
Anastacia E. Zittel, Post Office Box 365, Douglas, MA 01516
It's stuff like this that keeps me reading perzines. The prose may not be that
of truly great writer who has spent a lifetime perfecting her craft but it more
than makes up for it in honesty and sincerity. Anastacia writes freely and
openly about things that other folks would shy away from. She gives a very
complete and moving account of a fight she had with her husband, Jon. There are
so many personal details in this account that most people wouldn't want to
publish it and although it left me cringing in spots because of the raw
honesty, I was unable to stop turning the pages. There's a bit where Jon and
Anastacia are fighting over who's stealing the blankets. It may be petty but
it's so real - a kind of reality you don't often get outside of fanzines.
All of Anastacia's writing is personal and about her life. AR is all
words- no pictures at all. I like it when a publication can stand on words
alone and I enjoyed both issues of AR cover to cover. There are parts about her
job (answering phones in a nursing home), her husband and her religion
(paganism). There is a lot written about a long-time friendship, which is
dying. Although this is the typical perzine subject matter, the most striking
things are the little details that others would censor and not share, and
that's makes AR stand out.
READ #20 SPRING '02
$4 $12/4
issue sub
READ magazine, Post Office Box 3437, Astoria, NY 11103
READ
feels like it's put out by a bunch of friends having a good time and I like
that. This issue has a theme of "Adrenaline & Crush" so there are lots of
articles and stories about thrill seeking and puppy love crushes. There's an
emphasis on geeky dorky nerd stuff like video game reviews, an interview with a
porn star, Japanese anime and even an interview with the inventor of Dungeons
and Dragons, Gary Gygax. While I have no interest in the first three geeky
items, I loved reading the Gygax interview! Repressed memories of blissfully
wasting away my adolescence playing RPGs (i.e. role playing games) came
flooding back. They even ask Gary Gygax "Do you consider yourself the King of
Nerds?" and he responds, "Nopers. I am just an avid gamer." But the nerdy,
sex-starved bits can go a bit overboard like when the object of their
misplaced, overabundant lust is animated, as when they ask an anime voice actor
"which anime character have you had the biggest crush on?" But the absolute
pinnacle of geekiness is when reviewing a video game called Final Fantasy X
they write, "...Lulu the magic user is one luscious, gothed-out hottie with the
biggest pair or [sic] mammalian projuberances [again sic] I've seen in a video
game since Leisure Suit Larry. Man, I'd like to rub my Rod of Power between
those magical orbs!" He goes on and even uses the phrase, "sweet pixilated
ass".
And while I'm on the subject of geekiness, I should mention the
band Rush. Somehow Rush and RPGs seem to go hand in hand. On page five is
printed the following: "Warning: There is a Rush reference every 1.72 pages." I
thought they were joking but as I read READ I was surprised and disturbed to
indeed find a plethora of Rush references. I didn't count them and divide the
result by the number of pages to check their figure. But I assume that they did
count and that 1.72 is accurate, although it seems like Rush was on every
single page. When interviewing the founder of a record label called BYO, they
asked him what his favorite Rush album was and he replied "I can't stand Rush.
I never understood the fascination of teenage boys' for skinny long-haired guys
that look like girls singing with high voices..." To me, a healthy appreciation
of Rush can only add to the charm of any publication. May I make a confession?
I once went to Rush concert and I own 2 Rush albums, possibly 3. I kind of like
Rush, Lord help me I do.
Overall, I find that the geeky goodness of
READ more than makes up for its few flaws (please recall the "sweet pixilated
ass").
Reading READ is like spending a long Saturday night with a group
of your closest dorky friends, playing RPGs and video games, sippin' ice-cold
Mr. Pibb, eating BBQ potato chips and listening to your favorite Rush album. My
favorite Rush album is "Roll the Bones". I don't even mind it when in the title
track, Rush indulges in a little white Canadian rap. I think I've revealed too
much. Man, I'm looking forward to seeing another issue of READ.
Eric Lyden
224 Moraine St., Brockton MA 02301
Ericfishlegs@aol.com
Howdy folks. Well, I'm here once again.
For the second issue in a row I am waiting to the very, very last minute to get
these reviews done. Last night I actually had a dream about these damn reviews.
In the dream Davida kept on sending me zines and I kept on reviewing them, but
I couldn't keep up because she just kept on sending them. I took this as a sign
that I'd better get these reviews done before I am driven insane. Though the
dream wasn't nearly as bad as a few days earlier when I was literally making
myself sick because my zine wasn't done yet...I think I need help. But help can
wait. What's more important- my personal well-being or zine reviews? Exactly.
So on with the reviews.
THE URBAN HERMITT #14
I know I
reviewed UH here before, but a while ago it all of a sudden occurred to me that
Urban Hermitt just may be my favorite zine in the whole world and if that
doesn't warrant a second review I don't know what does. The last few issues
have been about Sarah's travels to Hawaii, Australia, and Maui (is Maui part of
Hawaii? I dunno...) and it's just great reading. Sarah tends to make big fat
zines that take a while to read and that's a good thing. She also tends to put
out these big fat zines on a regular basis, which is also a good thing.
Send $2 + postage or a fair trade to Sarah O' Donnell, 1122 E Pike #910,
Seattle, WA 98122; Alienpeapod@yahoo.com
PLATFORM #1
First
of all, a round of applause for Elizabeth's first attempt at a zine. Yay and
hooray. And I gotta tell you, for a first attempt at a zine it's pretty damn
good. Hell, even for someone who's been at it for a while this is a damn good
zine. I was quite surprised to see that Elizabeth was new at this because her
zine has none of the trappings or roughness that first attempts at zines
usually have. None of that "I'm clearly making this up as I go along because I
just have no idea what I'm doing" quality most new zines have. Not that that's
a bad quality to have in a new zine, but Elizabeth just seems confident a sure
of what she's doing. This zine is mostly about Elizabeth's experience's playing
fiddle on the NYC subway (or "busking" as we in the know like to call it) The
busking journals are especially entertaining and amusing with her descriptions
of various patrons, how much money they leave, various anecdotes, etc. It's
great insight into something I'd never thought too much about. We've all seen
people on street corners or in subways playing music, but have we ever actually
thought about them? The few pages on her favorite Irish music are just sort
of... there. But I've never been a big fan of reading about music I've never
heard so take that with a grain of salt. Overall a very good zine and a great
first issue. Send a buck or 2 (no price listed, but it's 40 half sized pages so
use your best judgment) to Elizabeth Genco, PO Box 22722, Brooklyn, NY
11202-2722; ebess@threeofcups.com.
POWER TO EXPRESS PASSION VOL. 1
ISSUE 1
Hey, another first zine attempt. Another round of applause.
First of all, one really weird thing about this zine is that is the fact that
Kimberly only uses one side of the paper. Why? The only thing that makes any
sense at all is that she couldn't afford to pay for 2 sided copies, but even
then I'd think the money you're wasting on postage would make up for the money
you'd have to spend on photocopies. Kinda weird. But still, there's something I
really liked about this zine. The look is kinda rough, there are a few too many
spelling errors/ typos, and all the pieces are pretty short. Still, I see a lot
of heart in this zine. She obviously feels what she's writing and that counts
for a lot. The pieces on her deceased father were especially moving, much
better than the typical teen angsty material she also writes about. Sill,
there's a lot of potential here and I'm curious to see how her writing and zine
mature from here.
Send $1 and a stamp or trade to Kimberly 53768 Kingbird
Ln., Center, MO 63436; www.geocities.com/kimmymay03.html
SHOT BY A
RAY GUN #1
Man oh man, do I love Billy McKay's drawing style. I've
never dropped acid (is that the proper term? I hate to try and use hipster drug
lingo and then get it all wrong.) but I think that if I did the resulting world
would end up looking a whole hell of a lot like Billy's drawings. Not that his
drawings are psychedelic at all, they just have an LSD sort of look about them.
This zine contains no story at all; just a series of drawings Billy drew on
envelopes. If most people did this it would come across as a lazy way to get a
zine done, but when Billy does it - it works.
Send $1 or a trade to Billy
McKay, PO Box 542, N. Olmsted, OH 44070
FURRY TIMES #1
When
I first saw the title of this zine I got a little nervous. See, a while back I
saw this documentary type show on MTV about these people who refer to
themselves as furries. Apparently what these people like to do more than
anything is dress up in big furry animal costumes and engage in sexual
relations with each other. Now far be it from me to pass judgment on anything
anyone chooses to do in the privacy of their own bedroom, but I think having
sex with a guy dressed as Snoopy is a little weird, though at least they were
doing it doggie style. If you're gonna do that type of thing you may as well
stay in character. Anyhow, I saw the title of this zine and thought to myself
"Oh no. If this zine has just one mention of dressing up as a kitty cat and
doing the nasty I am just gonna burn the bloody thing." So imagine my shock and
pleasure when I opened up the zine and discovered that it was really just a
cute and funny little zine edited by Melinda Smith's cat Lucky from a cat's
POV. Included are an interview with Monica Lewinsky's cat Humberto, a piece on
a vegetarian cat who teaches mice, and an interview with a trans-species dog.
Cute, funny stuff. If you like cats you'll love it. If you don't... I dunno.
Maybe you will, maybe you won't.
Send $1 or so to Melinda Smith 3037
Woodland Hills #35, Ann Arbor, MI 48108
ZEN AND THE ART OF SMALL
CLAIMS
When I was a kid my favorite show in the world was the People's
Court and my hero was Judge Wapner. It seemed that every case he had to deal
with was pretty much black and white, at least in legal terms. If everyone was
forthcoming and told the truth as they saw it (which is different from the
absolute truth) ol' Judge Wapner would have an easy day. But then folks would
get into these little half-truths and "forget" to mention certain details and
start injecting all these shades of gray into a simple black and white
situation. But the reason I loved the show was because Judge Wapner always
would get to the bottom of things. Someone would always get caught in a little
lie and he would lower the boom on these chumps. As an 8 year old I learned a
lot about human nature from watching this show and most of it stays with me to
this very day. None of this has much to do with the zine, but I felt the need
to share. This zine is about Ben Livingston's attempts to sue "telemarketers,
junk faxers and e mail spammers for fun and profit." Now I'm sure you're
reading this and saying, "Holy crap, I didn't know you could do that!" Well,
unless you live in Washington State you really can't. However, it's quite
inspiring to read about Ben's attempts to take care o