Month: January 2017

Ker-bloom! 116: The Cat Who Flew
artnoose
https://www.patreon.com/artnoose

I love how some zines seem to come into my life with spectacular timing. Ker-bloom! 116, featuring a tale of a cat and moving across the country, fits the bill…

Ker-bloom! 116 is a short tale about moving back and forth and the adventures of finding the best way to get a cat from Pennsylvania to California while accounting for a toddler as well. It’s a short zine but an involving read nonetheless.

This zine isn’t going to change your life or get you thinking too deeply. (Unless you’re like me and pondering how you’re going to move animals interstate.) I say that with no disrespect, though. There is beauty and wonder to be found in the moments of our lives – in our personal stories. I found myself smiling (in sympathy, of course) at the story of the poor kitty and quite enjoyed the whole thing.

You can’t review Ker-bloom without mentioning the look and feel of it. Ker-bloom is letterpress printed, which gives everything on the cover and even the text inside a texture, which is lovely to run your fingers over. The paper artnoose uses is absolutely gorgeous, which makes the zine as much of a piece of art as it is a zine.

PS. I highly recommend checking out the Patreon page linked above to learn more about artnoose and the production of these zines.

Disabled Artist Affirmations
Birch Rosen
Birchrosen.com
Birchrosen.etsy.com
Instagram.com/birchwrites
birchrosen@gmail.com

When offered the choice amongst a catalogue of zines, I felt like I had an impossible choice ahead. However, when I read this description, I couldn’t help but be intrigued.

“While these affirmations are meant to be encouraging, they’re not entirely “positive” in the sense that many mainstream affirmations are. In my experience, affirmations are most powerful when they also acknowledge how unpleasant reality can be. I want affirmations that can meet me in the pit of hopelessness and despair to lift me up a little, not ones that ask me to wish or believe my way out.”

Disabled Artist Affirmations is Birch Rosen’s answer to all the fluffy ‘wish’ affirmations you see floating around on the internet – and the answer is a good one.

Straight from the beginning, you know Birch is a person who cares about the reader. On the inside cover, there is a note about how the font chosen is used in the hope of greater readability and an offer of contact for possible triggers as well as access needs discussion. While I am perfectly happy and able to read this zine, I appreciate the time taken by a zine maker to show that caring is there.

What I really love about these affirmations is that they, in their own way, address the “if you work/wish/are good enough” philosophy that seems so prevalent in many affirmations I see. The problem with those is that they imply that if the change doesn’t happen in your life, then you’re not enough in whatever way or don’t deserve it. Birch’s take on realistic affirmation acknowledges that good things don’t just shower down on good people because they are good.

The affirmation that spoke the most to me was (as a part of a larger affirmation): “…it’s not a failure to need more rest than others.”

Wrapping up with song and artist recommendations was a lovely touch (you know how much I love things to investigate beyond the blog). That and the earlier inclusion of a list of ways to use these affirmations makes this feel like a treasure box of a zine for those needing a realistic pick me up.

PS. It was awesome to see saddle stitching for binding!

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Property Zine 1.2 (Fall 2016) & 1.3 (Winter 2016)
Various contributors
@propertymaterials
Facebook.com/propertymaterials

I was going through my zines earlier today when I realised that my review for Property Zine 1.2 was long overdue – I’d already received the winter issue! And while I make no promises in terms of review timelines, I have been wanting to review these zines… and I realised I had an opportunity.

One thing I really love is watching a zine series grow and change. Whether one person or a collaboration of people is putting something together, I think it’s great to see the evolution of a project.

That’s why, my friends, today we get a two-in-one special.

Property Zine is a big (a bit bigger than an A4, I reckon), glossy zine with the feel of – you guessed it – a magazine. But you know me! I’m not one to judge, and a lack of gloss does not a zine make. It’s glossy, wonderful, and an art zine.

The fall issue is filled completely with art. Save for the cover and the first page, there is nary a word to be found. (Or contact details, but it’s well made up for in the winter issue.) What you will find are vibrantly-coloured images, photographs, and painting, all utterly well suited to the size and the gloss.

For me, art is like poetry: I don’t often ‘get’ it, but I know what I like despite a lack of being able to articulate it. No, not every piece is to my taste, but there is truly something special (to me) about the pieces I like.

The winter issue (as compared to the fall issue) is what inspired me to do the double review and take some time to talk about the evolution of a zine series. This issue has at least double the pages and includes written pieces and poetry while still sticking to its foundations in art. It lands firmly with both feet steady on the ground, thick and heavy with the confidence of a zine that is willing to expand its ideas about content.

The beautiful thing about varying your content like this is that it makes it appealing for a flip-through as well as coming back again to take a closer look and read the written pieces. I have nothing against things that stay strictly to their niche, but variety provides a much bigger net of possibility.

Also, I must say it was so much fun to see names that I know in a zine like Big Tight and Fishspit. That made me feel a sense of community in a way that I haven’t for a long time. I also loved seeing their work as presented by someone else.

All up, I’m really excited to see where Property Zine goes and hope to participate in future issues.

*Full disclosure: A piece of my art is in Property Zine 1.3

Let’s Communicate!
Text by Misha (m.murasovs@gmail.com)
https://bigtightzine.wordpress.com/
Illustration by Babs (basiahurnik@gmail.com)

Atomic entanglement. I bet you never thought you’d read those words in a zine.

Let’s Communicate! is about – you guessed it: communication. From the atomic to the cosmic, there are levels of communication you may have never known about and amazing questions humanity has yet to answer about how it all works.

Aethetically, this zine is absolutely lovely. It has a smooth, thicker cover with adorable little cell-like creatures decorating the inside front and the back. This zine is full colour, but I love the focus on blue. It’s calming and inviting. The art is a fun mic of adorable and childlike with other parts being skilled and precise.

I think what I love the most about this zine (beyond how lovely it looks and feels) is that I get this feeling of pure passion and awe from the writing. The person who wrote this is truly amazed by this universe of ours, and that feeling really comes through. While I have always had a passing interest in physics, reading about this kind of stuff in this form had me even more interested.

You might not think a science-y zine is for you, but I still recommend giving this zine a shot. It’s lovely to look and and brings up a lot of interesting things to think about.

It makes me wish for a part two!

*Special note: You might want to double-check the emails if you can because I’m not 100% sure that I’ve read them correctly on the zine.