Month: March 2017

Skin Folk: A Tattoo Appreciation Zine

Skin Folk: A Tattoo Appreciation Zine
Tracey, Zen, Sandy, Chris, Alex, Rebecca, Cormac, James

Skin Folk is a full-colour accordion-fold mini-zine answering the question: “Why did you get tattoos?”

Before I get into anything else, I’d like to say that I love the concept of this zine. The idea to simply and beautifully – through art and words – respond to a question that can often lead to defensive commentary is a wonderful thing.

The art inside is small but intricate and amazing. The images look great and, paired with the lettering used for the answers, it makes for a very complete, enjoyable zine. The answers themselves are a mix of beautiful, thoughtful, and funny, all coming together to make sure the zine doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Alas, there are no contact details to be found. The people I have listed above are contributors (I’m guessing) from a page simply titled ‘Thanks’.

Being an accordion-fold, I do fine myself wishing that more had been included on the blank ‘backs’ of pages, but that’s certainly not going to stop me from making this part of my much-enjoyed forever zine collection.

Brainscan 27 Ten Stories
Alex Wrekk
https://portlandbuttonworks.com/

Brainscan 27 is a mini-zine about endings and adjusting to new realities. Looking at the world with new eyes.

This is a somber zine, but not self-pitying. While there are few words in number, they convey a lot more in emotion and further implications to the small life moment it captures. The small size and few(er) words actually lends itself quite well to this intimate acknowledgment of living in a moment, being in that moment, and then getting on your bike and riding away.

I was thinking how ridiculous it was that we had just signed our names to each page in a huge stack of papers to end something that only took a on page marriage license to begin.

Brainscan 27 encompasses a moment in one person’s life, but I feel like it could resonate with many more people than first glance might lead you to believe.

The Perks of Being a Librarian
Karys
gallergirlzine@gmail.com

The Perks of Being a Librarian is a one-page multi-fold zine listing reasons that it’s pretty awesome to be a librarian.

At one reason per page with text-only pages, you’ll get through this mini-zine in under thirty seconds. Even so, the thoughts that may bubble up in your mind while reading them may cause you to pause or smile more more than once like I did.

While none of the things were surprising or revealing to me (librarian was one career choice that nearly happened for me), it was still nice to read them all collected together like related tidbits.

This is a very quick zine to read and enjoy, but I can easily see it being a fun, small gift for a librarian or someone looking to be a librarian.