Month: April 2019

Dear Diary, Today I Died
Avery Flinders
http://chickencollective.storenvy.com/

Dear Diary, Today I Died is an A5 zine with a mix of colour and black and white pages about life and lessons learned through gaming.

There are a few things that will make me insta-buy a zine, and one of them is seeing a character from the game ‘Don’t Starve’ on the cover of a friend’s zine. Another is that zine being the third in a series, so obviously I need to get one and two.

I’ve been a gamer from the word go, so you bet I enjoyed all kinds of nostalgia when Avery opened this zine with their gaming history. Oregon Trail (why did my character always break an arm?), Sim City (100% the game of my heart for years), and more… I got so excited that I immediately wanted to gush about the games we’d played in common. Even more fun, they wrote about The Binding of Isaac – a game I’ve been wanting to play for ages.

From there Avery writes about the pain of a Pokemon game lost to the purgatory of a smashed phone and a malfunctioning password retrieval system. Next, in the middle spread, we’re treated to the ‘Essential Dream Daddy Stats’ in full colour. It was a bit lost on me as I’ve never played the game, but I still enjoyed looking at it.

“My Avatart is a Monster” is an interesting look at how the non-binary playable character(s) (if available) in games are often monsters. Avery writes about finding binary gender escape in games by playing characters like Yoshi and Demon Child Azazel.

Dear Diary is everything I didn’t know I wanted from a gaming zine and has me wanting more, more, more. This zine is about games, but it’s also about nostalgia, perspectives on gaming, and taking lessons learned in games into the real world.

I am so glad I picked up all three of the zines in this series because I’m excited to dive right into the next one.

What’s Mine is Yours: The Zine Gang Distro Origin Story
Mel Buttigieg
https://www.instagram.com/zinegangdistro/
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ZineGangDistro

What’s Mind is Yours is an A7 black and white zine about how Zine Gang Distro got started.

This is going to be a short and sweet review, but I love this zine to bits and want to share.

What’s Mind is Yours is a cute and relatable mini about moving in with someone and the level of sharing and ‘sharing’ that can happen when you do. Sharing of things turns into sharing that zine love…

I’m trying not to give too much away, but even if I have, check this one out. It’s fun and good for a smile.