Chips Please
Siobhan
https://www.instagram.com/wigglymittens/
https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/sluginkpress

Chips Please is an A7 black and white zine about a lifetime love of chips.

This is going to be a very short and sweet review, but I can’t resist because chips done well are little golden pieces of happiness. (Fries for the US readers.)

In Chips Please, Siobhan briefly writes about a long-held love of simple chips in text and a few drawings. Not impressed by the fancier chips out there, they just want a bit of hot sauce.

I can’t agree with the hot sauce, but sometimes a bowl of hot chips really is all it takes to make everything better.

The Android: Chronicle of the Human Resistance Issue 1
Phil Schrader
Contact me for post box

The Android: Chronicle of the Human Resistance Issue 1 is a full-colour, US sized zine newsletter from 2189 about things happening around the territory formerly known as ‘the United State’ after the Great Cataclysm.

Wow! Just wow. Okay, not ‘just’ wow because those aren’t the kind of reviews I write, but I’m really impressed with this zine.

As I stated in the synopsis, this zine is about the state of life in 2189 after a Great Cataclysm that had something to do with waves of the Machines has decimated what we know of life now. It’s written like a good mystery novel – tossing you right in and leaving you to piece together the details. The Android is written completely in the voice of someone from the time, merely alluding to the events in Earth’s history that have led to the articles found within.

The articles cover a variety of things like notifying the people that a new territory has opened up, how the ‘cricket children’ are not to be feared, plague warnings, and how to build sustainable communities. This only really covers a small part of it. At first glance, this zine looks like it could be a fairly fast read, but I found myself going through it nice and slow, taking in all of the little details as well as thoroughly examining the photos and art included.

I absolutely love this idea of writing from a future time as well as the idea that zines would keep information circulating during dystopian times. (It also makes me want to read ‘The Postman’ again.) The Android is 100% in its world, and I love feeling like a detective trying to put together the pieces of what happened. And while it was a little cheeky, I loved the small touches like the ‘cricket children’ that clearly reference some of the repercussions of nuclear fallout but puts it in a way that makes it just another part of their world. (Welcome to Nightvale is also coming to mind.)

At first I was a little disappointed to see no social links or anything other than a post box address (I don’t really like putting any addresses online), but now I’m left wondering if that’s intentional. The internet and social media certainly don’t exist in the world of 2189. If that’s actually the case, then colour me all the more impressed.

I am a fan of sci-fi and dystopian fiction, so I don’t know how this would go with non-fans. Still, this is definitely worth checking out. There is a lot to enjoy in this zine for what it is and how it’s written.

Still Poly/Not Poly: Further Adventures in Relationship Structure Ambivalence
Kirsty
https://www.instagram.com/mskirstyface/
https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/foreverincomplete

Still Poly/Not Poly is a black and white A6 zine about Kirsty’s relationship with relationships, changing views of polyamory,

I’ve reviewed the previous issue Poly/Not Poly: Adventures in Relationship Structure Ambivalence here: (https://www.seagreenzines.com/zine-review-poly-not-poly-adventures-in-relationship-structure-ambivalence/)

I quite enjoyed Poly/Not Poly and was happy to see another zine about the topic. Still Poly/Not Poly was made two years after the first, and, in Kirsty’s usual style, gets right to the topic into the introduction. They write about how things can change in relationships and how, even though they no longer feel the same way on a lot of points, this zine is meant to be an addition rather than a replacement. It may seem a small thing, but I love this to bits and pieces because it sets from the beginning the fact that people can grow and change.

When I started reading this, I immediately remembered how much I like Kirsty’s writing style. They have a way of writing that is so clear, so open and self-aware… Their writing made me think about how some experiences in life must be accompanied by deprogramming our own minds from what we’ve been trained to think and believe.

Kirsty talks about struggling with the ‘monogamy guilt’ (my term, not theirs) as well as their relationship anxiety that stems from internal worries as well as from fears over judgement from others. I feel like, regardless of topic, those feelings are utterly and completely relateable.

“I feel very lucky to have had both of them in my life and I feel proud of myself for fighting my brain for that.”

I think this zine could be one to help people navigate through the very complicated waters of what many of us are taught we ‘should’ want and have in relationships and figuring out what we really do want in relationships. Kirsty doesn’t present this zine as any sort of guide by any means, but, in a way, I see that as all the more reason that it’s helpful.

It’s certainly has me thinking about a lot of things.

Still Poly/Not Poly is another great read from Kirsty that helped open my mind and gave me new perspectives about my own feelings about relationships. I think this and the previous zine are excellent reads for anyone who wants to examine relationships and how they view them.