Zine Review: Meditation Funnies Comic Series 1-15

Meditation Funnies Comic Series 1-15
M. Elias Hiebert
https://www.instagram.com/meditationfunnies/
https://ko-fi.com/meditationfunnies/

Meditation Funnies is a series of ~10.8cm x 14cm black and white comics exploring Buddhist concepts and meditation as well as day-to-day thoughts primarily in the form of the meditator and their thought demon.

That had to be one of the most enjoyable zine summaries I’ve ever written.

This review has been a long time coming for this bi-monthly comic, and I can only apologise (and keep apologising for a long, long time to come) for the size of my ‘zines to review pile’.

Meditation Funnies had me from the moment I showed the first issue on Happy Mail Monday. With a mix of a simple comic style combined with deep thinking (or whatever depth of thought I cared to engage in from issue to issue), this series hit all the right spaces for me.

There’s no standard perzine introduction to things, so to say. No mention of how they got into meditation or about who they are at all as such. We just dive in and exist. Think about the things as much as we want to think about them as readers. I found the approach refreshing and immediately engaging.

Issue one was definitely a ‘slow down and pay attention’ sort of zine insofar as it introduced me to terms that I was either only vaguely familiar with or not familiar with at all (like skandhas, dharmas, and zazen). It also introduced us to the little demon making cheeky responses which entertained me and made me grin. (I could totally imagine my own little thought demons visualised as such.)

From there, each issue features all sorts of different topics with occasional interjections like how you can break your foot meditating (really!), mix tapes, and so on. From issue two on, the little thought demon has more room to play, too. I like not only the dynamic between the meditator and the thought demon but that the series doesn’t try to ignore difficult questions or invasive thoughts. Meditation Funnies doesn’t take itself to seriously and has some fun, and I think the world can always use more fun.

That said, Meditation Funnies does deal with darker/deeper topics as well. However, issues come with content warnings, which I appreciate. I think there are a lot of things I think most people could relate to – from depression thoughts to the quest to find meaning in life. Questions of gender identity. Trying to make our art ‘good enough’ and trying to find peace in just existing. I feel like you can choose to dig deep or enjoy these for what they are – and what they are is how you take them.

Meditation Funnies even steps outside itself to break the fourth wall, poking at itself for its style (which did get me a little grumpy about being mean to themself, but I poke myself from time to time too), mentioning other comic artists and styles, and generally having fun with itself. There’s even some banter between the meditator and the demon that made me literally (not figuratively) laugh out loud. Even more? I always loved it as a kid when the comic artist would inject themselves into a comic with the characters chatting to the artist while being drawn, and that’s in there too.

All in all, this is one of my favourite zine series I have ever read, and I hope it keeps going for a long time. I don’t mind having my thoughts about the world prodded, but I greatly appreciate when they’re prodded gently. The series got me curious about learning the history of meditation and related topics without demanding I learn about any of it to understand the comics.

This is definitely a series to check out – and it’s free, too, so definitely get into it.