You’re Standing on My Neck: A Daria Fanzine
Lee
https://www.instagram.com/thescreeverzine/
http://thescreever.limitedrun.com/
You’re Standing On My Neck is an A5 black and white fanzine about the totally awesome animated adult show Daria.
Daria is one of the shows from my younger years that stood as a huge positive to being home sick from school. The title character’s mix of sarcasm and dedication to blatant truth made her an awesome part of my life. So a fanzine about Daria? Yes, please!
You’re Standing on My Neck opens with a piece from Lee, who put this all together. He writes about putting together the zine (how the written submissions are by him because all of the other submissions are visual), watching the show, and what he thinks the show is really about. (I absolutely agree and couldn’t have summed up my thoughts about it better, by the way.)
From there we a treated to an awesome assortment of fun and interesting pieces. Lee writes about reacting to the rumours of a Daria reboot and examines Daria as a role model, we zine-meet a Daria cosplayer, there’s Daria-inspired art, and there are even Daria-inspired word puzzles! (A nod to Lee’s other zine series: The Screever.)
I love Lee’s writing style in this zine; it’s exactly what I want from a fanzine. Lee is clearly interested in not only the show and characters but in the ‘behind the scenes’ things too like the voice actors and guitar tabs for the iconic Daria theme. More than that, he writes in a way that conveys respect for the show but doesn’t set rigid absolutes. A reboot of the show isn’t exactly his cup of tea, but he writes about why in an even-handed way rather than going on a rampage against it.
(I like a rampage as much as the next person, but calm and clear is a lot less common.)
All up, I think it’s simple: getting this zine as a no-brainer for anyone who loved/loves Daria. While you’re at it, pick up issue two as well!