Author: Nyx

Pocket Thoughts 2
Ryan Ewing
https://linktr.ee/_my_name_is_ryan_

Pocket Thoughts 2 is a quarter-sized black and white perzine about all sorts of topics.

When you first open Pocket Thoughts 2, you are immediately launched into a black and white world of cut and paste. There are different fonts, different sizes, some handwriting, some typing, and even a backwards message. There is a tiny picture of Ryan, a tiny picture of chunky soup, and a comic one page one.

Yes, all that I’ve mentioned is on the front inside cover with a comic on page one.

Ryan’s style is pretty clear from the start with his Amazon review – “This Is What Happens When Amazon Asks Me to Review the Soup I Buy Online” – of some chunky soup that has plenty of humour and a healthy dose of sarcasm.

Ryan’s language is adult – meaning he swears – and it seems no subject is out of bounds. There is a piece about humans’ strange behaviour around using the toilet, a ‘recipe’ for ‘Poor Man’s Pizza’, and a piece that is ripe for giving offense to the more sensitive believers in god/God. Yet Ryan also contemplates the obsession with youth, the evolution of television shapes, and even shampoo.

And in amongst it all is a compelling piece about how we should switch our focus from putting more love into the world to putting in more compassion. How love can actually feed into selfishness while compassion is an outwardly directed feeling with outwardly directed actions. Some might argue that it’s a matter of semantics, but Ryan makes very good points about the differences.

This is certainly a zine that takes you through a lot of feelings.

As I mentioned before, there’s a lot going on in this zine. A cut and paste paradise, if you will. That does mean it involves a bit of very small text and holding it a bit closer to my face than I care to admit, but I think it’s worth it. It’s a lot of fun and a wild ride where you have no idea what’s going to happen from page to page.

I feel like I’ve only captured a somewhat small look at the way Ryan’s brain works, but that’s a good thing. Now I want to go back to the first zine as well as dive right into the next.

PS. Ryan writes that a cab driver told him that he puts strawberries on his pizza. What… what?

Dear Diary, Today I Died 2
Avery Flinders
http://chickencollective.storenvy.com/

Dear Diary, Today I Died 2 is an A5 black and white gaming zine about going to PAX (a gaming conference), the dangers of dictating what’s ‘queer enough’ in games, and games Avery has been playing.

I reviewed Dear Diary, Today I Died 1 (https://www.seagreenzines.com/zine-review-dear-diary-today-i-died/) and am so glad I picked up 2 and 3 at the same time.

Dear Diart 2 takes us out and about to PAX in Melbourne. Given Avery’s mention of all the people and noise, it’s not something I’ll ever do, so I’m glad Avery has shared their experience in zine form. (If you can’t do it, live vicariously through other zinemakers hehe.) Avery writes about the games they played while there, bringing up plenty of new-to-me titles I will be looking around to check out.

In the centre spread, they write about going to a panel on queer games – and the problems that arise when one group starts deciding what are ‘good’ and ‘bad’ queer characters in games. In Avery’s own words:

“I definitely agree that there is such a thing as a bad depiction of queer people or queer experiences! But one group of people setting themselves up as the objective judges and arbiters of what counts as ‘good rep’ runs the risk of excluding and invalidating a lot of your audience.”

I love how Avery explores this topic and makes very good points that start in gaming but reach far beyond into current world issues.

Avery wraps up the zine with thoughts on some of the games they’ve been playing recently. More games to check out is always a win in my book.

Dear Diary 2 is another enjoyable zine in the series. Avery’s mix of game commentary, recommendations, and how issues in gaming connect to the real world keeps me coming back for more.

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.