Author: Nyx

Stories Behind the Ink
Compiled by Mel Buttigieg
https://zinegang.home.blog/
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ZineGangDistro

Stories Behind the Ink is an A5, full-colour zine collection of real tattoos and the stories behind them.

If I have biases with this zine, they’re that I like tattoos, have tattoos, and am irritated by the amount of unwelcome commentary people with tattoos get from others.

Mel says much of the same at the start of this zine. With black print on a red background, the first page isn’t one to read in low lighting. However, it was worth the light delay of finding a better lamp as Mel writes about the strange (annoying, confronting, etc) phenomena where some people think they have a right to ask personal questions of and even touch tattooed people simply because they bear art on their skin.

But enough with the things that get my teeth grinding in profound understanding and empathy.

Stories Behind the Ink shows off glorious tattoo photos in full colour and on glossy paper. Along with the tattoo/s, each page shares the pertinent details (age, artist, etc) and the stories behind the art. Every page (with a full spread or two) are clearly titled with the person’s name.

I think I would have enjoyed this zine even if I didn’t have tattoos. It’s so interesting to me to read about the decisions behind each tattoos, the memories, the fun, and sometimes the heartfelt meanings. Whether they chose the art for smiles or to honour others and themselves, I loved reading about it.

I really adored Sylvia’s story – one of how even seeming permanence can still change. Of how we can adapt and grow with those changes.

I think this is a great zine to pick up. Especially if you have tattoos, want tattoos, or are a tattoo voyeur. Haha.

Adventures in Predictive Text
Saff Miro
https://www.instagram.com/saffmiro/

Adventures in Predictive Text is an A6 black and white zine predictive text written by Saff Miro’s phone and tablet. Hehe.

If you’re on Facebook, you’ve very likely seen the ‘type this on your phone and let predictive text finish the sentence’ type of posts. Tapping on that suggested next word again and again can create sentences that are strange, funny, and occasionally deep.

It was only a matter of time before someone made a zine of it, and I’m glad they did.

Adventures opens with Saff explaining how they went about making this zine. At the top of each page you find the few prompt words that started each predictive response below. With prompts like ‘In 2018’ and ‘My New Year’s Resolution Is’ there are some pretty funny responses. There’s even one response that got trapped in a loop of ‘again and again and again and again’ so Saff ended up using an infinity symbol when they ran out of room for text. Haha.

I thought I would pick a favourite response for this review, but it was a lot harder than I’d thought it would be to pick! So many of the responses made me smile. I mean, there are Bananagrams and mentions of hashtags taking over the world.

Maybe Saff’s phone is trying to warn us all.

Adventures in Predictive Text is a fun zine that made me smile a lot and also made me want to go on some predictive text adventures of my own. A win on all counts.