Category: Zine Reviews

A Review of Festival of the Photocopier 2019
JEM Hast
https://www.jemhast.com/

A Review of Festival of the Photocopier 2019 is an A5 black and white zine about Festival of the Photocopier 2019 – JEM’s first FotP!

Review opens with a summary of JEM’s day one of Festival of the Photocopier. JEM started the day folding zines on the train while on the way to the festival and ended it with a backpack full of zines. (Score!) JEM writes about meeting various zinesters – including yours truly. I must admit that it was strange in a truly lovely way to read about our meeting in person from JEM’s perspective.

The rest of the zine is a fun collection of bits and bobs. At one point they show the signs from their table (they tabled on day two), and I smiled when I say the ‘trades welcome’ sign. I really love JEM and tablemate Cassie’s idea of bringing a notebook along that people could add to it for inclusion in the zine. I absolutely adore the idea. Sketches from various people fill other pages.

JEM’s zine haul list is on the back inside cover and is quite impressive. Haha.

This zine is event-specific and happens to be an event I went to, so I am a bit biased in that way. That being said, I think this zine is a fun, fairly quick read that will serve as a fun reminder of the event.

Video Games for Good
Editor: Claire Hubbard
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/EmSeeItch
https://www.instagram.com/emseeitch/

Video Games for Good is a full colour A5 collaborative art projects celebrating the positive aspects of games and gaming.

I’ll just say it right up front – I love this zine to bits and pieces. Love it!

Video Games for Good brings together sixteen different artists to share their positive experiences around gaming. Mostly in comic form, there are many stories to enjoy, but there are also artworks as well to slow you down and let you ponder for a while.

Many funny and sweet topics are covered in this zine from age assumptions regarding gamers*, friendships that came about through games and stand the test of time through games, coping through rough times with gaming… There is so much to identify with here from simple de-stressing to building confidence in-game that helped with confidence in real life.

I took a special pleasure in the number of times Zelda games were mentioned, as they played a special part in my childhood as well. The zine isn’t overwhelmingly Zelda by any means, but it’s definitely one of those things in life that reminds me that I have at least one thing in common with a lot of people I don’t know.

My favourite comic of the lot, though, has to be Still Video Game by Steve Ingram. I won’t spoil it, but it takes a look at assumptions around who gamers are.

The aesthetic feel of Video Games for Good is fantastic. The to-the-edge bleed for the cover, full-colour, numbered pages on lovely matte paper (what can I say, I’m matte over gloss every time), and the layout is brilliant. Every element of the zine comes together with amazing little touches that add so much but never feel like too much. From the various game controller handles that ‘hang down’ from the tops of some pages to the to-the-edge bleed for some of the interior art as well. It’s all brilliant and very pleasing to look at.

Not only is this zine well made, its subject matter is important, too. All you need to do is throw a virtual rock and you’ll land on ten different articles about how bad games and gaming is. This zine goes to show just how much of a positive impact games of all kinds can have on our lives.

If you like gaming and/or have someone in your life who thinks gaming is a waste of time, then this zine is one for you. But also, check it out anyway.

*Side note: Does anyone else remember a news clip about a 104 year old woman who credited playing her DS every day for keeping mentally sharp?

Elevation
Niina Aoki
https://www.niinaaoki.com/

Elevation is an A6 black and white zine with full colour cover about a cat’s obsession with maximum altitude.

Sometimes you just need a super cute zine about a cat. This is one of those zines.

From a 4cm fan leg to landmarks around the world (and beyond?), Niina takes us on a fun journey of cat sits. Each page features an item with the cover cat sitting on it along with the elevation of the item itself. As you turn each page, each elevation gets higher and more fantastic. Paired with Niina’s super cute art style, this is absolutely adorable.

A fun additional bonus for Elevation is that it opens with Niina’s recommendation that you listen to a specific song while enjoying the zine. (No spoilers. Hehe.)

I have to mention my ‘no socials’ nitpick, but Niina’s name is clearly on the cover (and their website pops up first in a Google search) so it’s okay.

This supercute idea combined with a supercute art style makes a zine I really love. Cat enthusiasts know that cats like to chill out high up, so this zine is great. Definitely check it out.

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.

A Guide to Soap Operas
Amber is Blue
AmberIsBlue.com
https://amberisblue.wixsite.com/amberisblue/shop

A Guide to Soap Operas is a small square black and white text mini about Amber’s love of soap operas, why soap operas are special, iconic soap opera couples and plot lines, and more.

I picked this zine up because I was pleasantly surprised to see a zine on this topic. There’s so often negativity attached to the shows and watching them – something Amber addresses.

They open by writing about how having bad childhood asthma led to many days spend at home – with time to watch soap operas.

Amber had me hooked and enjoying so much nostalgia whey they mentioned the first soap they watched was Days of Our Lives. Haha. Hope and Bo! But’sit’s not all about the nostalgia – as pleasant as that is. Amber also touches on the other cool aspects of soap operas.

I’d never really thought about the longevity of these shows or about the actors in them, but it is pretty amazing. Amber mentions the abundance of strong female characters – one in particular who has been on one soap opera longer than Amber has been alive!

If you like/d soap operas and would like a smile, this is a zine for you.

Barren: On Infertility and Creation
Avery Flinders
http://chickencollective.storenvy.com/

Barren is an A6, handwritten black and white zine about infertility, gardening, and the mysteries of growing life.

I knew I would get a lot from reading this zine, but I didn’t expect to be so immediately and completely focused on the writing that I didn’t want to stop reading even just to write review notes.

Avery writes about the impact of suddenly finding out they are infertile and the subsequent attempts at fertility treatment. They share their feelings of sadness and shame, of envy of their friends’ pregnancy news, and around the IVF process. They also examine some of the language used around fertility – how it’s so often called a journey while Avery relates more to the metaphor of being stuck in place.

There is so much in this zine that grabs my heart. So very much. Avery has found words to express their feeling around infertility that have helped me so much in processing my own. I had many ‘I feel the same’ moments while reading this zine. I appreciated the nuance of the topic and the ways Avery found strength as well as the moments of knowing that some things are up to the mysterious lottery of the universe.

This is obviously a zine on a very specific topic – a topic that effects my life and, by extension, my feelings. But you of someone you know is dealing with infertility, I can speak firsthand that this zine could be a comfort because it was and is to me.

Ghosting
Mr Zinester
https://www.instagram.com/misterzinester/

Ghosting is a landscape, full colour mini-zine both comic and art in two parts.

I’ll state right at the start that I really love Mr Zinester’s work, and I’m so excited to get the chance to share my excitement with you.

Mr Zinester once again blurs lines between zine, comic, and art piece with Ghosting. Twenty-three cards are held together by two bulldog clips, and with no cover, title, or introduction, you’re immediately thrust into the work itself.

Ghosting consists of two parts. The first half is printed on lovely textured cream paper in the drawing style you see pictured above with the text clearly separated by a box at the bottom of each. The second part is a completely different art style – more anime in nature with visual call backs to the first part that made me smile. This section is more akin to a realistic anime style and is printed on beautiful holographic card.

I don’t usually go into the physical aspects of a zine straight away, but they were the first things I noticed about this zine. Taking it out of the bag, I immediately stopped to run my fingertips along the textured paper before flipping it to run them along the smooth holographic paper. I loved Mr Zinester’s paper choices so much that I took the bulldog clips off rather than use them as a binding and risking possible damage to the cards.

Being familiar with Mr Zinester’s work, I happily Googled the words that went along with the pictures. Lo and behold, this is another piece inspired by (I’m assuming) and featuring song lyrics! I won’t spoil the song, but I felt like it was a fun little near-secret.

I was a little sad to see no mention of Mr Zinester anywhere on the zine. On one hand, I understand the desire to let the work be the work and want to assume that any sort of social or contact details would be given along with the zine on a separate card or something of the like. On the other hand, that is an assumption.

Mr Zinester is one of the zinemakers who intrigues me by pushing boundaries in regards to what is a zine and how you can make them. If you get the chance, I highly recommend you check out Ghosting and everything else Mr Zinester creates.