Category: Zine Reviews

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.

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.