Category: Zine Reviews

how it feels now
Carrie Mercer
cocoanap.etsy.com

‘how it feels now’ is a full colour, 22 page quarter sized zine about the 2016 US election and Donald Trump’s presidency.

In this zine, Carrie is so distraught by Trump’s being elected that she can’t bear to refer to him as anything other than DT. She talks about the American people, her worries for her LGBTQ friends, the future of women’s rights, and more.

Carrie pulls no punches, not hesitating to speak her mind about how she feels regarding the election and possible ramifications. She moves back and forth between anger and concern – something I imagine many Americans are still teetering between the two. Without speaking of politics directly, I can’t help but feel for her in her frustration and fear.

There is a bright spot to be found in the self-care list to help lift your spirits at the end. I love lists and self-care topics, but I think this one goes to show a lot that Carrie still positivity and strength even when she’s feeling such strong things.

Carrie give a great example of readability in handwriting. It was easy to read, and the mix of text with cut and paste made for an over all enjoyable zine in both look and content.

Skin Folk: A Tattoo Appreciation Zine

Skin Folk: A Tattoo Appreciation Zine
Tracey, Zen, Sandy, Chris, Alex, Rebecca, Cormac, James

Skin Folk is a full-colour accordion-fold mini-zine answering the question: “Why did you get tattoos?”

Before I get into anything else, I’d like to say that I love the concept of this zine. The idea to simply and beautifully – through art and words – respond to a question that can often lead to defensive commentary is a wonderful thing.

The art inside is small but intricate and amazing. The images look great and, paired with the lettering used for the answers, it makes for a very complete, enjoyable zine. The answers themselves are a mix of beautiful, thoughtful, and funny, all coming together to make sure the zine doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Alas, there are no contact details to be found. The people I have listed above are contributors (I’m guessing) from a page simply titled ‘Thanks’.

Being an accordion-fold, I do fine myself wishing that more had been included on the blank ‘backs’ of pages, but that’s certainly not going to stop me from making this part of my much-enjoyed forever zine collection.

Brainscan 27 Ten Stories
Alex Wrekk
https://portlandbuttonworks.com/

Brainscan 27 is a mini-zine about endings and adjusting to new realities. Looking at the world with new eyes.

This is a somber zine, but not self-pitying. While there are few words in number, they convey a lot more in emotion and further implications to the small life moment it captures. The small size and few(er) words actually lends itself quite well to this intimate acknowledgment of living in a moment, being in that moment, and then getting on your bike and riding away.

I was thinking how ridiculous it was that we had just signed our names to each page in a huge stack of papers to end something that only took a on page marriage license to begin.

Brainscan 27 encompasses a moment in one person’s life, but I feel like it could resonate with many more people than first glance might lead you to believe.

The Perks of Being a Librarian
Karys
gallergirlzine@gmail.com

The Perks of Being a Librarian is a one-page multi-fold zine listing reasons that it’s pretty awesome to be a librarian.

At one reason per page with text-only pages, you’ll get through this mini-zine in under thirty seconds. Even so, the thoughts that may bubble up in your mind while reading them may cause you to pause or smile more more than once like I did.

While none of the things were surprising or revealing to me (librarian was one career choice that nearly happened for me), it was still nice to read them all collected together like related tidbits.

This is a very quick zine to read and enjoy, but I can easily see it being a fun, small gift for a librarian or someone looking to be a librarian.

i’m sick.
Katie
www.thelalatheory.com

Sometimes I feel like I pick up the zines I need to read when I need to read them, and they are just right to help me get past whatever creative hangups I have at that point in time. This is one of those zines. (Take that as you will.)

i’m sick is a (mostly) text-filled mini-zine stream of consciousness pondering about fever dreams, being sick, people, music, work, and reminding oneself that your alive. Sick as Katie is, they venture forth to the library and contemplate whether the boyfriend will ever call.

It is a touch self-pitying, but who doesn’t get into a bit of grumpiness and self-pity when they are ill?

There’s something about a smaller zine that either makes it more ‘fun and light’ or more intimate. This zine is the latter. It meanders not only through thoughts but but feelings as well. It starts out making you wonder if it’ll venture into a rant while instead it just gets a little grumpy before wandering on to more interesting things. Somehow you end up on something important and vulnerable all at the same time.

This zine reminds me that not everything – not every work created – has to have a point, a wrap up, a ‘the end’ at the end. I mean that in the best possible way. Sometimes things exist simply for the sharing of them because we had a moment where we wanted to connect or simply to express something. It reminds me to loosen up about the standards I hold myself to.

Even Katie says in the zine:

I really just wanted to say hello and to remind myself that I’m alive.

Sometimes I begin to wonder if I read way too much into things. Then I read a sentence like that and remember there are beautiful things to be found even in word rambles.

Sober Bob Supplementary
Sober Bob
http://soberbobmonthly.bigcartel.com/
@soberbobmonthly

I must admit that this zine review is partly fuelled by my enjoyment from watching @soberbobmonthly ‘Your Story’ videos on Instagram… That and my immense love for garlic dill pickles.

Sober Bob Supplementary is a single-page, quarter folded zine about the places we live in, restoration, and the backward “logic” of local councils. It’s about work, people, unemployment, and it always being okay to make zines. All on one double-sided page.

(As someone who lives in a place that cares more about historical renovation rules rather than actual historic buildings, those parts resonated a lot with me.)

My favourite part in this is this quote:

…it’s a worthless to a job but not worthless to me…

That really sums up a lot of passion pursuits, doesn’t it? It sums up so much of what’s wrong with society and what’s right with individuals. It reminded me that my art only needs to be important to one person.

I feel like I’m really getting back to basics when it comes to my love for zines, and this zine is a good example of that. It’s one piece of paper folded twice, and I feel like Sober Bob uses that in the best way. There’s the 1/4 front and back covers, a half page, and then the inside, which is the unfolded full page.

You might not be impressed with a single folded piece of paper, but I appreciate the variety in page size as well as direction. For me, it touches the fun creativity of zines in tense times – even within the zine community.

This is another one of those zines that I wish my friends would make. Random or not so random thoughts paired with whatever their art looks like. Whatever makes them happy – because that makes me happy.

killing spiders & other words in spring
s. rivka m.
IG: @s.rivka.m

killing spiders & other words in spring is a zine filled with imagery, colour, prose, and poetry. On the first page, there is a brief description:

pieces from scratch or prompts given in a course conducted by tomas moniz

I have to admit that I am very drawn in by layout and those sorts of details, so this zine caught my attention straight away by having no white margins on the cover or the interior pages. Immediately I began to wonder how it was made, whether there are still to-the-edge printing options out there or whether, perhaps, s. rivka m. sat and trimmed all the edges off all copies of this zine.

All the pages are cardstock with full colour cut and paste images that almost but not quite take precedence over the text set upon them.

My favourite piece is the first: To my nineteen-year-old self. Maybe it’s because I’m now thirty or because I identified so well with things like ‘by twenty-six, you’re practically thirty’. Either way, it was both nostalgic and inspiring for me.

There are no contact/further reading details in this zine other than the creator’s name. I always remember that there can be reasons for doing this, but I also always mention it when it happens. Never assume people won’t want to see more of your work. ^_^ (To which I respond to myself: never assume that everyone wants to be found.)

There’s something about this zine as a whole – the cardstock all the way through, no white margins, saddle stitching, cut and past style – that makes me feel like I’m holding a piece of art as much as I am holding a zine. I liked reading the words, but I also like to flip through. I admit that I’ve had this zine for a long while, but in the time, I have taken this zine out and flipped through the pages to take in the colour choices, text placement, and the like more times than I can count.

I don’t have other zines by s. rivka m., but I get the feeling that they have already found their style, their way of doing things – whether they’ve realised it or not.

(PS. This zine made me realise that in the past I may have been capitalising titles that the creators didn’t want capitalised. It’s a force of habit, but I’ll do my best to put in the titles exactly as they are in the future. Apologies if this annoyed or offended anyone.)

Kackle Issue 3D Skull Water
By Bruce Wilson
www.facebook.com/kacklezine

A zine that comes with 3D glasses? Yes, please!

Skull Water is a short horror story zine with the addition of some 3D illustrations to go with the story. The story takes place in the mountains with a sweet old couple and their adult son. I’m not sure if the moral of the story is not to mess with nature or ‘love can be both beautiful and disgusting’…

I’m an editor by nature (and by qualification these days), so I rarely read a piece of fiction without finding something to nitpick. Overall, though, it’s a fun (for horror) short story with an ending that made me literally chuckle out loud. It’s a story that someone with a bit of dark, crude humour will enjoy.

The images are well done, but the focus still remains on the story instead of the 3D. What I mean by that is the images add a great amount of fun and dimension to the zine on the whole, but, in the end, it’s still about the story. They complemented the story, as good illustrations do.

The 3D aspect to this zine is another great example of you only being limited by your imagination when it comes to making zines. Why not make a 3D zine or something else entirely? That this came with the 3D glasses gave that sort of ‘bonus prize’ feeling upon first receiving it.

I quite enjoyed this and greatly appreciated the laugh.

The Life and Times of Billy Roberts Issue 78
Billy
www.iknowbilly.etsy.com

The Life and Times of Billy Roberts Issue 78 is a single piece of paper folded in half to create four pages. It’s a reminder that zines don’t have to be gloss and colour, thick, thin, or any one thing. I find myself wishing that all my friends would create little life update zines like these so I could keep up with their lives when we can’t catch up otherwise.

Right away I could feel Billy’s depressed mood through his words. “I’ve already written 3 versions of this newsletter and thrown them all away” isn’t a good sign. In this zine, Billy talks about the US election, dealing with full-blown depression, and finding some good things in amongst the doom and gloom. It’s a zine-ified version of a letter from a friend. Even if you aren’t friends with Billy, I feel like you could get that sort of feeling from this zine nonetheless.

It’s hard to read about the hard times anyone is going through – friend or stranger. My heart went out to Billy, especially talking about not being able to do much more than stay still and watch television most days. I think that’s what makes it even more special that Billy is able to still talk about some happy things happening despite all the weight of depression.

If you’ve read my reviews for a while now, you know one thing that niggles me is no contact details. When the creator leaves the reader to hunt down further reading. I’m almost willing to ignore it on this one because it might be something ‘just for friends’ anyway, but you still never know where your little creations may go, so…

This is a zine I’m keeping not just for the reasons I like it but because it’s like keeping a letter from a penpal. It’s a zine that shows how much zines can connect people and remind us that we are all people dealing with our own struggles.

Good to Know Issue #1 Creativity
Amy
http://www.pikaland.com/good-to-know-project/
www.pikaland.etsy.com

As a creative, I knew that Good to Know Issue #1 Creativity was going to be a valuable zine to me personally. It’s all about people sharing things that stop them or hinder them from being their creative selves and making their art.

From fears of getting back to it after a break to too many restrictions to battling with distraction… Many voices have come together to create this zine.

One thing that was a stumbling block for me is that I didn’t know what the zine was called. With the ‘make your own rules’ nature of zines, I wouldn’t have thought it was a big deal, but I found myself searching for the likely title. Looking back, is is somewhat obvious that ‘Good to Know’ is the title (it’s on the first inside page as well as on the back). It was only when I looked at the site and saw that this zine would usually come with a coloured band of paper proudly wrapped around it.

I only mention this because it’s something to consider that I hadn’t considered before. I received this zine secondhand and have given many zines to friends. It’s an important consideration that any ‘wraps’ or otherwise disposable bits might fall off or be torn off your zine…

Aesthetically, this interior pages aren’t ones that are going to grab your attention. This is a text-only zine (with the exception of the front cover). I’m someone who can be easily distracted from what I’m doing, so I appreciate visuals that can keep me engaged with the text. That being said, I completely understand why the words and what is being read is what’s important to this zine. Words I found quite valuable.

I’m not sure what I enjoyed more – the ‘oh, me too!’ moments or the ‘oh, I hadn’t thought of that’ moments.

Even better, each response comes with a link or links. So if you really connect with someone’s response, you can go and support their art.

Of course, I’m not going to dislike a zine simply because a coloured paper band is no longer around it (or because I’m a bit silly/slow when it comes to finding the title). This zine goes firmly in my collection. There are many different ways to be creative out there and many different creative blocks to overcome. This zine reminds me that I’m not alone.