Category: Zine Reviews

‘Bots is ‘Bots: Issue Three
Gregg
http://botsisbots.blogspot.com.au/

Check out my reviews of the other ‘Bots Is ‘Bots issues in the Zine Review Index.

When I got my hands on the ‘Bots is ‘Bots zines, I considered writing about the series as a whole in one review. But this one is the one that made me decide that they all need their own review.

Of all the ‘Bots is ‘Bots comics I’ve read so far (admittedly, only three), this is my favourite issue. It has so much wordplay in it, and I love wordplay. Seeing it in comic form makes it even more fun. Where the first two issues seemed to have pretty solid themes, this one looks like it’s taking the piss out of itself. Having some fun and a laugh at the expense of the strangeness of life and the English language.

In each issue there is a part one/part two comic that ‘sandwiches’ all the rest of the content. That strip? Just keeps getting funnier.

I’ve mentioned before that I like seeing how a zine series can grow and change over time. I didn’t think there was anything missing from this series, but I’m happy to see some variety injected into it in the form of a (robot) movie review.

I’m looking forward to seeing where things go.

Wiseblood #37 The Cat-Sitting Issue
Fishspit
fuzzybunnyflatbunny@gmail.com

Sometimes you read a zine, and all you can do is experience it. Not think too much because it’s better for you to go along for the ride.

This is definitely one of those zines.

I received Wiseblood #37 (along with another) in a trade with Fishspit himself. After such charming short messages, how could I not be curious about a zine with this cover?

The content doesn’t disappoint from the cover expectation. Inside you’ll find three stream-of-consciousness style stories with a silly sort of humour that I think most people can appreciate. They remind me a little of Billy Connolly long, winding story humour (obviously less long and winding given the format).

I must know his cat-whisperer secrets. Haha.

I was a bit shocked a little at some of the content and language. It’s been a while since I’ve read anything that’s so clearly for an adult audience.

Frankly, someone, somewhere along the line is going to be offended by something in this zine. To be sure, it’s a curious zine.

“Personals”
JMAH + Contributors
personals.zine@gmail.com

After reviewing Zine Crush 3 and Dear Crush, I have to admit that I went into this assuming that ‘personals’ was going to be about dating.

Sometimes it’s nice to be wrong.

Rather than searching for love out in the wide world, “Personals” is about finding the love of one’s body. From wrists and necks to armpits and power pooches, it’s about love and appreciation for those body parts that give us (and sometimes others) pleasure in one way or another. Each piece is accompanied by art, and each piece of art is like a tribute to the body part the person is writing to.

They are sort of personals in the sense that some end with phone numbers. But they tend to be a sort of throwaway note. ‘Oh, yeah. By the way…’ I wonder if the numbers and emails are real, but I’m not game enough to have a go.

I like the lines that turn not only the interior but the cover as well into a notebook of sorts. It seems like such a small thing on the surface, but it’s sort of a subconscious suggestion that this is a notebook, making the content within more personal. (No pun intended.)

I do have to admit that I sometimes had to hold the zine a bit close to my face to read some of the pieces, but so runs the risk of using handwriting. Given the kind of zine this turned out to be, typing wouldn’t have worked as well. So I’ll take holding it close to my face for the sake of the art.

I have to mention the last piece. It was sad and beautiful, and it reminded me entirely too much of my own life. It was Clair de Lune, haunting me. I’m glad it was left until last.

“Personals” is a slightly different take on body acceptance, but what it does, it does well.

Every Morning
Mel Stringer
https://www.instagram.com/melstringer/
https://www.facebook.com/melstringerart

Sometimes, it’s better to let the zine creator to describe the zine:

Every Morning, as a zine, is an intimate collection of portraits of real and rad women who were willing to have their portrait drawn whilst sharing the simple notion of what their everyday morning looks like.

Every now and then, I fall hard for a zine because it’s so nice in so many ways, and I can’t find a single thing that I don’t like about it. This is one of those zines.

As mentioned above, Every Morning features the self-described morning routines of fascinating women I’ve never met. I love reading about the small, ‘normal’ moments in a life, and I have never before seen someone take on ‘the morning routine’.

It’s one of those ‘why didn’t I think of that?’ moments for me, but I’m glad I didn’t because I couldn’t have done such a wonderful job. I love everything about ‘Every Morning’, from the subject matter to the layout to the paper. (The paper. OMG. The paper. I love ‘petting’ this zine. Is that weird?) It pleases every part of my personality (writer, zine maker, graphic communications student).

I am, however, beginning to wonder if I’m one of the few left in the universe who doesn’t wear makeup… Anyway.

Peeking into lives is one of my guilty pleasures (I’m not weird…), and Every Morning executes that guilty pleasure in superb fashion.

Quote to remember: ‘Plus it’s good to say ‘fuck you!’ to something at least once a day.’

Every Morning definitely one for the permanent collection.

‘Bots is ‘Bots: Issue Two
Gregg
http://botsisbots.blogspot.com.au/

I’ve read the first one, too! Check out my review of ‘Bots Is ‘Bots 1

Where issue one of ‘Bots Is ‘Bots was of a more of an introductory collection of strips, I feel like issue two is more about taking a poke at human nature. Fishing, optimism, pessimism, being overworked… It’s a quirky mix of robots discussing humans while also taking on human behaviour.

While it is having fun and poking fun, he does put in things about the darker sides of life. I appreciated the ‘keeping it real’ aspect to those strips.

I really like the humour in the comic strips, but Gregg proves himself a funny guy in a subtle way as well. You can read the strips and enjoy them, but if you make sure to note the strip titles, they can sometimes make the strip joke all that more funny. I love little touches, and the comic titles could be little somethings that are easy to miss.

All up, I’m looking forward to reading the next issues.

Dear Crush
Lydia Martin
lydiamartin976@gmail.com

I didn’t intend for it to be ‘crush week’ in the review section of the blog, but here we are! I do love a good crush story (my first paid publication was about my crush), and Dear Crush presents notes the many crushes from her life – be them good and bad.

Colour! Unless you’re printing at home (and sometimes even if you are printing at home), colour printing can get expensive, so I suppose it’s no surprise that one might be attracted to the colour zine covers in amongst the treasure trove that is Sticky Institute. Colour combined with subject matter landed this zine in my stack of zine purchases.

Dear Crush features small pieces of art along with colour-copied sticky notes written out to crushes over Lydia’s life. Some where innocent. Some were quite obviously less so. I found myself wondering if the notes were in chronological order, as the seriousness of the ‘feels’ increased as the reading went on.

They are all short reads, so I had to remind myself to slow down and really take in the words as well as the drawings that went alongside them.

Art is like poetry to me – I often get the interpretations wrong. I couldn’t help my brain from being tickled by the presentation of the notes. They are, after all, on sticky notes. Reminders easily thrown away. I felt like Lydia might have been trying to say something about the nature of crushes by using sticky notes. In the end, though, I found myself feeling like there was a depth of feeling missing because of it. Maybe I’m supposed to feel that way? Perhaps that is the nature of crushes, the unrequited.

Either way, I’m not sure. It made me feel something, which is the goal of most art, but the feeling was of that of a shared secret that ended up not being as important as I thought it would be.

But hey, it made me think. It made me look at the presentation and content as one presentation instead of things that happen at the same time on the same page. Very curious, and an enjoyed intellectual dance.

There is something that I feel I must add into this review that isn’t about the content. I confess that if I’d been less anxious and paying more attention to the price of this zine, I wouldn’t have bought it because of the price tag. I have no authority to say what a zine should be priced at or how a creator should value their work. Colour print can get bloody expensive, I know first hand, but one of the reasons I love zines is because I can afford them. At $10, this zine is out of my range. It’s only by the levels of my anxiety and the fact I ended up having enough cash that I was able to buy Dear Crush.

Zine Crush 3
Various
http://pioneerspress.com/products/zine-crush-volume-3

Squee! It’s like Dear Anonymous for crush letters! *drowns in piles of fuzzy love hearts*

First let me apologise for my shoddy photography. The cover is actually a lovely pale yellow colour. My decision to go with natural lighting to photograph a bunch of zines was, for the most part, a bad one. Sigh.

Back to fuzzy love hearts.

Zine Crush is one of those things that I kind of thought that I might have heard of before, so at $2 on Sticky Institute’s shelf, I had to get me some of that. I’m so happy I did! This zine is great. And not just because of the very cute subtitle: even more confessions of like

I think crushes are one of those experiences that nearly everyone can relate to, be they sexual, intellectual, crushes on publications rather than people. One of the things that makes this zine excellent is that it includes all of those. It’s not ‘just for people crushing on other people’. I think that adds a fantastic element to the whole thing.

The singles ads/’ads’? here and there in the zine make it feel like more of a ‘zine crush digest’ with singles listings. The comics and the art add to this effect. I felt so ‘in’ (‘in’ what, exactly, I’m not sure. In the know? In with the cool kids?) while I was reading this. A digest of luuuurve. This is one of those zines that I’m so excited about, and I can quite perfectly articulate why.

I must admit that part of me went back to my wistful, angsty teenager days when all I wanted was someone to have a crush on me. How wonderful that would have been! Ah, the days of rosy glasses.

Anyway, definitely a thumbs up. I’m looking forward to hunting the first two down.

Strange News From Another Star
?
http://www.newseda.com/

Every now and then, you come across a person who has such a dramatically different view of the world than you that it feels like you’re speaking different language when you’re using the same words.

This zine was a bit like that. Down the rabbit hole!

Strange News From Another Star is a strange mix of comic, poetry, and cut and paste. I thought I knew what it was all about in the first few pages, but then it ripped out those assumptions. The first couple of pages mentions a book called ‘Interior Voyages’, and I felt like I was going deeper and deeper into someone’s subconscious or dream as I turned each page.

I like the surprise of it being so different, and I quite enjoyed the art. And how could you not like a zine that gently reminds you of which way is up and then invites you to step inside.

Perhaps, then, you can understand my Alice in Wonderland reference? (Eat me/drink me.)

I must confess, though, that I had no idea what most of it meant. I was happy to float along in my reading, but I can see that that sort of thing might bother some people. For me, it was more about the ride, even if the words were trying to say things that I just couldn’t straighten out in my head.

But, if you don’t mind the possibility of getting completely lost, then you should definitely give it a go.

Shakespeare’s Lovers: Macbeth
Bloomurder Zines
https://www.facebook.com/bloomzine
http://www.bloomurder.etsy.com

Oh, dear zine. The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service. Hehehe.

Okay, so I’m apparently part moth because I like shiny things. When you’re facing a wall of zines at Sticky Institute, you’re probably going to be attracted to the shiny orange zine you see. At least, that’s how it went for me. The colour, the shine, and the texture that comes from a handwritten title (lurve) equals a sale from me.

Shakespeare’s Lovers: Macbeth is about exactly what the title says. A cliff notes type synopsis of the play follows a brief introduction. It goes further to talk about Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in their individual roles as well as how they fumctioned as a couple.

The zine maker’s writing voice in this is absolutely perfect. I dove right in and read it all the way through in one go. It’s one of those zines that made me feel like I needed to have the whole set in my hot little hands even though I’m not sure if there is a ‘set’ in existence yet.

Read it. Love it.

By the Skin of My Teeth Issue One
Sarah
http://thislunaticexpress.blogspot.com.au/
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/MoosZineCorner

My review of By the Skin of My Teeth Issue One is here if you’d like to have a peek.

On behalf of my friend Wing Nut, I have to say thank you for the big, easy-to-read typing. Hehe. I like all sorts, but it’s always nice to have something that’s easy on the eyes.

On to the good stuff! This zine continues on Sarah’s journey regarding mental health, but in this zine she shifts her focus to self-help and self-soothing. I always appreciate information about self-soothing because it’s something that I struggle with. Beyond that I like to see zine series that grow and expand organically from their original content.

She starts off talking about what has happened and is happening in her life, but then she moves into the big techniques for calming. I say big mostly because they are the ‘popular’ ones that weren’t new to me. But then she gets into more personal things like her favourite television shows and the different stuffed animals she uses on different occasions. It was at that point that I felt the ‘per’ part of ‘perzine’ really shined.

In and of itself, it didn’t grab me as very intense or informative (keeping in mind that I’ve been working on this sort of stuff for years), but as part of the series, it works. I’m curious to see where she goes in the next zine.