Category: Zine Reviews

New Hearts, New Bones 16 : Evil Has Many Faces
Cheering and Waving Press
Touch smaller than A6
http://wemakezines.ning.com/profile/CheeringandWavingPress

This little zine is marked as free zine, but I received it in a trade. (Such is the way when postage to your country stinks). It’s a ‘traditional’ zine in the sense of it being black and white, clearly cut and paste, and stapled together in a slightly askew way.

This zine is almost a call to revolution. At least, that’s how I read it. It starts off with a ‘tragic but true’ statement and then prods you into taking action. Into stopping the monotony of it all. While it didn’t inspire me to throw away the ‘shackles of the man’ (and I type that with no sarcasm intended), it was a short, sharp reminder that there is more to the world than the things I immerse myself in.

A bit deep for such a small zine? Perhaps. But I’m in the mood for some stirring of life beyond what it is now.

You Don’t Know Me
Gemma Flack
A5
http://www.gemmaflack.com/

You Don’t Know Me is a beautiful black and white zine of little words and hand drawn images. While it may be easy for some to breeze through it in a minute or two, it can have a lot more meaning if you let it.

On the fact of it, it’s composed of a few sentences – but they are sentences I have thought thousands of times. I am a woman who has judged and been judged based on appearance only. So, instead of flipping through the zine, I slowed down and really looked at the drawings. Gemma’s drawing is both straight to the point and intricate when you pause a moment to look closer.

*Special note on the back: For each copy of this zine sold, $1 will be donated to IWDA: International Women’s Development Agency, advancing women’s rights in Asia & the Pacific.

Updated Report of Observations Which Somehow Seem to Reflect Abstractly on Life (Stat 2)
Sarah McNeil
A6
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/SarahMcNeil

Have you ever looked at a zine and wondered why you didn’t think of that? Well played, Sarah McNeil. Well played.

That sounds antagonistic, but it’s really not. I love statistics and graphs, and this zine is filled with them. From pie charts to bar graphs, McNeil has taken subjects from her life and laid them out statistics-addict style. I love, love, love it.

And wish I’d thought of it. But we’ve been over that.

While it might sound like a ‘cute’ sort of zine, there’s actually more than what a glance will tell you. The ‘Junk in My New Apartment’ pie chart and ‘Alcohol Intake’ line graph are amusing. Combine those with the ‘Sexual Preference’ and ‘This Zine’ pie charts start to give you a view of real, complex life. It’s becomes something akin to blogging via statistics. There is a level of vulnerability that I wouldn’t have thought possible through charts and graphs.

There are also a few more… visually amusing line graphs, but I’ll leave you to discover those.

Outstanding Stickman 1 / Cool Yule
Clifton Carroll
Single page zine (8 pages fold)
www.theduckwebcomics.com/outstanding_stickman

I am definitely not looking to make a habit of reviewing more than one zine in one post, but both of these did come from the same person, and a lot of what I like is shared by both zines. Thus the exception.

Okay! I received Outstanding Stickman 1 as a trade with Clifton. It is a free zine, but I suggested that a trade would be better considering the postage fees involved between the US and Australia. Cool Yule came as a lovely surprise closer to Christmas.

The first thing that I immediately noticed (and loved) about these zines was the slightly different fold. It’s still one page folded into an 8-page zine, but it’s done in a way that leaves a little edges on the back page for notes, Clifton’s details, etc. It’s such a simple thing, but it made me smile. The next cool thing? Hand-coloured with… crayons, if I’m correct. I’m pretty sure it’s the crayon wax sheen that I’m seeing when I hold them at an angle. I have no idea how many zines are in a print run for Clifton, but I can appreciate anything done by hand, after the copying process.

The drawing, while fun, isn’t going to wow you, but I think that suits the overall comic. They’re free mini-comics, so I don’t go in expecting Da Vinci. The stories were amusing but not much more than that. Again, I go back to what the zines are as a whole. I did like Cool Yule a touch more, as it took a cheeky jab at how the real origins of Christmas aren’t what a lot of kids are taught.

There’s a very relaxed quality to both these zines. As someone who takes herself way too seriously most of the time. I appreciate zines that remind me that not everything is so serious.

Fontainebleau
?
9.5cm x 11.5cm
?

I bought this little lovely on my big ol’ Sticky Institute distro last year. It was a zine that forced me to face my attraction to pretty things, my uncontrollable judgment-by-cover nature, and my unbridled, passtionate affection for 3D glasses.

Yep. That happened. And I even took a selfie. Ugh. I am thoroughly disgusted.

But enough about me.

Fontainebleau – if you hadn’t already guessed – is French. Beyond that, I’m not sure. I took one semester of French when I was a teen, and I can only remember enough to be able to say “My name is Nyx” and “You petite cabbage”.

But, as seems to be my custom with zines I enjoy, I don’t care! I don’t care about not knowing the words because the novelty and experience of the zine is so much fun.

Fontainbleau is printed on lovely glossy paper – something I wholeheartedly approve of for art zines. Its size is odd, but that is no deterrent, as it’s packaged with an A6 piece of thicker board to protect it. The zine, the glasses, and the board are all packaged together in a clear cellophane bag. I felt a bit like a child opening it and looking forward to my ‘toy’ 3D glasses that came with the ‘main’.

Perhaps stretching a metaphor thin, but I’ll move along.

I won’t lie; art is often like poetry to me in that I can appreciate it but am often left with the feeling that it is saying something that I’m not understanding. The pleasantly strange images are a curiosity to the normal gaze. That surrealism (not using the art term, just picking the word) takes on a whole new level when you slip the red and blue glasses.

There’s a quote in the beginning that starts with the line ‘Under the water’. Those words repeated in my mind as I looked at the pictures with the glasses on. Everything seemed suspended in a strange world…

If you don’t like art zines, then not even the novelty of 3D glasses is going to make this any more appealing. If you do, however, why not take it a bit further and make some popcorn as well.

**If you know anything more about this zine, feel free to contact me. I’ve done sweet little research with my swamped schedule, if I’m to be honest, and I would appreciate any factual tidbits.

What a whopper of a review! Forgive my long-windedness!

Hand Job Zine Issue 6
Jim and Sophie (and contributors)
A5
https://handjobzine.wordpress.com/

Sometimes you just know when you’ll like a zine. I do come into these reviews with a bit of naivete because I’m hoping for a good zine, but this one? This one I had a good feeling about.

Right away, I was taken to what I view as the more ‘traditional’ (not a bad word!) style. There are copied edges and smudges, different fonts and handwriting, pictures, stories… It rings true with cut and paste style. Seeing all this in my initial flip through had me eager to dig in.

I’m used to a table of contents of some sort in zine, used to being gently invited in to continue on reading. HJ6 doesn’t have a table of contents or even page numbers – but it works! It works to a magnificent degree with this zine because of the tone set on the very first piece – a poetic, melodic (in my mind) welcome from Jim and Sophie.

I have no idea who Jim and Sophie are, but I already think they’re pretty cool. The introduction is excellent in that I think you’ll know straight away whether this zine is for you. Either you put it down or you feel that ‘Boom. You’re here, so why not keep reading?’ that the intro really set the stage for in my reading experience.

Pull up a stool, have a smoke and enjoy.

The pieces including were all interesting and sometimes shocking in the way that a story can lure you in, calm you down and then slap you across the face, all while maintaining the same tone. I went back more than once to read a sentence here, an entire piece there. While that might be something that puts others off, I liked the feeling that written pieces were as much art as literature. (And all that without needing to read Jane Eyre!)

I can’t say that I’ve understood all the poetry, but I’ve taken enough English classes to know that I’ll come ’round.

While a zine maker who accepts contributions can only work with what they have, I feel like this zine was set up in a way that screws with my expectations. The aforementioned English classes could have me reading into it too much, but I found myself shocked out of my expectations more than once. ‘Him Upstairs’ was a slap across the face (at the end), followed by a picture, followed by another piece with something special about it (no spoilers), and so on. The review toward the end and the very last piece – a list – continued to take my expectations and laugh at them. A strange but enjoyable experience.

This isn’t a zine to sit down for a casual flip-through. There is a lot of content and a lot of room for contemplation, so you be so inclined.

PS. Hand Job Zine is calling for submissions! Be sure to click on their blog link at the top of this review and check out their blog.

How to Turn You Journal Into Your Best Friend, Your Life Coach, And a Visual Extravaganza
By Asphyxia
A6 – Single Sheet
https://www.etsy.com/shop/fixiesshelf
https://www.facebook.com/FixiesShelf

I bought this little lovely on Etsy partly because I am a newbie art journalist and partly because Asphyxia is in Melbourne. Score for learning stuff with cheaper postage.

The other reason that I bought this zine is because of Asphyxia’s art style, which you see on the front of the zine. There is something incredibly familiar about it, but I have yet to put my finger on exactly what it reminds me of. Either way, I think it looks great.

The first thing that I thought was neat about this zine is that it’s made from a single page. That in and of itself might not seem all that impressive, but it’s an A6. This means that the one sheet is an A3. This is the first time I’ve seen a zine printed out on an A3 and folded into an 8-page zine. I quite like the size.

The inside is mostly text, which is completely understandable given the amount of information packed into this zine. You definitely won’t be left wanting for instructional content. I did find myself wanting some sort of artistic flair inside, though. I want to make it clear that I definitely didn’t hold anything against the zine for focusing on text. Definitely not. But there was an opportunity to make the zine a ‘visual extravaganza’ like the journal you’re learning to create.

As for the actual subject matter, it’s excellent. She gets right to the point (no waffles here!*) and gets you on your way to getting more out of your journal.

*I thought about how she doesn’t waffle in her writing, and that became ‘no waffles!’ I have that makes a smidge of sense.

The Ken Chronicles 33
Ken Bausert
US half-fold
http://thekenbausertchronicles.blogspot.com
http://kenbausertsnostalgicmuseum.blogspot.com
passscribe at aol.com

The Ken Chronicles 33 is the first perzine I traded for in an effort to ‘research’ perzines before making my own. To my delight, this zine is an excellent example.

I’ve come to realise that I judge zines by their feel as well as their cover. What I mean is that I love the feel/weight of a ‘solid’ zine. Something that I know will provide me with more than a minute of reading. Picking up this zine gives that expectation – and delivers.

As I read, I felt like I was reading a ‘life digest’ magazine. I love the variety I found inside. He includes letters from people who have read his zines (a great idea I’d love to copy!), pieces about zines and his life, a few zine reviews, and more.

He doesn’t waste room, either, with all pages packed with words (that are still in a readable font size).

As someone who likes to do ‘further research’ on the zines I like, I appreciated him putting all details in regards to him, his zines and contacting him right in front. That he introduced me to a few zines I am eager to get hold of is a great bonus.

I have written a review of this before, but I figured I’d give it a proper go. I won’t be re-reviewing everything, though.

How to Write a Mills & Boon-esque Bodice Ripper Novel
Leopoldina Van Wowser Ainswright
A5
???

I’m a bit sad to say that I wasn’t able to track down a website or an email address for “Leopoldina Van Wowser Ainswright”. This zine is too funny not to share.

I have to start with the cover of this one, because that’s where the fun begins. The mixture of fonts and flourish-y bits on the light pink, textured paper sets up the tongue-in-cheek expectations that this zine delivers oh so well.

While the title on the cover is certainly a wander through font-land, readers shouldn’t be worried that this carries into the zine itself. It doesn’t.

How to Write… completely rips apart all the worst stereotypes not only of romance novels but of romance authors and their writing spaces. Everything is written with the ‘how-to’ tone I’ve come to know in the large number of self-help articles I’ve read, which makes the actual ‘advice’ even funnier.

My favourite part? Part 8: Ravishment. This includes advice for what words to use for ‘Man Bits’ and ‘Lady Bits’.

Definitely a keeper.