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Happy Mail Monday – Broken Pencil Pack Edition

Hello, zine friends! And welcome to another Happy Mail Monday old school style.

This week we have a pack of awesomeness all the way from Broken Pencil in Canada thanks to the generosity of the amazing True Zine Marin. Broken Pencil have different subscription packs so you can enjoy what they do online, offline, and some have extra goodies to enjoy, as well!

There were hiccups along the way that often come with international subscriptions, but Broken Pencil stuck it out and here we are with the Zine League goodness!

This issue of Broken Pencil is a bit of ‘on top’ of the Zine League package. My completionist heart hopes to get all the back issues of Broken Pencil for my collection. Haha

How cool is this?! I love a notebook, and this one has Zinemaker on it. Love. The book is by Broken Pencil founder and publisher Hal Niedzviecki – the novel The Program!

Pins! The pack also comes with these awesome pins with this fun art style. Paper airplane is definitely my favourite and all five went onto my pin display straight away.

Nothing like showing off your Zine League status (or zine-related apparel appreciation) with a t-shirt. 🙂 This art makes me smile because it appeals to my inner zinemaker as well as my introverted, anxious self as well.

(PS. It’s super, super nice when, in the event of t-shirts being offered, that there are bigger sizes.)

This order also included the beautiful zine goodness of the 2018 Winners of the BP Zine Awards . There’s so much goodness to enjoy – have a good long peek below…

 

 

 

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Thank you so much to Broken Pencil for working out the logistics side of getting this from Canada to Australia, and thank you to True Zine Marin once more for your continued awesomeness.

That’s me for now today. I hope the start of the week brings you good things.

Until next time, spread a little sunshine.

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Zine Review: Quarter Life – A Few Weekends

Quarter Life – A Few Weekends
TJ Corless
terry-corless@hotmail.co.uk
https://www.paperandinkzine.co.uk/

Quarter Life – A Few Weekends is a black and white A5 zine with a few chapters from his novel Quarter Life about a man entering adulthood but told through a series of weekends. CW: Drug and alcohol use

Quarter Life opens with a foreword explaining what this zine is about, where it’s from, and how various chapters have been published in magazines, zines, and other spaces. From there we launch into the excerpts, each given its own title – Third Weekend, Fifth Weekend – as well as where the excerpt was first published.

The excerpts are told in the first person present style, which I thought would throw me off because it’s not my favourite perspective or tense. (And it’s often not done so well, but I’ll try to rein in my editor side.) That said, TJ’s writing voice is personal but not intrusive. The ‘told in weekends’ format is an interesting one that adds a slightly different flavour to a story of a life.

The story itself is set in England, so you may not know what Coronation Street is or what a ‘proper little chavvy’ is, but I thin kthose sorts of details make it more fun.

I like the aesthetic of this zine with the recycled paper and riso cover. It’s easy to read, the pages are numbered… It’s an easy-to-tuck-in-your-bag-and-go sort of zine that asks to be well read.

I wasn’t quite sure how pieces of a novel would go in a zine, but this works quite well. The writing is fun, I enjoyed the excerpts in and of themselves, and the story is intriguing enough that I’m now quite curious about the novel. I hope to check out more of TJ’s writing in the future.

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Happy Mail Monday – Old School Edition

Hello, dear and wonderful zine friends! Hello, hello, hello.

So here we are… in text… for Happy Mail Monday…

Videos are definitely more fun, but I decided that an ‘old school’ photos and text post was better than a delayed post. This week is a very busy and stressful one for me. Instead of looking at things as purely black and white, can and can’t, I realised that I needed to look at things in terms of to what to degree things are doable.

I hope people aren’t too disappointed by pictures/text posts only!

The first bit of happy mail comes from the awesome Real Tioga!

Real Tioga is a fun ongoing series that collects clippings from a real community newsletter. It’s so much fun, and every issue makes me smile. Read my review of Real Tioga 7 here.

Thank you Real Tioga for sending the mail goodness!

https://www.etsy.com/shop/realtioga/

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Next in mail goodness, some of you would have seen these goodies at Festival of the Photocopier! (I knew she was sending some distro stock, so I opened the lovely package before I left for Melbourne.) Wonderful, lovely goodness from True Zine Marin!

TZM put together these amazing zine packs that come with stickers, a mini-zine, and a poster to colour in and send back to be included in a future zine. (You can send them to me. 🙂 )

There are also these packs about PETA and animal justice with a mini-zine and sticker goodness inside.

I was so, so happy to see the whole Murals of Marin set available for your mini-zine loving hearts, as I really enjoyed Murals of Marin 1 (read my review here) and may or may not have mentioned a few times to TZM that I’d love to see more. Lo and behold, the art series based around murals around Marin County in California are in existence!

Zines! Vol 2! This came from TZM as a belated Christmas present, to which I say, Merry Christmas TZM! Thank you so much. I have volume one, so I’ll have to check to see if there is a volume three for my completionist heart. Haha.

TZM took me by total and complete surprise with this gorgeous tote bag! Letters’ flowers, sparkle hearts – what’s not to love? And PURPLE! My phone is on its way out, so it really doesn’t do the gorgeous colours justice.

And more flowers on the inside! So colourful.

It went along perfectly with my other travel gear! And I really can’t thank TZM enough for the gorgeous happy mail and all of the support she has given to Sea Green Zines as well as me as a person.

https://www.instagram.com/truezinemarin/

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A mini-zine from Anna Gecko! This little mini-zine has been made to celebrate 2019 (what a lovely idea!) according to the note (written on very nice texture paper, by the way). It’s wonderful to hear from you again and see that you’re still making zines! Thank you so much for the happy mail.

https://www.instagram.com/adri.cosmo/

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Next up is zine mail from a new zine friend – Charles Brubaker. Hello new friend! From first blush look Charles makes fun comics. Charles’ Twitter profile says “a cartoonist who draws cats”. Fantastic! A pleasure to meet you through happy mail! Thank you so much for sending me your comics. I’m looking forward to reading them.

https://twitter.com/bakertoons
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Fishspit remains a dear, dear friend who is the king of envelope art! This lovely surprise has some back issues of his series Wiseblood – which has been running longer than I have been alive! The biggest of hugs to this wonderful human and huge thanks for the happy mail.

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From the amazing Hadass comes this absolutely awesome assortment of zine goodness! Hadass is a super cool Riot Grrrrl living in Israel and creating amazing zines. I’m so, so happy to see such zine goodness in my post box. Thank you so much Hadass for all the goodness!

https://hadass420.wordpress.com/

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This happy mail comes from another new zine friend Happy Tree Cult Zine! Hello! At first blush look, the HLTC zine looks like a collab mini-zine with collage, comics and more. I’m looking forward to taking a closer look. Thank you so much for the happy mail.

https://www.instagram.com/hltczine/

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Last but never least comes beautiful happy mail from Iestyn! A glorious package of zine goodness if there ever was one, and a note as well! There is a lot of fun happy mail along with my copies of The Seas anthology! There’s so much to enjoy because Iestyn is always working on or thinking about the next project. It’s fantastic!

Here’s a closer look at The Seas (soon to be listed in the distro). I’m so happy to have been a part of this collaboration all organised by Iestyn and still absolutely amazed that he saw something in my paintings (featured on the cover and inside) that I didn’t see. Keep an eye out for calls for submissions because Iestyn is an absolute pleasure to work with! Thank you so much for the happy mail.

https://zinelove.wordpress.com/

https://www.instagram.com/_zinelove/

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Thank you to all zine friends, new and old, for everything. It’s an honour and a pleasure to meet you and know you.

Best wishes.

Until next time, spread a little sunshine…

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Zine Review: The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes #1

The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes #1
Amber Dearest
https://www.instagram.com/___pencilskirt/
https://totalbetty.bandcamp.com/

The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes #1 is an A6 black and white perzine about mental health, revisiting the past through zines, sobriety, and more.

Sometimes the zineverse gives you the zine you need to read when you need to read it.

The Triumph of Our Tired Eyes opens with a simple “Reasons to Live” on the inside front cover, which Amber provides with a ‘that’ll do’ in both words and tone. While this is a bit of an intense way to open a zine, I think it speaks to Amber’s writing style as well as being the right kind of tone to resonate with me with where I am in life and mental state right now.

From there Amber writes about a hot July night and how closing a door can mean much more than a closed door. They go on to write about lethargy, melancholy, and loneliness, feelings of being a burden on wonderful friends, and learning to accept things in life.

I identified with so much in this zine and love the way Amber wrote about it. Amber presents the situation and their thoughts without getting stuck in all the teeny tiny details. It’s sharing observations about not being okay without being preachy.

At one point, Amber writes: “I’m never sure if I should answer the question “How’s it goin’?” with perfect honesty.” I found myself nodding along (as someone who has taken to jokingly responding to that question with ‘honest answer or polite one’).

Aesthetically, this zine is very easy to read with primarily typed text. The handwritten elements are clear, and the cut and paste elements are used sparingly to emphasise. It fits the tone of the writing and content. If the reader of the zine is in that space as well, it’s a ‘calm’ zine visually speaking.

One addition I really liked is on the last page Amber added a note beginning with “If you’re a friend and you’re wondering how to support me”… There’s something really beautiful to me about that.

I think a lot of what I like about this zine is how much I identify with it from where I’m standing now. Admittedly, that isn’t the best place. In some things, I feel like Amber (albeit past Amber writing this zine) is a few steps further from where I am now. That in and of itself is rather intriguing, and maybe it’ll be the case for someone else, too.

I think even with current life elements influencing my perspective, this is a zine to check out for Amber’s distinct writing style and writing on subjects I think a lot of people can identify with.

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Happy Mail Monday – Pronunciation Edition

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gW99nJUb_4&w=425&h=315]

Hello and welcome to 2020, friends! Here is a slightly delayed happy mail Monday with wonderful mail from around Australia and the US.

Thank you so much for watching.

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Awesome People/Places/Spaces Mentioned:

*Apples – http://chickencollective.storenvy.com/

*Libby – Midge Books

*Mark – http://the-paruretic.com/

*Ken Bausert – https://www.instagram.com/passcribe/

*Billy – https://www.patreon.com/iknowbilly

*Kendy – http://www.missmuffcake.com/
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My PO Box:

Jaime Nyx
PO Box 378
Murray Bridge, SA 5253
Australia

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You Can Find Me At:

seagreenzines@gmail.com

Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/seagreenzines

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On YouTube & Happy Mail Monday

Hello, zine friends!

Yes, I really did film happy mail today and it’s on its way… Slowly.

A few weeks back now (perhaps longer – my memory is a little fuzzy on the matter) YouTube made an improvement to the video upload system. I actually quite like it. It makes a lot of things easier as well as certain elements easier to understand.

However!

For some reason I can’t fathom, the upload time is absolutely horrendous. I’ve gone from being able to film, edit, upload, and post a video in one day to uploading taking many hours. I thought maybe it was a fluke, but it’s happened enough times now that I need to change around my schedule.

With any luck, this week’s happy mail will be ready and rearing to go on (Oz) Tuesday sooner rather than later. From here on out, I need to rearrange my schedule so I can do the bulk of the work on Sundays rather than Mondays so I can do the posting part of thing on Mondays. (Yep, I love the alliteration of Happy Mail Monday that much. Haha.)

I know I’ve asked this a lot in recent months, but please bear with me as I adjust.

Until next time, spread a little sunshine.

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On Ice Skating & Zine Mail

Hello, dear zine friends!

A quick note for you today. Some fabulous zine mail has arrived in the post box over the past week.

However… Your fluffy zine enthusiast decided to have a go at ice skating recently. The results? A love for ice skating, and an inability to sit in the same position (if at all) for very long. Haha. I landed squarely on my tailbone at one point, and I haven’t been able to sit properly since.

It’s all good and fine – nothing permanently or even badly damaged. But it does mean sitting for a video is a literally painful endeavour this week and one I’d prefer to delay until next week. (I couldn’t figure out how to shoot the video on my stomach without it also being uncomfortable.)

Please forgive the delay! I’m sure I’ll be right back to it for next week’s Happy Mail Monday.

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Zine Review: Dirty Machine

Dirty Machine: short and slutty poems
Nana
https://twitter.com/NaNawrote
https://www.instagram.com/nanawrote/

Dirty Machine: short and slutty poems is an A5 zine of short, dirty poems inspired by submissions of three random words from people on Twitter.

Is it bad that I’m laughing at delight at the mere concept of this zine?

Dirty Machine opens with a fun preface from Nana in which they right about the surprise about how excited people got about exchanging three random words for a dirty poem. (I don’t find this at all surprising. Hehe.) Nana also includes plenty of socials, details about the zine itself, and – as special bonus content – a SoundCloud link to enjoy!

From the preface, we launch into a collection of short poems that range from cheeky to nicely seductive. A few of the poems are in a different language, but most are in English. Like the mark on the cover says, this zine is for mature readers only.

Poetry is still poetry – mostly a mystery, and I know what I like when I read it. That being said, I quite enjoyed these poems. I like the variety in tone and structure, and I do like a bit of mature content. I like Nana’s use of sensory words as well as phrases that gave me clear imagery.

Or sometimes a giggle, like in the case of “Darling,/ what’s your safeword?”

The look and feel of this zine is quite nice. It has a nice glossy cover with smooth pages inside. Every poem has its own page with the random three words each in their own speech bubble floating above it. Even the page numbers are fun, noted by black cats sporting the white numbers.

Dirty Machine feels fun and fresh full of an energy as well as a sense of challenging the unknown. I don’t envy Nana the task of writing poems to these sets of three. One in particular – lemang, cheese, crispy – would have left my mind completely blank!

If you’re a mature reader who thinks short and slutty poems would be fun, then I can tell you this zine is one for you to check out.

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Check It Out: ConFusion Zine Panel “Zines: A Voice For Everyone”

Zines: A Voice For Everyone

Join comic artists and Zinester’s Karmada Arts and BluRaven C. Houvener as they discuss a medium that’s taking the world by storm. It may shock you to find out that Zine’s are nothing new however!

Come learn about Zine’s humble beginnings, how they have evolved overtime into the powerhouse they are today, and how you yourself can make one in your spare time and for dirt cheap!

ConFusion is a Science Fiction and Fantasy convention in the metro Detroit area. We are the longest running SFF con in Michigan!

We focus on literature, art, and music, in the SFF field, and love and welcome all fandoms!

ConFusion is a family friendly con.

Check out https://2020.confusionsf.org/ for more information.