For My Grandmother
Jane
www.etsy.com/au/shop/JaneSavelyeva

For My Grandmother is a 1/4(ish) size full colour tribute to a special grandmother.

This zine is gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. Yes, zine friends, that is my opener.

From the belly band to the light, gentle colours used throughout, the entirety of this zine has a feeling of care and love – all dedicated from Jane to Jane’s grandmother. Opening this zine, you will find a collection of words and art about a woman – Hope – who was clearly loved very much.

The artwork is delicate and flows between some pieces with intricate details and others with simple lines and fewer details. Jane’s choice of colours, papers, and even using a vellum page further makes everything feel almost antique in a way. The whole zine is warm and beautiful – no doubt in honour of a warm and beautiful woman.

I do worry about belly bands on zines when the title isn’t repeated somewhere within the zine itself, but I think the zine is fairly self-explanatory without the title – and my copy will be safely tucked away in my collection anyway. 🙂

I really adore this zine in and of itself but also because it’s a very clear expression of feeling in zine form. It reminds me of my great-grandmother and all of our happy memories together.

I would definitely grab a copy.

Small Potatoes 3
Keira
https://www.instagram.com/k.huolohan/
https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/ZinesByKeira

Small Potatoes 3 is an A6 size full colour perzine combining life stories, art, poetry, and more.

I’ve come to apprecaite a good intro to a zine more and more, and Keira has written an excellent intro to this zine that engaged me and made me feel curious in the first paragraph:

I am a person who is sick and tired of thinking about how sick and tired they are of being sick and tired. I am a person who has been alive 28 years but living for only a handful of these.

Keira’s writing voice – a voice I have come to know as one with compassion and gentle mystery – continues through the zine as they write about learning to drive, gender change forms, creating community, zines, and dissociative identity disorder along with sharing poetry, drawings, and recommendations. Small Potatoes 3 involves a lot of emotions, but Keira’s writing voice stays steady throughout.

The part about gender change forms is an interesting, albeit sad and frustrating, look int government biases, narratives, and even economic exclusions when it comes to obtaining gender affirming identification. I feel like Keira has touched just the beginning of the topic here and suspect there will be many more zines to come about these journeys.

This zine has quite a few things that made me respect Keira and what they are doing with their life and in the world. I couldn’t help but smile when Keira’s drive to create community and a safe place clearly showed through not just in writing the words but also in writing about what they have done so far with various get togethers and activity days.

What I really had to admire was Keira’s honesty. Despite having an initially negative, ableist reaction to their sister telling them she had dissociative identity disorder, Keira not only called out their own behaviour but defined ableism so as to be clear why their reaction was not a good one. I think it takes a certain kind of bravery to call yourself out on things.

The writing about dissociative identity disorder was a read that made me feel like I had just been given something special and precious. Something especially personal not just for Keira but their sister as well, who actually joins in the zine to write a bit about it. (Love that!)

I quite like the look of this zine – use of colour but as an accent and not anything overwhelming or that takes away from anything else. Keira is trying out new paper, a new font, and other things in this issue, and I love the idea of a zine changing and growing as the person writing it changes and grows. Even better, there are good reasons for this like accessibility but also learning to become more comfortable with empty spaces. The latter speaks to an interesting use of the perzine: documenting self-challenge.

As a quick side note – looking at some of Keira’s sketches made me think they might be interested in designing a tarot deck some day…

All up, Small Potatoes 3 is another excellent zine in the Small Potatoes series that makes me eager to read the next one. I feel like Keira has really found their footing in regards to opening up in both writing and art but in medium as well. I’m looking forward to seeing what comes next.

Dream a Little Dream
Olivia M
http://oliviareadszines.wordpress.com

Dream a Little Dream is a 1/4 sized black and white zine about dreams, lucid dreaming, and more.

This zine is part of an APA-style* trade of dream zines borne of a conversation about dreams online. While I knew about the origins of this zine already from having participated in the conversation and overseeing the trade, I do like a ‘zine origin story’ to start me off.

In Dream a Little Dream, Olivia takes us through common themes in their dreams, traumatic life experiences that influence/d their zines, and a bit on lucid dreaming as well.

I didn’t really know what to expect from a dream zine (besides the obvious), but I found Olivia’s take on the prompt an engaging one. Starting out with their common dream themes was a good way to ‘break the ice’ and possibly find some factors in common. (I, too, have had dreams where I feel like and can ‘remember’ living a life in the dream world.)

Dream a Little Dream leaned more into the perzine side of things with the sections that followed with Olivia writing about two traumatic experiences as background to why they dream about certain things. I love a perzine anyway, but this ‘angle’ (if you will) made the subject at hand all the more interesting. It’s one thing to read about how someone dreams about trying to gather things but ultimately losing them; it adds a lot of dimension to read that things being taken away was a big trauma in their early life.

I enjoyed reading about how Olivia used lucid dreaming to explore their sexuality to the extent of wishing I’d thought of doing that myself. In this, lucid dreams represent an almost ultimate safe place from which to really get in touch with who you are.

Aesthetically, there is a lot to look at in this zine with backgrounds made up of patterned papers as well as some colouring in pages. It is a lot on the eyes on a few of the pages, but not hugely so – and Olivia makes use of black borders around the text blocks on some pages to help. There are times when I have the urge to reach for my coloured pencils, which is a fun, creative feeling.

There’s a bonus list of zines on sleep and dreams in the back, and I always love a good recommendations list. There are some quotes on dreams as well, though I had a bit of a chuckle, as the page is titled: “Random Dream Quotes (Because I Can’t Think of Anything Else to Write)”.

As good a reason as any for a quotes page, I reckon.

While I may not have been sure what I was expecting from a dream zine, Dream a Little Dream was a good read that got my mind thinking a bit (something I always appreciate). If you’re interested in dreams or the influence of trauma on dreams, then this is one to have a look at.

*Amateur Press Association

B-Movie Bandits: A Fanzine
Sober Bob
https://www.instagram.com/soberbobmonthly/

B-Movie Bandits is an A5 black and white zine with a full colour cover about B movies, their ‘heroes’, and their influence on racist and sexist attitudes.

In her usual fashion, Sober Bob gets right into the content of the matter with an intro about how this zine came to be and the realisation of just how much movies filled with racism, sexism, and more ‘informed’ people at the time about how to ‘solve’ their problems.

With breakdowns of her “favourite over the top b movie actors (that redlettermedia introduced me to)”, Sober Bob breaks down Charles Bronson, Deathstalker, and Chuck Norris. Much in the same way, she explores the topics of racism and sexism as well, striking what I found to be an excellent balance of humour as well as treating the topics with due respect.

I have to mention the cover of this zine – made in part from a VHS tape box. The printing over the cover fits perfectly because it has that almost waxy feel and shine of an actual VHS movie box. It’s a little thing that really adds to the enjoyment for me.

I do have to add a little tsk tsk for Sober Bob not including contact details… but I can never be too hard on that because – unless it’s directly stated – you can’t know what’s intentional and what’s not.

My only complaint about this zine is that it ended too early. Haha. I know, but I’m serious. I want so much more of everything this zine offers: Bob’s thoughts on the racism, sexism, and power fantasies running rampant in these movies along with a large helping of her sarcastic sense of humour the points out the ridiculous while not taking away from the importance of the topics being discussed.

(“Charles is saaaaaaad” will forever pop into my head from now on.)

Even better, this zine examines the troubling things about these movies without demonising the lot. They existed, they happened, and we can laugh at them now while pointing out how seriously screwed up they are.

Even if you’re not into B movies or cheaply made action movies, I still recommend checking this out. I like things that examine what is so easily taken for granted or not really thought about – and this zine does that.