Opinionated Nobody #8
Rebecca McCormick
http://zinewiki.com/Opinionated_nobody

Opinionated Nobody 8 is a perzine by Rebecca and covers topics like making a new zine while needing to write a novel for an MA, mental health/illness and medication, counselling, Christmas, and Star Wars.

Rebecca’s writing style is very much like that of catching up with an old friend. I could just imagine her dropping onto a seat across from me with her cuppa and saying the first lines of her zine – “I’ve been wanting to write a new zine for ages…” – in easy conversation instead of writing them. Her writing makes me feel comfortable and welcome in her world, even while she’s sharing some vulnerable things.

In that way, it reminded me of Pieces. While I try to avoid comparisons, I think this is a good thing to have in common with another perzine.

In the inside front cover, Rebecca includes a note (no spoilers here) that is an update to things mentioned in the zine. I really like the added touch and it made me smile. It’s something so small, and yet it reminded me that zines, by their handmade nature, can grow and change even as we create them.

This is another one of those zines that I’ve had for a little while but feel like I’ve opened up to read it at just the right time. As I’ve recently had to go back on anti-anxiety medication, I appreciate Rebecca writing about her own experiences doing that as well as writing about her counsellor as well.

If you like perzines – especially ones that touch on mental health/illness, reading, tattoos, and Star Wars – then I think you should check this one out.

Curse On a Zinester
ET
http://et-maispourquoi.blogspot.com.au/

Continuing on with the theme of zines that made me laugh, today we have a most excellent zine.

Curse on a Zinester is a mini-zine filled with horrible curses to wish upon your zinester enemies. Each page contains a single curse, though some curses have multiple parts, making an already bad possibility even worse…

Not sure what I’m on about? Think cursing an author with “may you’re their, there, and they’re forever be used incorrectly”. They make me shudder in horror, but I can’t stop myself from giggling a little.

I can’t possibly pick a favourite curse out of the bunch, but the one that really made me laugh on a ‘only zinesters get this’ sort of level was:

May your first customer pay with a $50 note.

I may have let out a little squeal of delight when I read the about page of ET’s blog and found out that they are the very same person who created Instructions for surviving the ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE: In rhyming couplets! I reviewed that zine four years ago – almost to the day.

I’m not sure exactly what the word for it is (though there must be a word for it), but this zine brings out the same pleasure you get from identifying with those “Things only an ____ would understand” type articles. Even though you’re reading about situations you would never want to happen to you, you know that part of the reason you’re horrified is because you’re part of the group who understands.

The best part? There is a space at the back to write down your own curse.

my dads ugly clock-wall
Poesveryattractivecousin.wordpress.com

I picked this little zine up last Friday at the Melbourne Art Book Fair because it made me laugh. I do so appreciate a smile or a laugh…

There’s something about not just thinking that one’s dad’s clock wall is ugly but thinking it’s so ugly that you need to make a zine out of its magnificent ugliness that makes me literally laugh out loud. It’s probably one of the best demonstrations of ‘zines can be about anything you want’ that I’ve ever seen.

This zine is exactly what it says it is. Its entire contents are small colour pictures of this wall of clocks. I’m a big fan of the absurdist branch of exitentialism, so the absurdity of this little zine. It’s ridiculously funny (to me).

Just so you can get a better view of the size…

The editor side of me does feel a little riled up about the lack of apostrophe in ‘dads’, unnecessary hypenation with ‘clock-wall’, and the misspelling of one’s own URL (I have spelled it correctly above so the link works), so that does take away a little bit from it. While on one side it is a bit nit picky of me, when your zine only has five words and a URL, these sorts of things are going to stand out.

That being said, I was thinking about how I may have to forgive no contact details on a zine this small. Lo and behold, there are details on the back. No excuses, everyone!

So if you like the strange and odd, and you think you may have a similar sense of humour to mine, then you might want to grab this one.