Imaginary Homework
Theo Ellsworth
www.thoughtcloudfactory.com

This zine is another offering from the Zine O Matic pack that arrived on Aussie shores a couple months back.

Imaginary Homework is a comic zine filled with imaginary homework assignments and actually started out as a real homework assignment for students of a workshop back in 2009. While ‘homework’ would seem to put a damper on anything, this zine goes to show that it can actually be pretty cool and amazing. (At least, when it’s imaginary.)

Each page has an imaginary assignment for you. From imagining interactions with the creatures pictured to contemplating metaphoricals like “Suppose you could have all of the answers right now…”

There’s something about the art in this zine that really draws me in. I think it’s all the complexity and little lines used to create each illustration. (Take a closer look at the cover as well as the picture above.) Each assignment is paired with an illustration that goes with the assigned task but also does even more to encourage the imagination of the reader.

I find myself actually wanting to do some of these ‘assignments’. Far out.

I think this is definitely a zine to keep and one that I will be reading again more than once.

Dress Up Zin – Colour, Cut & Stick
Zin (I’m Guessing)
?

I’m in the mood for something fun and cute today, and what’s more cute than this mini-zine?

Dress Up Zin is a mini-zine designed to be cut up and played with like paper dolls! (Did anyone else come across paper dolls as a kid?) On the first page is an adorable Zin, and various clothing items like hats, pants and accessories are scattered across the pages that follow – ready for you to cut out.

What’s even more fun is not only can you cut up the little clothing items and ‘dress up Zin’, you can colour the clothing yourself, too!

It’s interesting for me to see a zine that you’re actually meant to cut up. It’s so distinctly not being precious about one’s work when you tell people to cut it up. The whole aura of the prospect is interesting and different. I’d feel a little weird cutting it up, but at the same time, anything that makes me feel like a kid again is pretty cool.

The only thing that trips me up with this zine is that there is no contact/website/etc info whatsoever. With something so utterly adorable and with such fun art, OF COURSE I want to see where I can find more/get more/find out more!

Never underestimate where your zines will go or who might want to find out more.

It’s still definitely in the forever collection, though.

The La-La Theory #6: Always Already
Katie
http://www.thelalatheory.com/
Jimmy Tierney (Art) www.graphiteplayground.com

I feel like it would be a disservice to this zine to say it’s about ‘words’, and yet it is. However, it’s also about interesting words, language, strange words, strange ways to learn words (who knew old ‘learn to read’ books were so… somewhat disturbing?), finding poetry, zines, and more. There is even an interview with Manija Brown, a writer who has done manga adaptations.

So there it is: about words and yet so much more than words.

The La-La Theory 6 starts off with Katie pondering whether the thought that language is what makes us human. That reminded me of Let’s Communicate and how language can be so much more than what we humans usually think of it. When I dove straight onto that thought train into the world of world and language, I knew I had a winner.

This zine is fun and engaging in a calm way right from the start. The little things drew me in like how Katie mentioned this zine was a way of coming back to the spirit of the first La-La Theory. Even the somewhat/sort of incomplete table of contents had me smiling.

What a fun way to point to a few specific pieces.

Katie goes on to include brief etymologies (the history of a word’s meaning) of various words, a few reviews of very strange old language use books, and a piece about words that don’t have direct English translations.

The piece in this that spoke the most to me “On Finding Poetry”. I’ve said plenty of times that I don’t ‘get’ poetry and have always felt a little uncomfortable about that. So when I read this piece, I felt like Katie may as well have been talking directly to me…

A lot of the people I know feel shy about poetry. They’re not sure they understand it, they’re embarrassed of the poems they wrote when they were really young, and they’re certain they couldn’t write anything good now if they tried. But I know different: Anyone can write poems, and everyone should.

I would have bet money on me never writing a poem again and no one ever being able to convince me to do so. And yet, Katie’s surety about and love for poetry (along with tips on ‘finding’ poems) has me thinking about trying my hand again for the first time in many years.

I quite enjoyed this zine and taking in Katie’s love of words. I’m looking forward to tracking down more issues of The La-La Theory.