Zine Review: Scissors & Chainsaws

Scissors & Chainsaws
Zina
https://echopublishing.wordpress.com/
https://drawingsbynina.wordpress.com/

I am now utterly in love with diary comic zines and decree that everyone make them.

Scissors & Chainsaws is a black and white diary comic zine featuring daily entries though International Zine Month (July) 2013. Now you may think I love all zines about zines and, well, this zine keeps on with the trend. So much love.

Zina takes you from June 30th introduction and prep to final July 31st wrap up with future zine plans. For every day there are small drawings and brief descriptions about what’s happened on the day. As much as the focus is IZM, plenty of focus goes to things that don’t have to do with zines (other than being put in a zine). Zina doesn’t do every single daily activity, but honestly, I found myself enjoying everything so much that I didn’t mind at all. I was happy to read about the non-zine things, too. It is a diary comic, after all.

The aesthetics of this zine are so cute and fun – and I’m not just saying that because of the green cover and green string binding. Colour me green for being so envious of Zina ‘cute but not cutesy’ drawing style. I love it when the art and the words work around each other, influencing each others shapes and positions on the page rather than everything being so neatly squared and separated.

The addition of Chainsaw Bunny made me laugh and smile. I was delighted to see “I’ll be back” on the July 31st entry with him/her/bunbun.

All up, Scissors & Chainsaws is a nice, pleasant zine that gives you a glimpse into Zina’s life. Get a copy. Truly. If you love perzines, comics, diary comics, International Zine Month, any combination of any of those… Pick it up. Because I’m not lending mine out. Hehe.

PS. This cover is actually more nice warm green than mint, but I can’t for the life of me make my camera take pictures that match up with what my actual eyes see.