The Earlham Review no. 1
Tim Cook
https://www.theearlhamreview.com/
The Earlham Review is a black and white A4 size zine chock full of chippings of text and pictures arranged into its own magazine of organised chaos.*
I haven’t written these words in a while, but wow, it’s hard to know where to start with zine.
As you can probably see from the cover, The Earlham review dives right into an assortment of clippings from different sources put together to create all new bits and pieces. I can easily imagine one or more people sitting at a big table covered in text and image clippings, going through it all to create sentences that make sense.
There are longer fake news articles like ‘Two Years ‘Hard’ For’ by Constance Cox-Cumming, as well as small little snippets of fake news one-liners like “South American black widow spider living in bunch of shop bananas frightened of being sent to special detention cobweb”.
And there are 24 pages of this.
My favourite part is the cut and paste “Profile On Badminton Star Betty Cylinder”. With so many little clippings from so many different sources, it makes for an amusingly confusing assortment of ‘facts’ from “Birthplace: Studio flat in Chelsea” to “Superstitions: Sleeping”.
The slight drawback is that what makes it awesome is also what makes it slightly visually overwhelming. When there’s so much on a page going in quite a few directions, then it can all feel a bit in your face at first glance. That being said, it’s worth diving right in and seeing the massive assortment of little cut and paste treasures are on offer.
I am in absolute awe of how much time and effort it must have taken to put this together – and there’s a second edition out, too! I’ve read through it several times and still keep going back to it for ‘one more look through’. I’m probably repeating myself at this point, but there’s so much!
The Earlham Review is certainly an interesting zine that takes cut and paste with a large side of collage to a whole new level. I’m by no means some zine-reading giant, but I think it’s worth noting that I’ve never seen anything quite like it. It’s a zine that’s interesting no matter what level you take it – flip through or reading every single strange and often amusing combination of words.
One to check out.
*I know ‘organised chaos’ is an oxymoron, but I can’t think of a better phrase.
Thank you for your kind comments! #2 and #3 of The Earlham Review are now available to buy on our Etsy store, and I am working on #4. Due to the length of time it takes to put an issue together, #3 and #4 will be 20 pages in length, though #2, like #1, is 24 pages long. #3 made its public debut at the first Norwich Annual Zine fair, and we sold 6 copies of TER in total, our best ever sales day. I’ve big plans for TER, but we need to get the word out there, and your review will help. And don’t forget to join TER on Facebook, if only for the cat pictures.
You are very welcome! Thank you so much for sending it along for review. I hope my words help get more eyes on your creation. 🙂