All You Can Read : Collected [#1 & #2]

from Blackguard

48 pages, digest, by Shaun Craike, email for price/trades >>> scraike81 [at] hotmail.com + www.shaunc.deviantart.com "Stop! This is not a new All You Can Read issue!!!" writes Shaun in his intro. What it is, is a reprint of AYCR#1 [2004] and AYCR#2 [2008] since those issues are almost gone, plus he wanted to make a new cover - "A much better version of the second issue, which I copped a lot of crap over." (So it wasn't just me? Heh heh.) The new cover makes it look like a music zine, and although Shaun is heavily into music (favourite band: Fear Factory), and plays in bands, and most of the contents are band/music-related, it's all comix here. Starting off with confessions and criticism of where he spent most of his life so far (Mackay, far north Queensland), including inhabitants thereof (like Josh the chronic masturbator), and fuckwits at local cover band gigs (the drunken douchebag who falls over then says to the barmaid, "Hey gimme a VB!" She replies, "No way, pal." To which this well-mannered young charmer says, "Gimme another beer, slut, or I'll smack ya!" A road trip with his friend Al to Townsville descends into boredom so they play Count The Roadkill (total: 127). A story about Shaun's band El Honeyflood and one member who turns out to be a junkie, and the subsequent trickiness of telling him he's outta the band, and the fallout from that. Pretty dramatic! There's also a cool strip about going to Brisbane to see Fear Factory. During their set they stopped and Christian held up a sign, 'Weed Please', and the stage was showered with pot bags. There's also a few gig flyers Shaun drew for their band. Shaun's comix are really great. Get some.