Pages From the Cultural Aether : Love and Beauty #1

32 pages, 8.5" x 5.5", $1.00US, $3.00 Elsewhere, The Cultural Aether, 2440 E. Tudor Rd #364, Anchorage AK 99507, USA Some exquisite cut'n'paste action here with love-lorn, yearning lines inserted. The black & white source images are stunning, really fine work. The sort only found in very ancient books I think. I'd love to know where they came from. The author of this zine must have been going through a heartbreaking end of a relationship. Not bitter, simply pouring out his heart's pain, and rather poetically. Welcome To The Cultural Aether #5

36 pages, $3.00 for a 3-issue bundle in US, add $2.00 for Elsewhere, The Cultural Aether, 2440 E. Tudor Rd #364, Anchorage AK 99507, USA More cut'n'paste images from antiquarian books, stunning breathtaking drawings are these; with typewritten lines of prose in word balloons inserted. The author seems lovesick. In my previous review I mentioned an absence of bitterness. Well, that absence is filled here: "Fuck her for driving away. Fuck her for fucking with my mind. Fuck her for not knowing what she wants. Fuck her for being such a fantastic kisser. ...etc." That's more like it! ... The appropriated art is terrific, the accompanying text a mixed bag, ranging from the keenly insightful to the awkwardly light-hearted. But really, bottom line and all that jazz - three bucks is peanuts for so many pages of such awesome art.

Bizarrism #13

44 pages, 12" x 8", $6.00 Aust/$8.00 World, by Chris Mikul, PO Box K546, Haymarket NSW 1240, AUSTRALIA + cathob [at] zip.com.au This issue features Bizarrism's first colour cover, and does so in punishingly vivid style, depicting one of the Ten Courts of Hell at Singapore's Tiger Balm Gardens. (Chris and Cath visited this wonderful place last year.) Each of the Courts is "...presided over by a stern looking judge who passes sentence. ...enthusiastic devils beat, crush, split, disembowel, dismember and saw in half the unfortunate sinners, all of which are portrayed in mesmerisingly graphic detail with lashings of red paint for blood" Also in this issue: Jimmy Savile and the Process Church; Guy Warren Ballard; and my personal favourite of each issue - My Favourite Dictators #7 is Muammar Gaddafi [1942-2011], ruler of Libya for 42 years. Gaddafi routinely demanded that the wives of his soldiers and guards have sex with him. Those that objected were executed. Finally there are the customary book reviews, including the excellent Going Clear by Lawrence Wright [2013], further exposing the sick joke known as the Church of Scientology. If I'm ever sent off to that fabled Desert Island and offered one zine subscription, Bizarrism would be it.

Batman and Robin [bootleg]

12 pages, 8.5" x 6", by Ryan Vella, grizzleguts [at] live [dot] com for ordering info Batman and the Boy Wonder fight The Joker and Poison Ivy (there's been another escape from Arkham Asylum - "the third this week"). It's a Vella production so you know what that means - badass art and hilarious dialogue and trash talk.