The Screever - Issue 8

The Screever - Issue 8, Autumn 2015.

The Stars are a free show - Volume Two

A6, 56 photocopied pages. Compilation tape made in conjunction with The Screever zine.

£4 (for zine, tape and a patch)

Ok, I’ll be up front – I love The Screever

I love the size. It has travelled in my jacket pocket for a couple of weeks, filling the moments I want to disconnect from the constant digital push with articles, interviews and features with people making things their own way. Like Thomas Lee Rutter who is making a western based on Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger, shot in Worcestershire and Barmouth. Like Joe Solo who was responsible for the We Shall Overcome events to help express collective disapproval of the government’s hateful austerity measures. Like Crow a new diy West Midlands skate brand.

I love the tape. Mix-tapes are about curation and duration, which is rare combination to find these days. It is so easy to miss the bands starting out, playing small gigs hundreds of miles away in venues you've never heard of. Those bands might be making music that speaks to you personally - how do you find them in the digital swamp? In this instance that’s where someone like The Screever steps in. The Stars are a free show features 19 mainly currently unreleased tracks including the excellently named Bratakus, who are also interviewed in the zine, The International Hookey Club, La Mascleta, and Movies, Games and Videos.

I love how The Screever has been put together with an equal amount of passion and care.

I love its attitude and inquisitiveness.

Just buy I copy, you’ll see what I mean. 

Buy a copy here

Visit The Screever Facebook page and The Screever Blogspot

Review by Nathan Penlington

Fütchi Perf

Fütchi Perf

84 pages,  6 x 9 inch

soft cover, saddle stitched, two color risograph

$18 delivered in USA

By artist and writer Kevin Czap.

I was excited to pick this up, partly because it's Cleveland based, and partly because it's very colorful and nicely produced. I was a little let down because I didn't really get it, although it wasn't boring at all. It was intriguing and engaging, and I wanted to understand and appreciate it, but I felt it was just over my head. 

What I would have wrote about it is that it seems to be about black or mixed race lesbians, or at least generally girl-centric, and that it was about hip hop culture, and that it was very dreamy. As it turns out, I wasn't too far off. I'll provide a link to the publisher's promo copy and you can read what they have to say about it. There's sample pages there too.

I'm not a great target audience for this, but it did make me stretch a bit, and that gave me some appreciation for the work.

The price is appropriate.

A digital version is available as well.

http://www.czapbooks.com/product/futchi-perf

Review by Jack Cheiky

22 Colour Photographs

22 Colour Photographs

24 pages, 1/2 legal

$5 + postage

I don't feel qualified to review photography, so I'm going to post the foreword page describing the photographer's thoughts, and I'll include a couple of my favorite photos from this volume.

Order:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/217219572/22-colour-photographs?ref=shop_home_feat_3

Contact:

Rot #5

Rot #5

32 pages, (not counting cover,) digest

black and white, blue card stock cover

$2.00 plus postage

"next episode of my drawings zine ROT. this one is mostly comics/leather jackets. contains: dream sequences, guarded swans, bossy leather cats, goat skull guys, hate cops, fuck you butterflies, constant cameos, and assorted others! warm, degraded, inverted. gay interest."

Dark, gritty, sarcastic, angry, crude, and all around general naughtiness. Hates cops. Although a little disjointed in places, it holds together pretty well and is more or less coherent. Pretty cool.

Order:

http://milkbonedampxerox.storenvy.com/collections/270636-all-products/products/3820627-rot-5

Contact:

Review by Jack Cheiky

Stratu's Diary Comix, May 2015

Stratu's Diary Comix, May 2015

8 pages, (not counting cover,) full size, side stapled

$3.50 per issue in Australia

$5.00 per issue World Wide

accepts trades

Stuart Stratu is our friend and Australian correspondent. He is also the man behind the Blackguard Comix series. Every day in 2015,Stuart is chronicling his life with a three frame comic.

This issue covers his adversarial relationship with the local schlock radio station, his daily crosswords, Witcher III, his mental check list of to dos that he hasn't done, Rocco's 3rd birthday with Gumby cake, Dean Martin, and more shitty FM radio and crosswords. Not so much beer in this issue. One of my favorite things about these comics is the way he depicts his parents and his relationship with them. His father has dementia, and he's getting worse. Stu tries to keep things light, and he succeeds for the most part, but you cannot avoid witnessing the slow incremental loss that comes with Altheimer's. His painting himself as clownish does not hide his pain, nor the sweetness of his devotion to his parents.

Well done Stuart. Definitely one of the coolest and most welcome things I receive in the mail.

Stratu

PO Box 35

Marrickville NSW 2204

AUSTRALIA

http://blackguard23.livejournal.com/

Review by Jack Cheiky

YouTube Girl & Airport Diner Claw Machine

YouTube Girl

12 pages, digest, color

Price ??

Airport Diner Claw Machine

32 pages, digest, black and white

Price ??

You may already know Olivia Knowles from Brainbug Magazine. She's a great cartoonist and illustrator.

YouTube Girl I liked. Airport Diner Claw Machine, not so much. YouTube Girl has a storyline, which is on the weird side, sexy in places, gross in places, but very readable and likable. All in full color. Airport Diner Claw Machine is about her first 30 days in Kutztown PA. While it doesn't have a storyline per se, the collection of mostly one frame vignettes blend together, giving the reader and overall sense of the time and place through a collage like series of snapshots. Normally I like this type of format / approach, but here it didn't do anything for me. I'm sure it would be of more interest to anyone who has a personal connection to Knowles or the geographical area, comic connoisseurs, and anyone who isn't a jaded zine reviewer. There's nothing really wrong with it. It's drawn well. It just didn't grab me.

Contact:

oliviataylorknowles@gmail.com

Review by Jack Cheiky

Now the Waters Boiling #2

Now the Waters Boiling #2

24 pages, mini

$2.50 delivered

10 soup and stew recipes, including chili and how to make croutons. The very best in cusine de la baccalauréat.

Buy

https://www.etsy.com/listing/213228952/now-the-waters-boiling-issue-2-soups-and?ref=shop_home_active_21

Contact

The Word Distribution

ATTN: Chops

319 8th St. APT. 4R

Jersey City, NJ 07302 

theworddistro@gmail.com

http://www.theworddistribution.com/contact.html

review by Jack Cheiky

Jacque Straps #2

Jacque Straps #2

22 pages, 1/4 size, mini, pocket

$2.50 delivered

Sports Radio in zine format. This is the White Boys Issue. Ad Copy: "Features white boys in the NBA from the 80's & 90's like Mark Price, Rex Chapman, Tom Chambers & more." Printed on white paper.

Colorful content.

Buy

https://www.etsy.com/listing/227908698/jacque-straps-issue-2-white-boys?ref=shop_home_active_4

Contact

The Word Distribution

ATTN: Chops

319 8th St. APT. 4R

Jersey City, NJ 07302 

theworddistro@gmail.com

http://www.theworddistribution.com/contact.html

review by Jack Cheiky

Dear Crabby #3

Dear Crabby #3

24 pages, mini/pocket size

$2.50 delivered.

"Crabby" answers questions sent in to advice columns that he has ripped from the pages of newspapers. Crabby is offensive, vulgar, and only funny if your in the right mood. But hey, there's a disclaimer right on the cover.

Here is the ad copy from their site: "Did you ever wonder how if your Mormon you'd uphold your standards in Spain? Or if your a female and farted in an office full of men how you should react? How about if your boyfriend never "likes"anything on Facebook. Crabby answers these questions and more in the latest installment of "Dear Crabby". "

I picked this up at the Scranton Zine Fest. They've got a nice line up.

http://www.theworddistribution.com/home/scranton-zine-fest-2015

Buy:

The Word Distribution

ATTN: Chops

319 8th St. APT. 4R

Jersey City, NJ 07302

theworddistro@gmail.com

https://www.etsy.com/cart/

Contact

http://www.theworddistribution.com/contact.html

review by Jack Cheiky

Cleveland Ohio Zine Library

Press Release and Call for Submissions
Please forward, re-post and link

I am pleased to announce the opening of the first Zine Library in the Greater Cleveland Ohio area.

I pitched the Idea to my local public library and they are delighted to get in on it. They are going to start with some of the zines I have on hand right now. I only have a couple dozen because I gave away a ton of zines in August at the MOCA Cleveland Zine Exhibit.

From here on I will be donating all zines sent to me for review when I'm done with them. I will make another announcement with the library info once I know for sure where they want them sent and what branch will be displaying them. I'll be meeting with the library this week.

In the mean time you can send everything and anything to me. If I get buried in zines I'll just donate them and go to the library to catch up on reviews.

If anyone sends me material I normally would not review, (like poetry zines, for example,) I will just donate them straightaway.

If you're not familiar with Syndicated Zine Reviews, go check us out now.

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