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

Betty Paginated #32 - Winter 2011

Betty Paginated #32 - Winter 2011

via Blackguard on 10/10/11

  
56 pages, magazine size, $10.00, Dann Lennard, PO Box A1412, Sydney South NSW 1235, AUSTRALIA + danhelen [at] idx.com.au + bettypaginated.blogspot.com
This issue of BP gets off to a very funny start - page three has a photo of Dann seconds after being accidentally head-butted by bare-breasted stripper and People columnist Jewell. Haw! But as Dann writes, "It's OK, she consoled me afterwards."
Also in this issue: Amanda Palmer; Lady Gaga; Dann's gig report of a Murder Junkies [GG Allin's band] show; Canadian gay comix creator Patrick Fillion; Jim Balent's Tarot: Witch Of The Black Rose; Dann's criticism of Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon superhero comic series (with replies from Larsen); Dann's quest to read 30+ years worth of Legion of Super-Heroes; Dann's "irrational love for B'wana Beast" [DC comic]; a Sticky interview with Dann; street art making a comeback in Sydney; a tribute to Scream Queens; a hatchet job on Ben Elton [Ha! Good! - SS]; a "Stone Cold" Steve Austin interview; Randy "Macho Man" Savage; Tura Satana [1938-2011]; Bob Guccione [1930-2010]; Musings on Stripping; a couple of Great Feuds Of Our Time (Tila Tequila vs The Juggalos, and Jessi Slaughter [age 11] vs The 4Chan Trolls).
And of course many, many photos of gorgeous women in various states of undress. And more! This baby is jam packed. The only minus is that I can't read BP on the bus (and you know how I LOVE to read on the bus, especially zines). With breasts and butts (and even gigantic cartoon cocks in this issue) popping out from almost every page, this zine is not public transport-friendly.

Lost In The Suburbz #6

Lost In The Suburbz #6

[Thanks to Candace at Sticky for sending me this.]

32 pages, digest size, lostinthesuburbz [at] hotmail.com + PO Box 762, Hillarys WA 6923, AUSTRALIA

A perfect example of substance over style, Lost is cut'n'paste text wall-to-wall (except for the gnome pictures on the front and back covers and inside back page). Casual intro like your friend telling you what happened. "Noah was too busy making an album to actually write something this time... Zero has quit the 'zine to start his own 'zine, so this piece will be his last piece in Lost."

Contributor Goth Cunt lists stuff he loves doing, like "watching Titanic the movie just for the one scene where the boat tips and the guy holding the rail falls and hits the chimney stack and goes Ping..."

Zero's Last Words in which he admits he was never technically a punk, which fact will no doubt shock some readers. He's gonna start up a new zine and/or website.

The highlight is 'Things You Never Knew About China' by Little G. It's a list of 30 things. "#4: Apparently Mao bashing, even in jest, will get anyone killed (high treason), so if you can't beat 'em, why not sell out all your beliefs and join 'em! LONG LIVE MAO!" and "#27: One of the provinces in China has allowed to, legally, eat babies. They are a fine meal and most babies eaten are female. So far I have seen pictures of bbq baby, baby stew, and smoked baby. There is a picture of a baby's vertebrae and you can see the limbs of the baby on his plate. Thank god I'm a vegetarian because after these pics, I sure as hell would be." No, this can't be true. He's seen 'pics'. The Chinese may execute 123,000,000 prisoners a year but they surely would not allow the consumption of babies.

There's also an interview with Deron Miller from a band called CKY. I've never heard of them but the interview made me wanna check 'em out.

There's also two very funny 'Perth guides' - the first is where to walk a dog (you gotta make sure to bring a picnic to appease the dog because "the dog has better things to do than hang out with you"); the second is a tour by yourself without a dog. "...keep walking down the road in the direction of Dada's. Throw dirty looks at the people trying to sell you shit." I'm definitely gonna do this next time I visit Perth.

This issue wraps up with a piece about the Gnome Liberation Front. There's pictures. The only images in this zine are of these gnomes, so I figure this story really struck a chord with the editor.

I'm sold on this one. I wanna get the back issues and forward issues.

Zine Fair and Youth Arts Market Blacktown

Bespoke

Octopussy #1

from Blackguard

68 pages (not quite), $3.50 from Paco D. Taylor, 7730 East Broadway #925, Tucson AZ 85710, USA + stpaco(at)gmail.com
A quick flip through this zine and I knew it was a good one.
First up, Paco's confession that after a shitty break-up he distracted himself from the pain with booze and strip clubs. He wrote 17 stripper haikus which follow. Here's one of 'em:

HELP ME TO FORGET
TEQUILA IN THE SHOT GLASS
DANCER AT MY CHEST

Then four pages of graffiti art - really cool and wild stuff. Art collective Cum* from Ghent, Belgium covered that town's streets with their porno graffiti then got so renowned on the internet that their work become in demand at real actual art galleries. This stuff is more explicit than the street stuff. (Some of these pages are doubled up. I must have received a prototype copy!)
There's a section on Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) - it has been estimated that around 35,000 paintings, drawings, prints, and illustrated books were made by Hokusai during his lifetime. And it's pretty cool that he ranged so widely with his subject matter that Paco could select four of his works featuring octopi to fit the zine title. (There's an awesome colour centrefold of Hokusai's 'Octopi and Shelldiver'.)
There's a great piece about a cool girl, Erika, that Paco met through MySpace and formed a unique, long-distance friendship with. He sent her his zine, which revealed personal stuff about him, and in turn she sent him photos of herself and her bare ass, and other saucy type snaps. But! She had a boyfriend! I'm not gonna reveal what happened when she invited Paco to stay with them, so now you'll definitely need to order the zine! Heh heh.
[This story is repeated in my copy. It ends then starts again! Hopefully my copy was just a prototype like I mentioned earlier.]
Anyway, next up is a photo series of India's 'Kama Sutra Temple' (Kandariya Mahadeva) "adorned both inside and out with a mind-blowing assortment of eroticized sandstone figures."
Cool zine. I'll be looking forward to Paco's second issue.

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine

Stuart Stratu

I started publishing my own comics anthology [Sick Puppy Comix] back in 1996. It wasn't only full of depraved comix from Australia, USA, Canada, and the Netherlands, but a big comix and zine reviews section. I loved writing about this stuff as much as I loved creating it and trading it with others through the mail.

Anyway, thirteen issues of Sick Puppy later I felt burnt out on zines so took a five year break, then came back in 2008 with a new 'themed' comix anthology, Blackguard. The first issue was the Religious Crazies issue. Then came the Father issue, then Crime, then Fear, then Science. Blackguard is on hold right now since I began in 2013 [along with comics pal David Puckeridge] these what we called 'Diary Comics Challenges'.

The whole time, of course, I've written about zines. And I love to drink beer. I love to drink beer and review comics and zines!

If you'd like me to write about YOURS, send it to me here:

Stuart Stratu

PO Box 35

Marrickville NSW 2204

AUSTRALIA

blackguard23.livejournal.com
sstratu/gmail