Cheeky Monkey

16.5cm x 24cm, 32 colour pages, colour cover.

£3.50 p&p

One of the great things about zines is that they can be about absolutely anything. Having said that, I was rather taken aback recently when a guy approached my stall at Leeds Zine Fair and handed me what appeared to be a zine geared towards children.

Cheeky Monkey follows its eponymous character and his raccoon sidekick on their bizarre, occasionally psychedelic quest to uncover the truth about unseen character Ali-Ra-Ra, and why he’s pestering the entire jungle community for avocados. The story manages to be zany enough for kids to enjoy, whilst remaining sufficiently wholesome to keep their parents happy.

The creators (Fred Morris and Dominic Linton of King Louie's Lab) have clearly done their homework with Cheeky Monkey. They’ve borrowed devices from kids’ television programmes and made them work on the page. The narrative voice is reminiscent of the speaking style from currently popular cartoons such as Peppa Pig or We Bare Bears, and the main characters pose on the back cover like they’re in the opening credits of a kids’ TV show.

It’s a good effort from the South London zine-makers, especially considering that they’re treading new ground in marketing their zines to children. With luck, Cheeky Monkey could be a gateway for younger readers discovering the world of zines.

Cheeky Monkey is available for purchase here.


Review by JL Corbett.

How To Get Abducted By An Alien

How To Get Abducted By An Alien
Krystal Becker

12 Pages
Printer Paper - black and white
Size: Digest
$2.65 + Shipping

This comic zine, bound with string and printed on normal printer paper, gives you a brief guide on how to be abducted by aliens.

The artwork throughout is very "cute" - giving it a more child-like, non-serious vibe. The pictures are all in black and white, which accompany these silly steps to have your chances of being abducted by aliens supposedly higher. While the idea is really neat, I feel like having the pictures in color would have made for a lot better experience overall.

The writing and steps, I will admit, are very amusing, and I like how she plays on this idea. However, I feel that the ending was very abrupt and there could have been room for a lot more in terms of steps.

Needless to say, I know how hard it is to put zines together, and the fact that Becker has put the time and effort to give us a nice, sleek layout is a feat in itself.

In the end, it is an extremely cute idea, with extremely great artwork, that did have me snickering a little throughout.

Purchase a copy through: Etsy

Review by Daniel Peralta
Completed on 4/3/2017, 5:08 P.M. CST

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