Bombinate #1

Bombinate #1: bees

20 pages, A5. 

£3 (free shipping in UK, int postage varies)

I'll be honest, I had to look up the meaning of 'bombinate':

verb (used without object), bom·bi·nat·ed, bom·bi·nat·ing.1. to make a humming or buzzing noise.

Which is obviously fitting for a zine whose theme for issue #1 is bees, but also fitting for a zine literally buzzing with ideas. 

The bee crisis is already a very real problem - in recent years the UK alone has lost three species of bumblebee, and in parts of China apple farmers have been forced to pollinate by hand. Objectively, at this point in time, you could only say things are going to get worse the world over. 

Some of the work in Bombinate #1 tackles this issue, while other work takes bees as metaphor, image, narrative: a bumbling encounter between new lovers; feeding sugar water to the dying; two bees on the coffin of great-uncle Evan. 

Bombinate #1 contains mainly poetry, alongside a couple of short stories, with illustrations by Mot Collins.  The styles are diverse, and give different opportunities to view the same topic through different eyes and different angles. This diversity of content is increased in following issues, and the Bombinate submissions guidelines state they are looking for fiction, non-fiction, essays, plays, flash fiction, poetry, and recipes. 

For a reason I can't quite articulate a section of Fionn O’Shea's 'helo this doesn’t have a title' has set up home in my brain:

"there was a post I saw a while ago how you can see in google stats that in every single language that google supports, someone has searched 'where do the birds go when it rains'. The post was about how it's nice that everyone everywhere hopes that the birds are ok when it rains. I hope the bees are ok when it rains." 

To extend the image, in a world that is raining hard I'm happy there are places like Bombinate to retreat to. 

Buy a copy: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/616929686/bombinate-issue-1

And don't forget to submit your own work. More info here: https://www.bombinate.space

Review by Nathan Penlington

Terrible Stories from Kelly McClure

A5, 28 pages (cream and navy).

$6

What qualifies as terrible? Quite a lot of things, I should imagine. The lack of politics taught in Britain’s schools? The internalised gender divide? My colleagues’ insistence on discussing nothing but Love Island for the past two weeks? All are different flavours of terrible.

Kelly McClure’s stories certainly aren’t terrible, which led me to the conclusion that she must be the sort of person whose modesty is so extreme that she would actually take the naming of her anthology as a weird opportunity for self-deprecation. Slightly bemused, I began to read, and then I got it – perhaps it wasn’t the stories that were terrible, but the characters.

A sadistic rancher, an imperfect mother, an extreme introvert. In truth the characters’ personalities are scattered all over the morality spectrum, and it’s difficult to judge whether each of them are good, bad or other.

One of the interesting qualities to McClure’s writing is that her stories feel more like scenes, the reader is placed into the characters’ lives and just as they begin to feel like they know them, they’re whisked into the next story. This anthology seems to be less about providing the reader with entertaining stories, and more about creating a feeling of kinship with the characters (whether that be positive or negative). It’s an interesting read and skilfully written – these six stories will play on your mind for a long, long time.

You can get a copy of Terrible Stories from Kelly McClure via Budget Press here.

Review by J.L. Corbett

Someone Stranger #5

Someone Stranger #5 - The Silent Pen Issue

by Zippity Zinedra

14cm x 22cm

$3.50

Someone Stranger is a zine by Zippity Zinedra - "a 45 yr old bald-headed Non-Binary Queer weird-o zinester". 

Issue #5 takes an unusual angle to the self produced, self edited, and self written zine - by hiring a ghostwriter. What makes it particularly unusual is that the ghost writer in question is ghosting themselves. 

The 'ghosting' idea is fun - and allows the fictional pieces to follow tangents, themes, and styles, outside the form of Zippity's usual writing. The stories include encounters with tumbleweed, how to fight a shadow, taking a trip on a flying windmill, and what to do with a personal chef. The zine is illustrated throughout in cut & paste style - the collages also contributing to the humour.

You can buy a copy of Someone Stranger #5 from Etsy - and while you are there pick up another zine or two - so you can check out Zippity's non-ghosted work too! 


etsy.com/shop/ZippityZinedraPress

Review by Nathan Penlington

Dynamiting Misery!

Dynamiting Misery!
by Avery Cruikshank and Pollard Laine / Readers Digress! #13

A5, 28 pages, cardboard cover. 

£/$: exchange encouraged, and/or stamps to cover postage. 

Dynamiting Misery! is a layered narrative of scholarly faction. It is centred around the world of early animation, the rise of Disney and the company's links to fascism, and the support lent to the witch hunts of McCarthy era America. 

The zine consists of a fictual dialogue between legendary animator Pollard Laine and celebrated critic Avery Cruikshank, which analyses Pollard's career choices and his desire to undermine the dominant rhetoric of capitalist cultural production. If that sounds a bit heavy, it isn't. The writing is erudite, witty, believable and well researched. The simple format of the zine lets the strength of the writing breathe. 

Readers Digress! is the former incarnation of The Bubblegum Dada Corporation - a curiously offline enterprise based on the coast of England. If you'd like a copy of Dynamiting Misery! you can now contact them at their newly acquired email address - bubblegumdadacorporation (at) gmail (dot) com - with offers to exchange creative endeavours, or an offer of stamps to cover postage. Please say we sent you. 

Review by Nathan Penlington

Null Point - Issue 002

A6, twenty black and white pages, black and white cover.

£0.35 p&p

 

The second issue of Null Point wastes no time in telling you exactly what it is.

“This is about the ideas, this is not about recognition.”

It’s a bold move for a creator to shun acknowledgement - especially nowadays, when branding is crucial and content is (wrongly) considered secondary. Nevertheless, Null Point doesn’t stray from its ethos. The zine is priced modestly (just enough to cover its printing costs and nothing more) and all its contributors have been given pseudonyms.

Although no theme is stated outright, the zine’s articles and flash fiction pieces tend to focus upon the sense of disconnection that we all feel in an increasingly digital world. The artwork is particularly effective. The drawings are grim, they don’t try too hard, and the result is a gut punch. Perhaps most unsettling of all is the advert for a product that would have been hilariously far-fetched ten years ago, but which nowadays leaves the reader wondering, “Wait – is that real? Can I buy that?” 

If you’re looking for a light read after a long day at work, this probably isn’t the zine for you. Seriously, it’ll bum you out. If, however, you’re a fan of dystopian fiction and you’re feeling introspective, you will love Null Point.

All three issues of Null Point are available for sale at www.nullpoint.org  

Review by JL Corbett

Idle Ink #1 - Madness

Idle Ink #1 - Madness

A5, 24 pages. Cardboard cover. 

£2 + p&p

The first issue of Idle Ink is a collection of short stories and illustrations on the subject of madness. Each piece reflects different facets of the theme: insanity, self-deceit, violence, control, and power.

"With enough practice, a person can convince themselves of almost anything"

says J.L. Corbett at the start of She Outruns the Humdrum. A particularly apt analysis of all the characters in these stories. 

The zine features work by J.L. Corbett, Jenny Nolan-Lee, K.R. Tester, L.L. Kipling and Dazz. The authors' influences include Douglas Adams, George Orwell, and Neil Gaiman. But there are also touches of Ray Bradbury, particularly in the stories that walk the border between character driven narrative and sci-fi. Which is no bad thing, I'm a big Bradbury fan.

It's an engaging start to what I hope will become a long series of zines focused on new writing by emerging authors. 


Buy now via Etsy: etsy.com/uk/listing/529891809/madness

Or visit Facebook.com/IdleInkHull


Review by Nathan Penlington

DRUG.

DRUG.
Kate Berwanger

8 pages
Size: Mini
Parchment Paper
$3.25 + Shipping

DRUG. is a flash-fiction by Kate Berwanger which describes the momentous heart-beats directly after a huge break-up.The (now previous) significant other has just walked out the door, and the narrator is left kneeling on the rug that once held so many precious memories.

Kate manages to brilliantly describe these terrible moments of a rough break up in around 400 words and does so in a way that is both heartbreaking and personal, but very easy to relate to. The descriptions and emotions are brilliantly described in that you can feel the gut-wrenching sensation the narrator is feeling just as it is occurring. The narrator is left on their knees absorbing what just happened while also reliving the past in a way that is sure to leave you gasping for air.

Printed on folded parchment, with a picture of the rug printed on it, the text is in a cut-paste type format which really suits this feeling of disconnection, yet sound mindedness in a time when one's emotions are in a flurry..

In the end, DRUG. is flash-fiction that makes you remember and ache for someone that could so easily be yourself.

Purchase on Etsy:  DRUG.

Kate's social media are as follows: Instagram, Etsy

Review by Daniel Peralta
Completed 3/25/2017 12:56 A.M. CST

If you're into it! - Episode 1

If you're into it! - Episode 1: Hit the dance floor!

By Celeste Inez Mathilda

64 pages, 8.5x5.5 inches. 

$4 / trades / PWYC

In the interest of transparency I must state up front - I LOVE CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE. 

(For those of you who might not remember Choose Your Own Adventure books are those in which you are instructed to choose between two or more options at the bottom of a page, then you turn to the indicated page number to continue reading).

The original series is very close to my heart - my last project was a live interactive documentary about the books that inspired a generation*. I have a collection of hundreds and hundreds of books and zines that have used the 'Turn to page...' structure familiar to every Choose Your Own Adventure reader - everything from popular culture to parody.

This is all by way of saying - you can imagine my response when Celeste emailed to ask if I'd be interested in reviewing this zine!

Consent is an hugely important topic, particularly in a climate where actions of those not given consent often go unpunished, and are often not punishable. Despite the potential heaviness of the themes the writing in If You're Into It! has wit and a lightness of touch, and uses some of the tropes of Choose Your Own Adventure to good effect - particularly if you choose to follow a situation that ends badly.     

If you're into it! uses a gender free central character, you - much in the same way Edward Packard conceived of his original books. Taking it further, Celeste expands that fluidity to every other character you meet too. Setting up the story as an 'erotic, or not' adventure gives the narrative drive and anticipation, but using the decision making of the reader to explore different facets of consent I think really works - coupling desire with awareness of others. (It stands directly in opposition to the reprehensible Behind Closed Doors for example, another choose your own style 'erotic' adventure but in which you can live out your fantasy of being raped by clowns. No, I. Kid. You. Not.)

There are more zines planned in this series that overlap with the story started in this issue. I'm interested to see what other avenues of consent are pursued - many of which have the potential to be more subtle, serious, or complex. 

If you're into it! is really well executed, handled with humour and understanding - go support!

Buy a copy via Etsy: etsy.com/listing/476189444/if-youre-into-it-episode-1-hit-the-dance

Or contact ofcourseyoucandistro [at] gmail [dot] com



*One of the lasting outcomes of that project was becoming friends with Edward Packard - the originator of Choose Your Own Adventure - who at 86 is still writing and creating. His latest book It's a Miracle It Wasn't Worse, published this month, is a memoir throughout which he considers the consequences of choice and the ramifications of not actively choosing but coasting. 


Review by Nathan Penlington

Suspect Press (Denver's Underground) #8

Suspect Press (Denver's Underground) #8
32 pages, newsprint, 9 x 11        
Free or Trade

Artsy rag with a little attitude, doesn't take itself too seriously. Mostly written and produced by three people, though I don't think that's their goal. Seems to want to be an outlet for lesser know talent.. While somewhat bohemian, it doesn't appear to be specifically or especially underground. But hey, what do I know about Denver's underground? There's a variety of the usual suspects: fiction, comics, cool art, poetry, commentary, interviews, music and book reviews, lots of local ads, and 10 Reasons Why Keanu Reeves should come to my birthday party.

Better than average content for a zine.

denversuspectpress at gmail.com
suspectpress.blogsplot.com


review by Jack Cheiky

No More Coffee #4 / Brainscan #29

No More Coffee #4 / Brainscan #29
digest, 44 pages, $3/trades
While I’m not typically a big fan of fiction zines, I found this one to be a good one. Ben of No More Coffee, a strictly fiction zine apparently, initiated this project with Alex Wrekk of Brainscan, challenging her to write a fiction issue of her zine and put it out as a split issue with his zine. Anyone who has ever read an issue of Brainscan (and who in the zine community hasn’t, really?) knows that Brainscan is a deeply personal, non-fiction zine, so producing a fiction issue was indeed a challenge. However, Alex performs famously, writing so much in her personal voice that even though the stories are fiction, they are completely believable and relatable. Alex’s half of this zine alone is reason enough to pick this up. But don’t think for a second that Ben does not also excel. His stories are just as intimate and engrossing. I found myself engaged and interested, despite the fact that it was fiction and that I have a general (and frankly unwarranted) aversion to the genre. The first story – Photographs of the Dead – is especially worth reading. In short, get your hands on a copy of this zine – it’s a rare chance to read Alex’s fiction, but it’s also a great fiction zine overall.

Ben Spies, 2464 W. Berteau Ave., Chicago IL 60618 USA
nomorecoffeezine@gmail.com
Alex Wrekk, 5307 N. Minneapolis Ave., Portland OR 97217 USA
brainscanzine@gmail.com

Deadtime Stories

By Emix Regulus and Frater Alarph
origamiship.blogspot.com

This is a collection of short comics and prose pieces by two authors. They frequently have a strange sort of metaphysical bent to them. One of the comics is about cosmic rays from another universe penetrating human minds and causing mutations, so that space aliens can eat us. We are, of course, saved by post-mammalian super genius creatures who seem to communicate entirely in math.

Another comic features a narrator telling about their experiences after waking up as a grain of rice, while the last features some sort of weird thing about shared consciousness or something. While these all could have been interesting, in a Kafkaesque or Gogolian way, none of them really achieve this, in part due to confusing page layouts, and narratives that seem to be more about expressing ideas than telling stories.

The first of the two text pieces is a strange story about attending a psychic phenomena class and encountering a possible spirit (ie. ghost). The story is sort of interesting, though, as I'm not sure if it's supposed to be fictional or based on a real event, it's kind of hard to see what the author was trying to achieve.

The final text piece is the most interesting, though also the most simple. There are two word clouds, one created by each author, using dream journals that they kept over several months. Dreams are pretty cool things, and the best (like the ones I had last night about exploring underground lairs and fighting super-villians) are really awesome. It's interesting to see which terms recur in the people's dreams and wonder if they have any meaning. Why does one person dream about mothers and the police? Why does the other dream about houses and holidays? More than likely no reason at all.

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

The Filth #2

The Filth #2
8 ½ x 11, 22 pages, $?
It’s not really my thing, but it might be yours. The Filth is a collection of stories, poems, and artwork by various authors and artists. The majority of the offerings have a dark or even demented tone. None of them really excited me, though there is promise in much of the writing. My lack of interest in this is probably mostly because my main interest is non-fiction, which might explain why my favorite piece in this zine was by a woman discussing how her life as a young mother is not the life she dreamed of having. It was a very honest and revealing piece – worth reading. I like the idea behind this zine, and it definitely has potential. Please do support it if you feel so inclined.
The Filth
5 Mira Court
Baltimore MD 21220
USA
www.wix.com/the_filth/zine
thefilthsubmissions@gmail.com

City of Roses

www.thecityofroses.com

This is another excerpt from a larger work, and it too is printed on only one piece of paper, but it's quarter sized and stapled! There are eight pages! Clearly this makes it an actual zine instead of whatever it was I was reviewing yesterday. Yes my standards don't make any sense. (Also, I just got rid of a couple of things from my zine box that I decided weren't actual zines, one less thing to review! Parts of one of them might end up on my 365 Artist Trading Cards site though.)

Portland is known as the City of Roses, and that's where this story fragment is set. Whether it's part of a longer series or not I don't know, but this small piece of urban fantasy did manage to hold my attention and make me wish that I'd gotten one of the complete issues.

Instead, I'm left to wonder what the characters who appear are (they don't seem to be fully human), what the monster mentioned was doing, and what the hell was going on in the train at the end of the story.

I generally enjoyed the prose that was used, though I did find the use of present tense a bit weird for some reason. Another thing I thought was strange was the way the characters spoke. The characters frequently speak in sentence fragments, which reflects how people speak in real life but often feels awkward in prose. At times I wasn't sure if there was a word missing or if the author had meant for the sentence to end that way.

This was in contrast with one place where a character told a mythological story of some kind and spoke in a strange manner, both archaic and fanciful. Of course, the character says that "everyone knows" this story, so it could be that they are repeating words that have been told by others for a long time.

I'd like to read more of this, though I feel that not knowning Portland that well (I've never even been on the train system, I rode my bicycle everywhere) I'd miss out on a lot of the little references that residents of the city would enjoy. Of course, those could just make my next trip more exciting when I visit places where fictional monster battles happened.

(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)

The Matter Second Issue Preview

If you look at the cover of this zine you can figure out why it was made. The Portland Zine Symposium was about to happen and apparently they didn't have all the content ready for their second issue. But the problem with previews is that they're often kind of lacking in content.

This one features excerpts from a number of comics and prose pieces, but half of them are actually the second part of stories that began in the first issue, this means that the first issue is a more effective gauge of what will be in the second issue, and, since it includes complete chapters instead of excerpts, will give you a better idea of what the second issue will contain. (Though to be honest I'm not even sure if the second issue came out, as the website address listed in here no longer leads to anything.)

Still, I like the cover (I love that typographic style), and there's an introduction to this piece about what zines are that is kind of interesting. It's interesting to think that zines are _everything_. They can be comics or prose or poetry or art or photography or recipes or music or travel or personal or educational or anything. The only thing that really unites the people that make them is that they don't just want to make something, they have to, and they'll go to all extents to create and distribute what they've made.

Speaking of which, have you seen my zines? Want one? Email me and we can work something out.

(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)

Smog City #2

Smog City #2
58 pages, 6 x 10
$5 US, $7 Can/Mex, $10 World
No Trades

This motherfucker can write. Of all the self published "serious wannabe writer" zines I seen so far, this is by far the best. Mulnix has raw talent and mastery of the written word, but more important, he has what many writers lack; the ability to identify his weak spots and improve. This issue is a single piece of fiction, and that's all I'm saying. In addition to the kick-ass prose, this also has some of the most creative, interesting layout and graphics you'll see, the likes of which you usually find only in artist books. Live long and prosper, Mulnix.

MULNIX
PO Box 29753
Los Angeles CA 90027

wospress@gmail.com
http://eddiemulnix.blogspot.com

Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine

No More Coffee #3

No More Coffee #3
28 pgs, digest
$2 US, free to prisoners

Short fiction vignettes. I liked this issue even more than #2. Unusually crisp writing for a zine. I'm half way through this and haven't found a single thing to nit pic over. One piece in particular elicited quite an unexpected emotional response, which is not easy; I'm somewhat jaded and tend to be pretty critical of prose. Well done.