Doodles and dontdles

Doodles and dontdles

by Will Conway / tastes of ink


A7 zine fold from A4. Colour printed.


£1.50

Doodles and dontdles is another pocket sized zine by Will Conway. This one is a series of handwritten jokes, clever word play, and puns, accompanied by hand-drawn illustrations. It's a witty celebration of word and image, a gateway into Will's work - work that sits confidently between comedy, poetry, comic books, and illustration. More of Will's work is reviewed here, and while you can buy individual zines on his Etsy shop, I recommend taking advantage of the 'Buy any 5 for £5' offer. There are plenty of zines to choose from - if you can't decide, just pick a few at random, you'll be rewarded with a little pile of zines with a unique and funny perspective. 

Doodles and dontdles is available to buy here: etsy.com/uk/listing/647355283/doodles-and-dontdles-will-conway


And this is Will's Etsy shop: etsy.com/uk/shop/WilconWayBooklets



Review by Nathan Penlington

Dog-Ear - Issue 9

Dog-Ear - Issue 9

6cm x 21cm (A4 folded into 5 panels)

Free where stocked / £1.50 if bought online

Dog-Ear is a great example of a publication in which content, form, and distribution, all coalesce into a unique, perfect zine. 

The zine is formatted from a single A4 sheet concertina folded into a bookmark. The size means each page is perfect for poems, short short-stories, and provides an elongated blank canvas for original illustrations. 

The contents of issue 9 include witty pieces from Neil Laurenson, Olivia Spidel, Nathan Fidler, Rebecca Field, and Mansour Chow; an excellent visual interpretation of Day of the Triffids by Vicki Johnson; and an experimental crossword by Charlie Methven in which the answers are each a different single letter of the alphabet (its a concept George Perec - member of the Oulipo and crossword composer - would definitely approve).

Dog-Ear is primarily distributed free at selected independent bookshops at locations around the world, but it is also available to buy either as a year subscription (£7 for 4 issues), or individually at £1.50 an issue. 

Dog-Ear is also open for submission - check their website for details: dog-ear.co/submit

Review by Nathan Penlington

I came home with a foreigner Saturday night

I came home with a foreigner Saturday night

by Jeremy Dixon / Hazard Press

A6, eight pages, Limted edition of 100, colour print, hand stitched. 

£4 (free p&p)

I am a huge fan of found art and found writing. One of my favourite zines of the early 2000's was Found magazine, I included a monthly found poetry column in The Fix (now no more, but at the time the UK's first stand up comedy magazine), and my live interactive show Choose Your Own Documentary centres around four pages of a diary found between the pages of a second hand book. So, even before opening this up, I knew I was going to like it. 

I came home with a foreigner Saturday night reproduces a photographic portrait of a man taken sometime around 1910-1919, and a handwritten entry scrawled on the back. Because its tricky to decipher the handwriting, the text has also been translated into type, and in the process has become poetry. 

The poem is pregnant with desire, promise and hope. And like all found writing is riddled with questions - the who, what, where - but also 'what happened next?'. It is this fragment of time lost that gives this little book its power. 

To buy a copy, or to check out more of Jeremy's work visit: www.hazardpress.co.uk

Review by Nathan Penlington

Finding your way to Dylan Thomas

Finding your way to Dylan Thomas

by Jeremy Dixon / Hazard Press

A4 zine fold, colour printed. 

£3 

A charming little literary zine, a homage to the work of Dylan Thomas and a poem about place. 

The micro-book rests on a simple idea: a series of photographs of the signs that lead to Dylan Thomas' boathouse in Laugharne,  South Wales - a place that directly inspired one of Dylan's most famous works Under Milk Wood. 

Simple thought it might be, this little publication is ultimately greater than the sum of its parts. Finding your way to Dylan Thomas indirectly asks the question that all tourist pilgrimages must ultimately confront - what is it you've ultimately come to see? There is a melancholy in the locations of the heritage signs that ultimately must face the inevitable. 

Fan of Dylan Thomas or not (and how can you really be a not?) it's an engaging publication from a press with many other intriguing literary experiments to explore. 

To buy a copy, or to check out more of Jeremy's work visit: www.hazardpress.co.uk

Review by Nathan Penlington

The Golden Rule - collected poems of Ernest Noyes Brookings

The Golden Rule - collected poems of Ernest Noyes Brookings

Boatwhistle Books, 2016

242 pages, 12.8cm x 19.7cm, perfect bound paperback

£15 

This is not a zine, but it couldn't be more fundamentally zine related. If you don't recognise the name Ernest Noyes Brookings we have to go back in a time via a digression. 

In 1979 David Greenberger started the zine The Duplex Planet. Seeking to capture the personalities and histories of the residents of a nursing home he was working in, David began to interview them. Answers to questions like 'What kind of animal would you be if you had to be one?', or 'What can you get for free?', offer a poignant glimpse of lives lived in our recent history. Due to the perfect combination of content, emotion, and humour, The Duplex Planet became hugely influential, and at its peak it could name among its regular readers the likes of Michael Stipe and Lou Reed. 

The Duplex Planet zine spawned many offshoots: a comic book series that featured stories and interviews taken directly from the pages of the zine combined with strips drawn by some of the biggest names in graphic art; and David Greenberger continues to release albums of spoken word set to music that capture the humour and personality of various residents - bringing the words to life in a way well beyond the capabilities of the printed page. 

And within all that is the work of Ernest Noyes Brookings.

Encouraged by David Greenberger, Brookings started writing poetry at age 81, and in the time leading up to his death at age 89 he wrote over 400 poems on a huge variety of topics. The poem titles reveal their subject: Milk, Taking a Bath, Toaster, Spaghetti, Life of a Detective, Watermelon. All receive the same attention, wit, wisdom, and sometimes off the rails logic. Five compilation albums were also made of left-field bands using Brookings' words as lyrics - a series of heartfelt tributes to a true original. 

Brookings' poems were originally published in the pages of The Duplex Planet, spread across most of the 178 issues. The Golden Rule collects together for the first time all of Brookings' published work, and a few poems never previously published in any form. It's the perfect poetry book to read out loud (which I did through a speaking tube, as catalogued in my zine Hi, it's your dad here). Brookings' unexpected twists and turns of language, his repetition of unique phrases and images across different subject matter, is a joy to share with others. 

The introduction by David Greenberger recounts his friendship with Ernie, and the inspiration and origin of Brookings' first poems. Two appendices are also included - one concerns the difficulty of transcribing the poems from Brookings' tiny handwriting, the other is an essay about his poetry that includes this perfect advice:

"Young poets should quit those goddamn idiotic creative writing programs and read this man's poems for 6 months, every day, all day, without rest, and without reading any other poetry" 

Although that's an extreme prescription, Brookings' poems are a lesson for everyone, not least because they prove that it's never too late to start something new. 



You can buy The Golden Rule direct from Boatwhistle Books - boatwhistle.com/the-golden-rule

or order via your favourite bookstore. (ISBN: 978-1-911052-00-5)


You can find some of David Greenberger's albums on Google Play Music, Apple Music, and Spotify. 

Duplex Planet back issues, merchandise, and Ernest Noyes Brookings albums, are available from: duplexplanet.com





Review by Nathan Penlington

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

A short, sad story

A short, sad story
by Will Conway

A7 zine fold from A4. B&W print on coloured paper. 

£1.50

A short, sad story is, well, a short, sad story. 

The zine is similar to Will's other work that I've had the pleasure of reviewing, in that it is made up of witty wordplay with a poetic sensibility. 

Each page contains a line or two, illustrated minimistically, that also work towards the whole. The whole in this instance being a love poem. In my opinion it's worth reading for the last line alone.


Buy a copy on Etsy for only £1.50: etsy.com/uk/listing/579513592/a-short-sad-story-booklet-will-conway

And while you are there check out the rest of Will's zines (some of which are reviewed here) - a pick up a couple of other ones too. 


Review by Nathan Penlington

More Snippets

More Snippets
by Will Conway

A7 zine fold from A4. Coloured print. 

£1.50

More Snippets by Will Conway is a pocket sized cut & paste zine with a healthy dose of wordplay. It's tough to review, not because I didn't enjoy it - I did - it's just hard to give a sense or sample of the contents without giving anything away. But think witty aphorisms with a poetic sensibility. My favourite is the bike one, you'll know it when you read it.


Buy your copy on Etsy for only £1.50: etsy.com/uk/listing/580032896/more-snippets-booklet-will-conway

And while you are there check out the rest of Will's zines (some of which are reviewed here).


Review by Nathan Penlington

Synesthesia

A5, 20 colour pages

£3.62 (+ £3.62 p&p)

Synaesthesia (the condition) is sensory confusion. Your house tastes like cake. Your lover’s voice smells like fresh cut grass. Your favourite song feels crunchy. The number seven is green, for some reason.

Synesthesia (the zine) dives headfirst into delirium. Stacey Matchett evokes a sense of desperate, inescapable confusion in her pastel colour palettes, bold rainbow scribbles and delicate black linework - it’s a beautiful assault on the senses. 

Usually when poetry and artwork appear together in print, the images end up playing second fiddle; they usually serve as garnish, pretty pictures to illustrate the words. Matchett turns this convention on its head. The bright images dominate the pages of this zine, holding hostage the reader’s psyche and rendering the accompanying poetry somewhat redundant. It’s not that the poetry is particularly poor, more that within the psychedelic pages of Synesthesia its role is secondary to the artwork.

When I first encountered Matchett’s work in volume one of Break the Chain, I described it as “grunge expressionism”. Reading through Synesthesia, it seems clear to me now that her work is too nebulous to fit within that category; her art style shifts throughout the pages, and yet each drawing bears her stylistic signature.

Matchett does a great job of creating a collection of artwork centred upon a theme without falling into predictability – each page explores a different facet of a disorganised mind and does so with a touching vulnerability.

You can buy your copy of Synesthesia here.


Review by J.L. Corbett

Notebookdrawings - Vol 2

Notebookdrawings - Vol 2
by Mette Norrie

2017 

A5, 38 pages, colour print.

50DKK (Danish Krone) or approx £5.80

Buy Vol 1 & Vol 2 for 85DKK (approx £10)

Following on from Notebookdrawings Vol 1 is a brand new volume of text and illustration from Danish artist Mette Norrie. For those new to her work it follows a minimalist format - each page is notebook style lined paper, over which have been drawn illustrations in pen and pencil, and captioned at the top in English. 

Some are witty play-on-words, others play-on-images - The Reviewer's Diary, Diary of a Social Media Manager - the illustrations are also sprinkled with literary references - T.S. Eliot's Calendar, Tender Buttons. 

But the pages that really strike a chord are those of a more melancholy, tender, quieter tone with titles like Failed Ideas, Forgotten Magicians, Lonely Gloves Club.  

Cumulatively Notebookdrawings form a kind of visual poetry that takes you outside the world as you see it. And like poetry they benefit from the time and space needed to experience in a physical form. 


The illustrations have been selected from Mette's blog - nbdrawings.tumblr.com. So, take a look, and then support her work by buying a copy of the zine. 

In her shop you can find copies of other zines too, alongside individual prints: norrieart.tictail.com/product/notebookdrawings-vol-2


www.MetteNorrie.com




Review by Nathan Penlington

Seasons.

Seasons.
Sayward Barone

8 Pages
Printer Paper - Black and White
Size: Mini
$0.78 + Shipping

Seasons. is a small, folded zine on white printer paper with a small poem that is sure to set big ripples.

In Seasons., Sayward Barone describes in eight, small pages the feeling of when the seasons change. Looking at the poem on the surface is just that, but as you start to dig deeper, you find things that make you see the deeper meaning behind the words.

The one thing that really makes this little poem a success, in my book, is the self-application one can do with it. Mentioned in some of my previous reviews, I love to see a poem or work that not only applies to the writer's situation, but can apply to so many other people.

Seasons. manages to successfully describe feelings of suppression and feelings from the weather in a nice, pocket size package. While I wouldn't read this on a light heart, this is definitely one worth picking up.

Purchase a copy on Etsy
Barone's Social Media: Instagram


Review by Daniel Peralta
Completed on 04/14/2017; 2:30 P.M. CST

The Holocene Tragedy

The Holocene Tragedy

by JD Howse

Dead Elk publishing 

A5, 66 pages, cardboard covers. 

3rd edition, September 2016. Limited edition of 50.  

£2.50

The Holocene Tragedy is an utterly compelling account of the mass extinction of animal species created and accelerated by mankind. Within the last century at least one species has become extinct every year, that we know of. 

I think the internet is probably bad for me, & and bad for anyone with a mind as obsessive as mine
because the information acts in spirals & lines & if I followed every weird impulse my mind gives off down the rabbit hole I'd never get anything done

So begins the search for facts among the vast resource of misinformation called the internet. JD Howse grapples with what it means to be informed when you are not a specialist in a given field, how you can comprehend the vastness of something when reduced to a series of webpages, and when - not if - man will face its own extinction. 

Part poetry, part prose - it is a collection of short texts that is very much of our time. Definitely among the best zines I've read this year. Get your hands and mind on a copy before it is too late.

Visit http://www.jdhowse.com/holocene for more information about The Holocene Tragedy, contact information for JD Howse can be found here: http://www.jdhowse.com/about

Review by Nathan Penlington 

Rising #66

Rising #66 (Summer 2016)

Edited by Tim Wells

A5, 24 pages. 

Free

Rising consistently puts its money where its mouth is (Yes, I know, it's a free zine. Free to you, means someone else, somewhere, is paying for your pleasure): a poetry zine with an emphasis on quality writing - poetry that doesn't submit to the usual elitist claims to the art form.

Once again the mix is part ranting old guard, part performance circuit, and part new voices - the thing that unites them being the attitude that comes from having a need to write, not just the desire to be a writer. 

This issue includes top work from Salena Godden, Porky the Poet (comedian Phill Jupitus' alter ego), Emily Harrison, Phoebe Stuckes, Fiona Curran, The Bro's Grim, Sophie Parkin, Melissa Lee-Houghton, Paul Birtill, Hannah Lowe, and Tim Turnbull. 

What are you waiting for tweet Tim here to haggle for a copy. Can I suggest bribes, favours, or a beer or two, are likely to be successful. Please tell him Nathan sent you.

Click here to visit Tim's Stand up & spit project which is dedicated to chronicling the history and influence of Ranting poetry. 

Review by Nathan Penlington

Tramp

Tramp by Julius Smit / Eyeglass

2016

A5 - 48 pages

£5

Tramp is a mediation on the paths we trace through urban and rural landscapes, exploring how walking is shaped by memory and habit. A combination of black and white photographs and poetic text work together to produce a contemplative zine that forces a new focus on the streets, pavements, paths, alleys and byways that have been shaped by the histories of past journeys. Chance is something that is central to my own work, so the encouragement to wander off from your personal path is something that struck a chord.

It is a well produced zine, that rewards time spent in its company. Buy a copy, pack it in your bag, get lost in a new town, and enjoy the journey.  

Check out Julius' work here: juliussmit.co.uk

Order a copy here: eyeglassphotozines.tictail.com/product/tramp



Review by Nathan Penlington

Infinite beatitude of existence!

Infinite beatitude of existence!

Rebecca Jagoe / Ladette Space

A5, 16 colour photocopied pages with an a3 b&W photocopied text piece. Presented in a transparent polybag. Edition of 50

£2.50

This zine is produced by Ladette Space, who kindly send me a package of publications a couple of months ago, they are making some very intriguing work (See previous reviews of Crow Town, The Belfie Annual, and Gorge). Their mission statement, or manifesto of sorts, is this:

Ladette Space is an experiment in making a gallery in your home and a home in your gallery
Ladette Space is a solution to a problem
Ladette Space is an invitation to our party
Ladette Space is open to suggestion

The Ladette Space experiment has me hooked. I'm interesting in the intersections of the personal and the public, where 'real life' ends and the 'maker/artist/performer/writer' begins - that intersection forms a huge part of my own work. And it is that which really interests me about zine makers - what you show and tell, and what you hide and reveal. Making your living space into a gallery is a brave move. 

The Infinite beatitude of existence! was produced to accompany Rebecca Jagoe's solo exhibition in June 2014. Sadly I missed the exhibition, but thankfully we have this - the zine. As with some other work I've reviewed I don't want to reveal too much. The joy is in discovery. I am willing to say it is a mediation on flies, thought, existence, Buffy the vampire slayer, Edwin A Abbott's Flatland, and the consequences of having a Tinder account.

You can buy a copy here: http://ladettespace.bigcartel.com/product/rebecca-jagoe-infinite-beatitude-of-existence-publication

Review by Nathan Penlington

The Gaysi Zine – Issue 3

The Gaysi Zine – Issue 3

120 pages. 21cm x 25 cm.

Rs. 150 + Rs. 30 for delivery charges pan India. (See below for overseas order details)

I've been stuck for a way to do this zine justice in a short review. Gaysi Zine is an extremely well put together collection of short stories, poems, and texts that defy neat categorisation, coupled with a diverse array of illustration, photography, and art. The visual imagery takes a delight in the handmade, in the hand drawn, and the handwritten, all of which gives the writing an extra element of intimacy. So much so that it often feels we are being let in on a secret. 

It is that sharing of personal experience that I love in zines, and how - no matter how far outside my own limited range of experience - it allows you to connect with a stranger in a profound way. That is how I felt reading this issue of Gayzi Zine. Many of the themes surround trust, intimacy, and honesty - all dealt with wit and intelligence. 

The work in Gayzi Zine reaches out beyond the queer scene in Delhi and will connect with you wherever you are. There is so much to explore, that all I can suggest is order a copy and wait with anticipation for a thud through your letterbox. 

For ordering information visit: instamojo.com/GaysiFamily/the-gaysi-zine-edition-3

Check out Gaysi on the web here: Gaysifamily.com


Review by Nathan Penlington

Nightclub Yes/Nightclub No

Nightclub Yes/Nightclub No. 

Jeremy Dixon, 2013, Hazard Press. 

A7. 2, or rather ‘4’, pages. £4.

A cleverly constructed magic-wallet, double-spined, one-poem book…

…you decide which side to open, and which version of the text you want to read.

This kind of binding was, in my childhood, used in what was called a Milkman’s Wallet. Now, that makes me sound like a child of the 70s.

To buy a copy, or check out more work by Hazard Press, visit: hazardpress.co.uk

Review by Nathan Penlington

(This post was originally part of an ongoing series celebrating work from my zine collection. You can find the rest of the posts here)