Romp #2

Romp #2

from Blackguard

40 pages, digest size, $5.00, Aaron Lange >>> aaronlange13[at]hotmail.com or through The Comix Company
Not only does Romp #2 kick off with a cool letters page, the first letter is from R. Crumb! That tells you something. (I'm glad I read this too since I was unaware of Maxon Crumb's book Hardcore Mother which I jumped up and ordered immediately.)
In this issue Jay Jazz gets more than he expected when he declares to Hesh his love of the 'male gaze'.
There's a wonderful 20-page 'strip' called 'Hey, Do You Wanna..." - featuring many, many girls rhyming like so: "[Do you wanna...?] Pork? Park? Have fun in the dark? Ejaculate? Miscegenate? Watch me masturbate? Penetrate? Lubricate? Get drunk and date rape?" It's very clever and the drawings are awesome.
That's followed by a totally bizarre strip, 'Hesh and Friends in: The Party!' Jay Jazz takes his friend Hesh and another friend, Curry Brahmin, to arty Veronika Valkyrie's party. Veronika shows Curry her latest work, a photograph of a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph (a very funny dig at modern art) before taking him as her lover for the night. Curry is surprised when he discovers Veronika has stuffed her vagina full of Hamburger Helper.
Dexter sure is building a formidable roster of comix artists for his The Comix Company, with his own terrific work, and Aaron Lange's Romp.
I'll end with R. Crumb's own praise of Romp - "More! More! Give us more! You are rolling along at full creative force..."

Twilight World #23 [August 2017]

Don Fields, 266 Ramona Avenue, Grover Beach CA 93433, USA + oddlystupid [at] yahoo [dot] com + donosdump.com + "somewhere at Etsy.com"  Price: $3.00, or 'the usual'; Size: 8.5" x 5.5" Page count: 20 

The quest to find a zine that includes an even vaguely nice or positive thing to say about the 45th President of the USA continues, since in Don-o's intro the second paragraph begins "Then there's the very recent shift in our political direction into Downtown ShitsVille USA." It begs the question - if Trump actually [God forbid] did something right, would anybody admit to it? I gotta say though - that cover by Marc Schirmeister showing Abraham Lincoln busting up an out-of-control argument between Donald and Hillary is so funny, I'm almost inspired to call it "Hillary-ous"!

Anyway, that's cool. I'm not like those anti-Trump crybabies who - and this is just one true actual real-life example - overheard somebody in their store admit to being a Trump voter and promptly demanded they leave.

I love Twilight World! There's even proof in this issue! Don-o reprinted my diary comic strip of Wednesday 4 January 2017 in which I drew myself gladly having checked my mailbox to find a copy of Twilight World #8, the American Splendor issue.

Right after the intro/editorial we get six pages of albums from 2011 to the present day that Don-o still likes. A few pages into this I see that I've underlined "I listen to a lot of rain recordings for relaxation." What a great idea! It's true now that I think of it - the sound of rain is extremely relaxing!

Next up, 'My [Other Parts Of] L.A. Part 1' - five pages of photos Don-o took of "old haunts, streets and alleyways of Redondo Beach and small parts of the South Bay I didn't have room to include in the last TW issue." My favourite, and one that Don-o calls "probably one of the two best pictures I ever taken" is this message on a Torrance Boulevard bus stop bench: "REPORT ALL U.F.O. SIGHTINGS. THANK YOU."

Finally, five pages of 'Reviews o' Stuff' including the book Los Angeles In The 1970s: Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine edited by David Kukoff [2016; Barnacle Books/Rare Bird Books], immediately followed by a review of another LA book, the MYSTERIOUS 'Watch Channel 38 Every Night Until Jesus Comes: Southern California Photographs' by Ralph Coon. "Mysterious" because the book contains virtually no information like price, or address, and the only text to be found is some "VERY basic information and a quote from a Stan Ridgway song called Stormy Side of Town".

Don-o perhaps saves the best until last since the final three pages contain zine reviews, including one of Mark Strickert's Mark Time #116, which I mention because in another Twilight World I found myself inspired to send one of my zines to Mark in hopes of a trade, but it came back a month later "Return to Sender." I'll try again now, because I'm not the kind of person who can be easily discouraged. And I LOVE a good MYSTERY!

Butt-Rag Mag #13

J-Hash [Editor], contact via the ButtRagMag Facebook group for Price/Trades info; Size: 8.5" x 5.5" Page count: 16 

Wall-to-wall bums and farts and cocks and balls, here's one for the butt/fart fetishists.

This issue - or 'tissue' [it even comes with a couple sheets!] - is the "Bum Luck" 13th and features a buttfull of fartists paying homage to the keister. I don't know how J-Hash does it, but every page has a dirty, sleazy feel that uncannily convinces you that you're perusing this publication while standing in a funky, sticky-carpeted XXX bookstore at three a.m. And the pages seem actually DIRTY dirty - I mean grimy, as though you just found it in the gutter. After flipping through just a few pages I had the strangest urge to wash my hands!

You know, it just occurred to me that GG Allin would have LOVED Butt-Rag Mag!

[Soundtrack - GG Allin - 'Bite It, You Scum']

Node Pajomo 2.2

PJM, Contact: Post Office Box 2632, Bellingham WA 98227-2632, USA; Size: 8.5" x 5.5" Page count: 24

I'm not sure how many issues of Node Pajomo I've missed since the last one I received back in March 2013, so suffice it to say how glad I am that it's still going.

NP is an essential zine resource since not only does it feature zine reviews, but reviews of independently-released musical projects [genres like experimental, noise, ambient, folk, metal, etc] and even 'ephemera' that other zine review zines would not touch, since they could not be defined as 'zines' - what I mean here is, for example, single-page 'newsletters' like those Truman Bentley Jr. made [I wonder if Truman is still creating these? Truman! Wake up grab a brush and put on a little make-up! and please resume communication! I must know >>> How are your Self-Improvement lessons going?]

Node Pajomo also includes Mail Art Listings. It's good to know there are still people doing these through the post, because as PJM observes: "This used to be the core of the zine but the tantalizing glow of digital social media has changed the way that the majority of mail artists interact with each other..."

Finally I'll note PJM's appealing writing style, which is fresh and incisive, and perhaps best of all, is his readiness to challenge a zinester [see scanned page above] - quite rare in zinedom these days. Why does it seem impossible in 2017 to find a zine reviewer who is not terrified of saying something even remotely negative? Too nice. Too boring.

Munster Times 21 [July 2017]

Matt Ryan, Contact: Munster_mag [at] hotmail [dot] com for ordering info and check out the Munster Times Facebook page Size: 11.75" x 8.25" Page count: 36 

In Matt's 'Letter from the Editor' he notes the passing of Ms Izzy Cox, and describes her music this way: "It's the kind of music I could imagine being played on a jukebox in a smoke-filled pub in 1950s Texas while a bunch of characters straight out of a Raymond Chandler novel (where everyone is tough and hard and funny but not in a haha way) play pool and eye one another off." Then on a less sad note, rather one of derision, Matt writes that Mia Freeman made a dick of herself again. I had to Google Mia Freeman - she is the founder of Australian women's website Mamamia. But what she made a dick of herself about this time around is not revealed...

Anyway, loads of great stuff in this issue - interviews with Blag from The Dwarves; Dave Graney, and here's a great quote from that one: "...I do a show on RRR and I hear a lot of contemporary music, and I see a lot of new albums that come in and I'm amazed when I get acts that say it's their first album in seven years. And I'm like Wow, what is the point? You know, you are not that good to be taking that much of a break, that is the entire career of Jimmy Hendrix, or 2Pac. Get over it. Do something. If you're a muso you should record and play gigs. Taking seven years off is stupid."

Then three more interviews - Mick Batty of Melbourne record label Off The Hip; Melbourne two-piece garage band Cakefight; and comedian Greg Fleet. Part of the fun, of course, is finding out at the end when Matt asks them [and "them" meaning every single person or band he interviews] "What is your favourite The Fall album?" have they heard of The Fall? If so, have they heard any of their albums? If so, did they like it enough to listen to another one? And so on... Great stuff!

There's also a review of Dinosaur Jr at The Croxton on Friday 20 January 2017.

Hiroshima Yeah! #148 [June 2017]

Mark Ritchie, Contact: donbirnam [at] hotmail [dot] com Price/Trades? Send a nice email and ask!; Size: 11.75" x 8.25" Page count: 4

If you have never read a copy of HY!, I could write a big paragraph trying to convince you how great it is, and once again declare that it's one of my TOP FIVE FAVOURITE ZINES, but reading the first very short poem on page one of the latest issue would take much less time to answer the question: "Would I like this zine, or newsletter, or whatever it is, or not?"

GIFT
Nothing says
"Happy Birthday,
You Total Fuck-Up"
like three self-help books
and information about
counselling sessions
stuffed into a gift bag.
But thanks anyway, cuz.

If this poem makes you laugh, or even smile, the answer is YES, you would like Hiroshima Yeah! and you should email Mark today and tell him, "I have Stratu to thank..."

Also in this issue - Part Two of Gary Simmons's completed Probation Office form in which Gary had to write about his predictions/assessment of his health, lifestyle, relationships, personal development, leisure, and housing.

Mark reviews albums by Magnolia Electric Co, The Mountain Goats, Jesu/Sun Kil Moon [this rap trip Mark Kozelek has embarked on sounds SICK and DISTURBING], Milovan Srdenovic, Dinosaur Jr, Rocket From The Tombs, Dirty Three, Songs Ohia [thanks for the tip! 'Almost Was Good Enough is one of my new favourite songs], Animals That Swim, Teenage Fanclub, Richard Skelton, and Silkworm.

These DVDS are also reviewed: Salad Days: A Decade of Punk In Washington DC (1980-90), Drive, The Wicker Tree, and Better Call Saul: Season Two.

The Ken Chronicles #43 [May 2017]

Ken Bausert, PassScribe [at] aol.com + thekenbausertchronicles.blogspot.com  Price: $3.00, fair trade or letter of comment; Size: 8.5" x 5.5" Page count: 28

First of all - Ken, why is it that the most recent post on your blog is from 2014? Do you have another online presence? If so, I think it would be better to include that up there.

Now on with the show. The Ken Bausert's Chronicles Show!

In this issue: One of my new favourite [Top Five!] letter columns [see sample above, shout out to fellow Friend of the Animals, Gunther!] - ; People, Places and Things That Aren't There Anymore, which this time around includes the Elmhurst Gas Tanks, the RKO Keith's, and high school crush Betty Ann J.; reviews of what Ken's been watching and reading lately, including a very funny anecdote about Joe Biel. Ken was writing an article for zine review zine Xerography Debt and put out the word that he wanted to hear from people who had sizeable zine collections. One respondent was Joe, who admitted taht at one time he had 50,000 zines, but had to cull his collection before going off to live in a treehouse. Ken remarked that this sounded intriguing, so Joe said it was all part of his autobiography he had just written, so Ken put it on his want list. To Ken's dismay, when his daughter later gave him this book for Christmas, he found that it was an "extremely detailed story of Joe's life...", and "tiring and depressing", yet there was nothing to be found about "the treehouse he reportedly built and lived in for a time." Haw! [Update - Joe Biel himself replied to this >>> "The section about living in the tree house runs from pages 147-200." To which I can only ask Ken - How the hell did you miss it?!]

There is also Ken's account of his and his wife Ro's winter in Florida. Amusingly, among the photos to illustrate this period is one he snapped of a car groaning under a heavy blanket of snow - six inches had fallen in New York just before they departed for Florida.

Astrobabble: The Zine For Astrology Nerds #12 [2015]

Astrogirlzarro, m_zarro [at] hotmail [dot] com + astrobabylon.blogspot.com  Price: $3.00 Trades? Yes; Size: 8.25" x 5.75" Page count: 16

Astrobabble is a marriage of Astrogirlzarro's interests in astrology and pop culture, and she announces in her 'Editor's Notes' that this issue "focuses on the expansive and jovial sign of Sagittarius"; Keith Richards has his natal chart exposed; and the current Saturn-Sagittarius cycle is looked at in relation to the ancient Greek myth of Icarus. We also observe Frank Zappa sitting on the crapper as Exhibit A in 'How to Spot a Sagittarian'.

It occurs to me that it doesn't matter if you're not into astrology even a little bit. You will LOVE this issue if you're a Rolling Stones fan, since Astrogirlzarro read Keith's six hundred page autobiography, Life, as part of her research [yes! only part! - there's a whole page of 'Notes and Sources' listed at the back, like Chris Mikul does with Bizarrism]. I'm also sure that if YOU or a close friend or family member is a Sagittarian, this issue would be a fun read to find out which of the noted personality/character quirks match up or not.

Great stuff!

I should add that for Bowie fans, there is also a Bowie-focused issue that came out just after the Duke's untimely death.

Betty Paginated #36 [Winter 2017]

ADULTS ONLY! Dann Lennard, PO Box A1412, Sydney South NSW 1235, AUSTRALIA + Dann.Lennard [at] gmail [dot] com + track down Dann's SIX blogs by heading to http://bpzine.blogspot.com.au/  Price: email to enquire Trades? Probably - if your zine is in the same universe - email to ask; Size: 11.75" x 8.25" Page count: 16

"This issue of BP is dedicated to the memory of veteran zinester and Canadian lumberjack RODNEY LEIGHTON."

This issue - celebrating Dann's 25 years of zine publishing! - features: an evening with Rickie Lee Jones; a farewell to Elizabeth's Books [the Pitt Street store, that is, which will be merging with the Newtown store]; the COMPLETE, UNCENSORED interview with Dann's current porn obsession Amarna Miller that appeared HEAVILY CENSORED in People Magazine; superhero comic book artiste Rich Buckler; a Max 'Tangles' Walker obituary; Dann's ridiculously overwrought and melodramatic public letter to "punk cabaret" singer Amanda Palmer; and a few other bits and pieces, not least of which is a brilliant cartoon by Ohannesian >>>

Xerography Debt 41 [June 2017]

  

Davida Gypsy Breier, PO Box 347, Glen Arm MD 21057, USA + davida [at] leekinginc [dot] com + www.leekinginc.com Price: $4.00 Trades? No; Size: 8.5" x 5.5" Page count: 76

[DISCLOSURE! I am one of these XD reviewers!]

Usually I would NEVER scan one of the pages featuring my own reviews. The very idea of it! But today I thought, "Wait a minute... What's wrong with it? Why shouldn't I? Maybe there are even people out there who don't believe I'm one of the reviewers! They think I'm making it up! Well, now would be a good opportunity to prove that I AM!  ... I mean, that is, I AM one of the reviewers! That I am NOT making it up!""

There are eighteen other reviewers: Anne Thalheimer, D. Blake Werts, Carlos Palacios, Carrie Mercer, David LaBounty, Davida Gypsy Breier, DJ Fred, Donny Smith, Eric Lyden, Fred Argoff, Gavin J. Grant, Joe Biel, Josh Medsker, Kathy Moseley, Ken Bausert, Kris Mininger, Liz Mason, and Maynard Welstand.

And there are five columnists - Jeff Somers, Joe Biel, Josh Medsker, Gianni Simone, and Ken Bausert.

[Thirteen days later...] I'm halfway through this issue and have, as is my habit, been busily underlining sentences and making notes in the margins, so with those as a guide, here are some more thoughts on XD41...

That cover is THE UGLIEST XD cover yet. It's more likely to repel a reader than entice them to order a copy. [I admit that since I wasn't here from the beginning, I have not seen them all.]

Jeff Somers writes yet another column about his now-long-in-the-distant-mists-of-time zine career. YAWN. Surely I can't be the only one literally bored to death by these. [Ha ha! Apologies! I know how to use 'literally' correctly.]

On the flipside, Gianni Simone's wonderful column answers the eternal question, "What are artistamps?" I'm pretty sure I received one or two of these 'artistamps' on the front of the envelope recently sent to me by PJM [Node Pajomo zine]!

Fred Argoff leads his reviews this issue with a terrific "NYC vignette" - what happened when he was walking down a crowded Seventh Avenue sidewalk when the woman in front of him stopped dead in her tracks, causing Fred to collide with her, and her subsequent nasty expression as she was about to give him a blast of some venomous fury but was silenced by something Fred said.

These reviewers included reviews that motivated me to send my comic/zine to them for trade: Davida Gypsy Breier, DJ Frederick Moe, and Fred Argoff

Gavin J. Grant's introduction to his reviews. Oh boy! This is a good one! Check this out: "I got a lot of zines from men this time and much as I enjoyed them Id love to review more zines by women and people of colour." And by "men" I think he means 'white men'. Well, perhaps he could take the first point up with editor Davida who sends out the packets of zines for us to review. That is, those of us who request this service - some of us manage to acquire our own zines to review. As for the second point... "ATTENTION COLOURED PEOPLE! If you make a zine, now you know! Gavin J. Grant would LOVE to review it!" Davida, do you receive many zines by coloured folk? Please do Gavin a favour and send them to him for review! [Of course I mainly find this funny because the term "people of colour" is a recent invention, and not actually English, but French - it's how French people would say "coloured people." For another example, the French would see me colouring in my diary comics and say, "Oh! You use markers of colour!"

Joe Biel's introduction to his reviews. Good grief! I had fun with my blue pencil here! For a guy who, in one review, mentions that he would have tightened up the writing if HE was the editor, to also write this sentence: "I still wanted to travel all of the time and end up in these weird places and situations that arguably weren't really helping me or my career, or whatever, but they were interesting." Who would even let this guy within a MILE of editing their work? Haw!

Josh Medsker wrote his reviews in rhyme, and even managed to pull it off! Example: "Many local bands make their voices heard, like Egan's Rats, Bludgeoned Nun, and - these bands all share a sense of drive, passion not found in the rock world at large - scrappy kids getting it together, everyone was in charge." - Out Of The Basement, David Ensminger's history of the Rockford, Illinois punk scene. I couldn't fail to notice the almost wall-to-wall, although somewhat veiled, ill-feeling towards the new US President in this issue, so it was refreshing to read that punk zine Razorcake has featured a pro-Trump article that Josh approved of.

Finally, ["Thank GAHD!!" says you, rolling your eyes], hey Liz Mason! About your review of I'm So Punk: A Comic About Shitty Punk Boys where you wrote "Somehow this feels like a comics companion to Thou Shalt Not Talk About The White Boys Club (reviewed below)..." No, it's not. It's not reviewed below, above or anywhere off to the damn side. Some of us would like to be informed about this [what-sounds-like-a] egregious racist tract!

Bizarrism No. 15 [July 2017]

Chris Mikul, PO Box K546, Haymarket NSW 1240, AUSTRALIA + cathob [at] zip.com.au Price: $8.00 Trades? Maybe. If your zine is very good. Contact first; Size: 11.75" x 8.25" Page count: 44

Some really great stuff in this new issue. Here's my Top 3:

1 - 'The Protests of Sandy Berger' - If you've ever found yourself wondering about those people who walk around town - or even stand in the one spot - wearing hand-written signs about UFOs or religion or THE EVILS OF PSYCHIATRY, then you will love this article. Sandy Berger walked around Sydney in the 1970s and '80s wearing signs warning of the evils of psychiatry, and that's just ONE of his many alternating endearing/infuriating quirks;

2 - 'In the Town of Marwencol' - The story of Mark Hogancamp who, in 2000, was almost beaten to death outside a New York bar, and with his resulting head trauma/memory loss created a WWII-era town populated by Ken and Barbie type dolls and wrote hundreds of pages to tell their stories, and took hundreds of photographs of scenes from their dramatic lives. Absolutely fascinating;

3 - 'My Favourite Dictators No. 9 - Kim Jong-il [with illustrations by Glenn Smith] - I get mixed up about Kim Jong-il and Kim Jong-un, but the former is the Daddy [now dead] and the latter is the son, now firing rockets all over the Pacific and making a damn nuisance of himself. He's also the star of one of the greatest episodes of South Park! ... Or perhaps I'm thinking of the movie...

If you're alive, you must obtain a copy!

Zenyaku Part 3 [July 2017]

  

Shaun Craike [art] and Susan Torre [story], www.facebook.com/Zenyaku Trades? No idea. Maybe. If you make a manga-style comic. Just ask; Size: 8.25" x 5.75" Page count: 36

It's hard for me to believe that it has been just over TWO YEARS since I received a copy of Zenyaku Part 2, but there it is right there - my review from May 2015.

So it's just as well that this issue begins with a one-page recap, "The Story So Far..." Basically this guy Drake gets sacked from his job, then kidnapped by The Black Clan [a kind of samurai gang] who tell him that he is the son of one of their former [read: dead] members, so he will be forced to take his father's place. Meanwhile Drake's mother is also kidnapped by this gang, and we learn that she used to be with the King of the Black Clan until she ran off with one of the pawns [low-ranked member]. Guess who? Yes, Drake's father. Part 2 ended with Drake undergoing some intense sword training, and ultimately being presented with a sword - his father's sword!

Pretty cool story so far, right? Right. So like HELL am I going to spoil anything for you. All you need to know is the art is up to Shaun's usual high standard, in fact even higher, and the story is well-paced and captivating, with all the intrigue and mystery of these opposing, chess-like Black and White Clans. Some of the dialogue does seem to be inadvertently comical ["NOW DISAPPEAR, SICKBAG."], but the only real criticism I have is the usual one - the appalling typos. An example - TWO misspelled words in this one speech balloon: "NO, NO, NO, I WOULD NEVER JEPODISE MY BUINESS, LET ALONE MY LIFE." [Also, I noted in my review of Zenyaku Part 2 that even the subtitle was misspelled - all three words! Well, with Part 3 only one word in the subtitle is misspelled. Improvement!]

Anyway... Typo, schmypo. I'm looking forward to Zenyaku Part 4! Mid-2019!

Hiroshima Yeah! #146 [April 2017]

  

Mark Ritchie, donbirnam [at] hotmail [dot] com - for a sample issue just send a nice friendly email! [Yes I know in this age of vicious Twittering it seems 'nice friendliness' has gone down the fuckin' toilet, but I know that you, my dear readers, are not like those awful garbage people!]; Trades? Yes! Again, simply send a nice, friendly email and propose your trade! Size: 11.75" x 8.25" Page count: 6 [including one blank page for your Notes].

Another month, another issue of the wonderful Hiroshima Yeah! This issue's cover star is a dog with something in its mouth. I can't tell what it is and I'm not sure I want to know.

Also on the front page are the usual collection of poems. Here's my favourite:

WHY THE HUMAN RACE IS DOOMED

When the young, rich,

thick sports star cunts

and the young, rich,

thick pop star cunts

are all covered in

dusgusting tattoos,

it's no wonder

that the young, poor,

thick infamous cunts

want to cover themselves

in disgusting tattoos also.

And that's why

the human race is doomed.

Page two features Gary Simmons's regular column, '13.2 BILLION YEARS OF HELL', This instalment subtitled: "Further self-pitying existential crises, short-tempered sexual dysfunction, social isolation and the environmental catastrophe of domesticated chicken in the early Anthropogenic epoch. Ya CUNTS" It could be the title of a Gerard Ashworth comic. [Except for that last bit.] Anyway, this time Gary includes an anecdote about a fellow prisoner [from back when he was 'inside'] - "a little old man." "None of the other lags would fuckin' TALK to him, something about dead children in the back of a car..."

Pages three and four contain my favourite part of HY! - Mark's reviews of CDs, gigs, DVDs, and books. The one CD he reviewed this issue that I have made note of to track down is 'Josephine' by Magnolia Electric Co [Secretly Canadian, 2009]. As Mark describes it: a "...stunning array of consoling hymns and heartbreakers which seem to whisper the secret truths of the universe in your ear before disappearing in puffs of smoke."

Page five contains two poems by Jason [Media Junky] Rodgers, and Mark's micro-fiction.

I think I've said this before, but if I had one zine subscription for the rest of my life on that desert island, it would be Hiroshima Yeah!

RIP Rodney Leighton [19?? - 2017]

[Thanks to Dann Lennard for passing along the sad news.]

Rod was one of zinedom's most likeable and readable characters. His appearance in any zine's letter column could ensure that zine would be a keeper. Even though I had personally lost touch with him, his letters in recent issues of Ken Bausert's quarterly 'The Ken Chronicles' were the highlight of those zines. He sure will be missed by many. His writings are collected online here for the benefit of humankind >>>

The Mail Carrier Brought It

Bits of My Boring Life

& more

by

Rodney Leighton

It's All Downhill From Fear by Gerard Ashworth [September 2016]

 

20 pages, $3.00, by Gerard Ashworth [Contact [???] Gerard is hard to contact, being as he is out of the loop, technologically. If you want a copy, contact sstratu [at] gmail [dot] com and I'll make sure he gets your message.]

It took a while to get around to reading this [could be my quote of 2016] - Gerard gave this to me when we shared a table at the Manly Zine Fair back in September. Historically, I go into a new Ashworth production with a sick sense of dread. They can be so dense and inscrutable! Really hard to understand! And to add insult to psychological trauma/injury, he makes fun of the reader constantly for his or her limited intelligence! *Blub!* But this one is easy to read! ...Or maybe I've gotten smarter? No, impossible! In short, I could say not only do I not remember the last time I enjoyed an Ashworth comic so much, but I do not remember the last time I enjoyed an Ashworth comic. ... Amongst the really great autobiographical stuff where he exposes his 'quirks and idiosyncrasies', there are also terrific comic stripped versions of a Godley & Creme song, 'I Pity Inanimate Objects'; and Gerard's 'girlfriend' Sabrina reciting "the greatest Beat poem of them all", 'Tomorrow Is A Drag', from the 1958 movie 'High School Confidential'.

Max Powers is the Atomic-Man! #1 [Fall 2015]

   

8 pages, 8.5" x 5.5", Alan Peters, PO Box 24276, Ventura CA 93001, USA

I wrote to Alan after seeing his great comics in a recent issue of Steve "The Dith Dood" Anderson's Dithering Doodles. I sent one of my diary comics hoping he was up for a trade, and my answer arrived a few months later [we operate on Small Press Time, you understand] in the form of three comics - this one [...Atomic-Man!]; The Future-Nauts [Summer 2014]; and The Incredibly Unstable Tromp [November 2013]

Political Correctoids are not invited to Alan's show, since one of his signature scenes [which I've seen appear three times already in the handful of comics I've seen of his] involves the heroine taking a shower.

One thing disturbs me and that is the dates on these comics - the most recent being from 2015. So unless I don't have the complete picture, the only recent work of his that can be seen is that appearing in Dithering Doodles. Hopefully we will see more new work from him soon!

Hash Brown Comix #1

  

24 pages, 10" x 7", $? email Editors Dan or Oli for ordering info >>> danieljhayer at gmail dot com or olihastings9 at gmail dot com 

It's thanks to Glenno that I finally got a copy of this new Sydney comix anthology. [Long story deleted, but available here.] ...

 We all know how much comix anthologies can SUCK - it's usually only a question of how much? So it is impossible to overstate how surprised and relieved I was to find that Hash Brown Comix is really great! It is absolutely imbued, suffused, and steeped in the raw and deranged spirit of the finest Underground Comix 'spirit'. One strip [by co-editor Oli Hastings] is about the real life tragedy of Sydney's Luna Park Ghost Train fire in 1979. This strip is so great, and part of its greatness for me is that I don't know how much of the detail within is historical fact, and how much is the product of the artist's imagination. ... Other strips I really liked were Dominic Proust's tale of unrequited love with a tall girl; co-editor Dan Heyer's very strange school teacher; Kaylene Milner's Soviet record collectors; and another Oli strip about his veneration of Rowland S. Howard.

Berserkotron #1 [2016]

 

76 pages, 9" x 6", by David Robertson [Fred Egg Comics],email: d1robertson [at] hotmail [dot] com and check out www.fredeggcomics.com

I found out about David and his comics from a letter I received from "The Dith Dood", Steve Anderson [Dithering Doodles]. He mentioned he had just finished writing a letter to David Robertson, another comics dude, so naturally I followed this 'lead' and we ended up trading comics.

Berserkotron is about two high school kids, Bert and Ronnie. Ronnie builds fighting robots. Bert is into chemistry. When Ronnie shows Bert his latest fighting robot, he asks him to paint it. Bert agrees, kind of reluctantly, but it will give him a chance to test the "magic paint" he recently created.

What I really loved about Berserkotron was the great dialogue between Bert and Ronnie, revealing the complex dynamics of their friendship. You really get the impression that although these guys are friends, like many high school friendships [or even friendships in general], the clock is ticking on how long it will be before a major falling out. To add to the mix is another robot builder, Henry, who comes across as a snotty, spiky-haired jerk who for some reason has it in for Ronnie, and thus Ronnie's robot, which he aims to annihilate in an upcoming 'Robot Wars' competition.

One final thing I wanna mention - something rarely found in comics but so great and welcome when an artist takes the time to do it - is at the end of this issue is a ten-page section of sketches, doodles, scribbles, and the background story of how Berserkotron came to be. Great stuff!

Loserdom #25 [November 2016]

 

56 pages, 8.5" x 6", contact Anto at loserdomzine at gmail dot com for ordering info + www.loserdomzine.com

I saw Anto's announcement of this momentous 25th issue on We Make Zines so I emailed him, and he emailed me back, we agreed to trade zines, and now 23 days later here I am, I've read the whole issue and now intend to convince you to get a copy for yourself. Actually, I'm not going to do that. I'll just write down what I liked about it, or if I didn't like it, what I didn't like about it, and you can read what I've written, or not, do what you like. How about that? Good. OK...

Here is yet another party I've arrived late to - this one even later than all others [except for The Match!, that is - that's a record that will not be broken since the first issue came out in 1969, when I was two. Haw!] Oh well. That's OK. Unless I absolutely love it and decide it's the best zine I've ever read, but there are no back issues available at all...

I like what Anto wrote in his intro/editorial about seeing so many shitty things happening around the world and feeling bogged down and irrelevant - "It brings me back to the question: what is my motivation for making a zine? Loserdom is part of the Irish DIY punk tradition of zine making - a basic principle of which for me is: make your own culture, stop consuming that which is made for you and question. Winning or being the strongest isn't the be all and end all, it's ok to lose."

Loserdom #1 was born in June 1996. [A big year! David Puckeridge's Gristle Fern #1 and my comix anthology Sick Puppy Comix #1 were also born in 1996, but mine [and David's] came out in April, so I'm the sempai!]. I find I'm struck by an envy of anybody out there who has been a reader from the beginning. And then to wonder what happened to all those people who got a copy of Loserdom #1...

My favourite piece in this issue is an interview with independent Irish filmmaker, Graham Jones, who "...releases his films for free on YouTube and has written a manifesto-style article about a movement of indie filmmaking which uses digital technology to produce and release films called Nuascannan [Irish for 'New Film']..." Just one tidbit from this great interview is this one: rather than make a graduation film in third year of film school in London, like every other student did [clamouring to use the equipment], Graham chose to master in theory. So he found and interviewed 30 independent filmmakers around London, transcribed every word they said, and this was subsequently published as a book by the British Film Institute. His first film was How To Cheat in the Leaving Certificate [1996[!!]]; the most recent, Nola and the Clones [2016]. I intend to watch both on YouTube this week!

Also in this issue, a short piece about the need to repeal the Eighth Amendment [Irish Abortion Law]; 'Plastic in the Ocean' - a shocking article about plastic crap floating around the world's oceans, including a gigantic area known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, "estimated to be about 10 times the size of Ireland"; interview with bands Una Bestia Incontrolable [Barcelona] and Alps [Ireland]; a bunch of album and live music reviews; and most importantly - reviews-wise - zine reviews! including Maximum Rock 'n' Roll #396 the 'Do Zines Suck?' issue that I went to some length subsequently to order a physical copy of [I ended up emailing MRR because on their website it seemed they only had a PDF version for sale, but not so! Thanks Arielle!]

Loserdom is really great. A zine that deserves to have lasted 25 issues, and deserves to last 25 more.

The Match! #116 [Summer 2017]

68 pages, 9.5" x 7", THE MATCH! Post Office Box 3012, Tuscon Arizona 85702, USA. Subscription: Free.

Quote from Page 2: "Published since 1969, this journal exists solely to criticize authoritarian society and religion in order to argue for the many humane advantages of freedom and rationality. We are not affiliated with any group or organization. Any publication of this same general orientation may reprint anything herein. DONATIONS: We welcome them and need them. But please: no checks; just cash or stamps only. Seriously - NO checks! Submissions of letters are welcome, and all letters will be considered as being for publication unless you say otherwise. We have no telephone, no e-mail, so either write or forget communicating with us. Typesetting and printing by the editor and publisher, Fred Woodworth, 2017. No computers are ever used in this production."
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Fred really drops a bombshell at the beginning of this issue: "...after this present issue, I'm dropping the word "Anarchist" ... Our movement has actually gone in this rotten and criminal direction, or it is so appallingly ineffectual that it cannot prevent even the most transparent deliberate discreditations. There's no other way of putting a spin on this reality: Anarchism as a political or anti-political entity with a name, has failed, and the name itself now signals, more often than not, something that no thoughtful or ethical person should want to be associated with."