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.

Flies on the wall

Flies on the wall

by Zeppelinmoon

A5 - 40 pages, b&w and colour, perfect bound. 

£2.50 plus postage

This debut zine by zeppelinmoon consists of a series of comic exchanges between flies observing the emotionally tragic lives of the human family whose walls they rest on. A couple of appearances by sloths, dogs, and seals aside, the flies on the wall operate as a minimalist comic in which each page works as an individual panel - but also helps build an implied larger narrative. 

Flies on the wall is a well produced zine in full colour - the pages that aren't flies on a white wall, obvs. It's smart, it's slick, it's crude, it's funny, and there is swearing. What's not to like? 

Check out  Zeppelinmoon on instagram for a look at current artwork, and then head over to Etsy to buy a copy.  

etsy.com/uk/listing/531688936/flies-on-the-wall-a-comic-cartoon-zine

For more artwork, and Zepplinmoon's shop full of original t-shirts, totes, pins, cards and more, visit: 
Zeppelinmoon.com


Review by Nathan Penlington

Grimm Memes

Grimm Memes
44 pages including covers, 1/4 size
$3.50? Postage?

A collection of memes that were previously posted on the web site for the God Bless Generica Project. Subversive shit. Some of it's funny.

I wondered why someone would print a bunch of memes when you can just go look at them on line, but after flipping through it I realized that it's a good way to get your message right up in someone's face.

For example, I have heard for a while now about how Jimmy John Liautaud, the owner of Jimmy John's sandwich restaurants, is a sleazy big game hunter of endangered animals. I've never eaten there so I just made a mental note not to start. But actually seeing that fat fuck sitting on a dead elephant smiling and giving the thumbs up sign made me want to go out and start fire bombing Jimmy John's .

http://www.snopes.com/jimmy-john-liautaud-hunting-photos/

Extra points for what looks a very young, very wasted Matthew McMonaughey.

Jack Cheiky

http://syndicatedzinereviews.blogspot.com/

Not My Small Diary #18

Not My Small Diary #18

148 page, digest

$8.00 US / worldwide prices on order page

Delaine Derry Green has been putting out this ambitious  theme focused anthology of autobiographical comics since 1996. At issue number 18, you know she has to be doing something right. This is a literary quality publication, (no bar code number,) and no one could continue putting out a product like this for very long unless people were loving it and buying it.

 “Every issue of NMSD is like a Who’s Who of the comic/zine world. Worth every penny. NMSD never disappoints.” Xerography Debt

This issue is about pets. These are real peoples stories of real experiences with pets. Some are cute and charming , some are tragic. There's even a weird one bordering on psychedelic. The bulk of the stories are about cats and dogs, but others about a toad, chameleon, guinea pig, rats, cockatiel, cockatoo, koi, mice, Siamese fighting fish, tetra, goldfish, rabbits, and snakes.

This is one of those small press publications that you hope is around for many years to come.

Buy it. If not for yourself, for someone you love who loves pets.

Order Here

Home Page

The Meanest Greenest Frog

By Eric Baker

While I've categorized this as a comic (and it is one), I think it can be better described as an illustrated "children's book". Baker has taken certain aspects of comics (speech balloons) and added them to a single large picture on each page.

The story concerns a young boy's quest to find the titular frog somewhere in a forest. Baker has chosen to present the narrative text and the characters' speech in rhyme. Combined with the somewhat repetitive nature of the text this means that the story seems as though it should be read out to someone else (while of course showing them the pictures at the same time).

The art is all pretty good, and I enjoyed Baker's depiction of various frogs and other animals. He's also put a lot of work into the general appearance of this book, with end papers, page numbers, and a "This book belongs to" page. It's all very professional and nice to look at, though I did think that the colouring could have been a bit brighter.

It's pretty clear that I'm not the target audience for this, but I can see kids enjoying either reading it or having it read to them. Let's hope that this is what's happened with other copies of this story.



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

025.431

By Ella Dawson, Zoe Forster, Caitlin Verney, and Ruth Collingwood

This is a group zine featuring a pretty wide variety of content. The first piece is half photos and half text and is about interesting/important graveyards that Dawson has been to. It's pretty cool, but the photos suffer from being reproduced by photocopier and having text pasted over them. Graveyards are rad!

The next piece is on big cats, and features a number of drawings of roaring cats, as well as a review/plot summary of a movie about one of those weird celebrity big cat performance people from the USA. Animal performances always make me kind of sad.

The longest text piece was a story about the trials and tribulations a woman went through in order to get a pet cat. It made me miss the cat I had back when my family lived in Canada. Biscuit, you were awesome.

There's also some found objects, collages, and other stuff. The whole thing seems sort of like a collection of found objects, and the library numbering of its subjects makes it seem like you're just wandering around a library reference section reading things at almost-random.

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