The Robot's Cat

By Jen DesRoche
monasterylane.tumblr.com

I recently helped my partner print her first minicomic. It's a really sweet and funny series of stories featuring a robot and its cat, told entirely without words.

While I am slightly biased, I think it's pretty awesome and that you should check it out! You can see some of the artwork for the comic, plus lots of her other drawings and comics, on her tumblr. She'd really appreciate it!

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Robots and Electronic Brains number 14

Edited by jimmy possession
www.robotsandelectronicbrains.co.uk

This music zine is packed full of reviews, interviews, and articles about music and bands. Unlike most zines of this type it doesn't focus on one particular genre and the content can go from discussing Welsh language hip hop to the bands influenced by '60s French pop music.

Writing about music can be a pretty difficult thing to do, and I think even the best writers are writing it for people that read music writing. Thus, as someone who doesn't know that much about music I often felt a bit lost when reading some of the content here, which perhaps can be said to be aimed at the sort of people who spend their weekends searching through crates of records at garage sales in the hopes of finding that one amazing seven-inch.

However, some of the interviews were pretty good, and it came with a compilation CD with loads of different music on it (everything from hip hop to indie to weird cut up spoken word bits featuring Vincent Price), and it's worth it just to get hold of that.

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Automatons in Love

By Jesse Durona, CJ Joughin, Kevin Uehlein, and Carl Mefferd
kevinuehlein.wordpress.com
piratesvsquid.blogspot.com

Robots! Robots! Robots! I love robots so much. And this zine is beautifully put together, with a silver cut out cover, pages printed on clear plastic, and occasional spot colour. It all looks really nice!

The four stories in here are pretty varied, and while all of them feature robots, not all of them really fulfill the title criteria. I was a little disappointed by this, as I've recently been reading Pluto by Naoki Urasawa. It's a fantastic comic about what it means to be a robot and a human, artificial intelligence, and how the two groups would interact with each other as robots get steadily more advanced. I've just read the first six books and I'm (im)patiently waiting for volume seven to come in at the library so I can finish reading the series.

So back to this comic! The first story, by Durona, appears to be from their webcomic that no longer exists. It's a cute little story about a robot who befriends some monkeys. Rad! I like the way the various apes are drawn, though I don't enjoy the human's designs as much.

Joughin's comic is an interesting one about consumerism and wants vs needs. However, while I liked the idea behind the comic, the actual story didn't really grab me. The pencil only (I think) art didn't reproduce that well either, so maybe Joughin should work on either their inking or digital manipulation skills to ensure better reproduction next time.

Uehlein's comic was my favourite out of all of them. The art is reminiscent of old funny animal cartoons (in no small part because most of the characters are animals in fancy clothes), and the plot of a robot performing cello in an orchestra seems like something that would fit right into an animated short. The comic is almost entirely silent, and one of my few wishes is that Uehlein had made the entire comic without anybody speaking. Still, it's pretty awesome in general.

The final comic, by Mefferd, features some really good robot designs. However the story doesn't really grab me for some reason. Maybe it's the pages of build up for what turns out to be a fairly old joke.

Overall though, this is a well put together anthology that features a variety of different styles. It's worth checking out even if you're not a huge robot fan (or a fan of huge robots).



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Sunday of Apples and Blood Oranges

By Beth Hetland
www.beth-hetland.com

While I'm sure it took a lot of work, the nature of the cover (with the apples and oranges being cut out and stuck onto a white background) made me think that this would be a really boring slice of life style comic.

And the first page and a half inside didn't really disprove me of this thought, but then oh my gods there's a talking snowman and a robot shows up later on in this comic and now I really like it. I mean, if there wasn't a robot here I wouldn't care about this girl's shopping trip, but there is a robot and he has a pet cat and complains that humans can't deal with robot emotions, and I really like robots and don't judge me.

It's not like the robot is just there acting like a human, it's clearly part of society, has it's own feelings and goals in life, and plays a roll in the story. It's the contrast between the normal (going to the grocery store, waiting for a bus) and the abnormal (a robot cashier, fruit yelling at you, a melting snowman trying to bum money) that creates humour in these situations.

Hetland's art is probably what you would expect from indie autobio comics, so it's extra surprising when totally bizarre things happen in the comic. I like the contrast, but I feel as though I'm explaining myself poorly. I had a couple of drinks earlier, and my room is really hot even though my window is open. This is what happens when I try to review something every day. This is a good comic though, I read it when I was sober.



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Fanzine Ynfytyn Thirteen

By Emma Jane Falconer

If you've ever read any of my zines (hey, maybe I should make a page on this blog for those, thoughts?) then you'll realize that I usually have a pretty good theme going on for each zine I make (ie. an account of a specific trip, reviews of stuff) and that I don't really do the traditional perzine thing with anecdotes, flashbacks, and stuff like that.

This isn't to say that I don't like that type of zine or even that I haven't written that type of zine, just that I haven't made copies and given them to anyone else. I guess I just don't see why anyone would want to know about what's going on in my life generally, or perhaps I'm terrified of opening up to other people and letting them know that I have feelings and am not an emotionless robot.

By this long intro you can probably guess that Falconer's zine is about her life. She talks about shows shes gone to recently, how everyone that lives in the UK is a "functional alcoholic", a list of small pleasures in her life, tales of learning ballet and acting in bizarre plays from her childhood, a cake recipe, found art, and more.

It's all well written, and I enjoyed the tales from when Falconer's was younger. The ballet story ends on a pretty great quote ("my mum bought me a cheap supermarket doll, whose legs soon fell off, and who I pretended had been involved in a terrible horseriding accident on a My Little Pony"), while the account of the performance of The Rivals sounds like something I might actually want to see since it sounds so horrible and hilariously inept. That it was probably only 15 minutes long and that I don't actually have to see it are amongst the reasons why I want to though.

Plus there is a picture of a robot. A surefire way to improve any zine!

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