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!

Amazing vs Asshole

By Bernard Boulevard and Gordon Gordon
Chow Chow Productions
PO Box 20204
Seattle, WA
98102
USA

This is one of a series of really weird little zines. They're short, thankfully, as I'm not sure how much of these things I can read. (And yes, I do try to read every single word in every zine I review on this site. If I don't I generally mention it.)

So this is two sort of strangely written rants, one about how people overuse the word "amazing" making it meaningless (ie. towels aren't amazing, major events are), and the other about how some people are assholes, but real assholes can be awesome? Like I said, it's rather strange. And all accompanied by pictures of the aforementioned assholes, both people and the physical part.

I'm not really looking forward to reading the ohter one of this series that I have, but as this is apparently the third printing of this issue I am apparently somewhat alone in that.

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