4 pages, A4 size, $1.00US or trade, Yves Albrechts, Postbus 100, 2000 Antwerpen 1, BELGIUM + kapreles(at)gmail.com
Here's a really cool new newsletter from Kapreles (AKA Yves Albrechts), two pages printed on both sides and stapled in the top left hand corner, "...published irregular & meant to get in touch with cool people doing zines, mail art/small press/fellow artists & to keep the spirit of GLOBAL MAIL alive." See, of course you can find art made by folks on the internet, but receiving it on paper in the mail in an actual envelope with postage stamps is truly something else. You got that real paper you can pull out and read on the bus to make your fellow iPad-operating busriders green with envy. They want what you got because they can't buy it at the Apple store, or the Apple App Store, or whatever it is.
RAPT has got a whole bunch of great Kapreles art (this is the Art issue!) I've mentioned before how hypnotic his drawings are, and I can prove it. One time I was on the bus and I missed my stop because I was completely hypnotised by one of his drawings!
He's already got a second issue out. Review coming soon!
..
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Robots Are People Too #1
from Blackguard
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
The Marsh
By Mario Van Buren
iknowjoekimpel.com/Mario-van-Buren.php
I don't really get this comic. It starts off with little kids playing, swings, footballs, not understanding swearing, oh look a cute kitten! Adorable! And then *BAM!* incomprehensible last page twist.
I just really don't get stuff like this, and the problem with twists is that I can't really discuss them without spoiling things, so I'll talk about the art a bit first.
I really like the cover, it's simple, but looks good and has some nice use of colour around the edges. Van Buren's art style is cute, though the spindly legs and arms on the charactesrs make them seem more like Pinochio puppets than actual humans. He draws a pretty adorable cat though. I'd love more cat adventures.
Art finished, it's time for a *SPOILER WARNING*. Don't read on if you don't want to know.
The title is "The Marsh", so you might think that something's going down in there, and there's an offhanded comment near the begining that "We're not allowed in the marsh.", no reason given, but they're little kids. Parents don't need to give them reasons.
The actual reason is that there is a dead body in the marsh. Wait, what?! There are maggots eating his head!? Why is he there? The adults apparently don't know about it (because otherwise it wouldn't be there!), despite only being one child's football throw into the marsh. But this only raises more questions, who is it? If it's someone from this town why aren't they looking for the body? If someone goes missing wouldn't you look in the marsh? If it's not someone from the town who is it and how did they die? Why does the main character make it seem as though they haven't been allowed in the marsh ever, when the body doesn't seem that old (it seems to have just started decomposing).
It just doesn't make logical sense to me, but maybe I'm missing something. Maybe the comic was supposed to just raise a million questions in the reader. I don't know.
(Look at the cute kitty!)
(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)
Human Waste #7
from Blackguard
84 pages, magazine size, $?, Brent Moore, PO Box 7182, Bend OR 97708, USA
If I told you that Brent's latest comic is about how awesome his life is, that everything worked out with him and Carri, they're so in love and have the most perfect relationship, and not only that, but he got a new job, his DREAM job, you wouldn't believe how great and wonderful his life is now, what would you think of that? Do you wanna read about somebody whose life is perfect? If you do, you're SICK!
Anyway, Brent's latest comic is nothing like that, in fact it's even more grim and depressing than his last one, the autobiographical story that this issue is the second and final part of.
Once again Brent uses a combination of comic strip and typewritten text (there's even one page that is nothing but a huge block of typewritten text). His art is kind of primitive yet distinctive - he's got his own style which is very appealing. And his writing is strong and utterly compelling.
It might be very fucked of me to admit that I'm glad that Brent has such a grim life and writes and draws with such brutal and unflinching honesty about it. Might be? No, indeed it is definitely very fucked of me to admit that, and that I feel that way. But I will also say that I really hope things improve for him and he gets himself into a good relationship with a good woman because if anybody deserves it, Brent does.
"Anyone who has ever spent any considerable amount of time around me would say it's like spending an evening with a cold, dead fish, and I'd have to agree. The band doesn't strike up a number, fireworks aren't deployed, it's just me and my hate for humanity preserved in this tainted package."
I can't recommend Human Waste highly enough. Make sure you get HW#6 too since this is a two-part story.
84 pages, magazine size, $?, Brent Moore, PO Box 7182, Bend OR 97708, USA
If I told you that Brent's latest comic is about how awesome his life is, that everything worked out with him and Carri, they're so in love and have the most perfect relationship, and not only that, but he got a new job, his DREAM job, you wouldn't believe how great and wonderful his life is now, what would you think of that? Do you wanna read about somebody whose life is perfect? If you do, you're SICK!
Anyway, Brent's latest comic is nothing like that, in fact it's even more grim and depressing than his last one, the autobiographical story that this issue is the second and final part of.
Once again Brent uses a combination of comic strip and typewritten text (there's even one page that is nothing but a huge block of typewritten text). His art is kind of primitive yet distinctive - he's got his own style which is very appealing. And his writing is strong and utterly compelling.
It might be very fucked of me to admit that I'm glad that Brent has such a grim life and writes and draws with such brutal and unflinching honesty about it. Might be? No, indeed it is definitely very fucked of me to admit that, and that I feel that way. But I will also say that I really hope things improve for him and he gets himself into a good relationship with a good woman because if anybody deserves it, Brent does.
"Anyone who has ever spent any considerable amount of time around me would say it's like spending an evening with a cold, dead fish, and I'd have to agree. The band doesn't strike up a number, fireworks aren't deployed, it's just me and my hate for humanity preserved in this tainted package."
I can't recommend Human Waste highly enough. Make sure you get HW#6 too since this is a two-part story.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Subject: John Porcellino returns to SPACE! - by: Bob Corby
After an absence of nine years John Porcellino returns to SPACE. Go to http://www.backporchcomics.com/space.htm for a short interview with John.
do you know any stores that carry zines?
I'm working on doing more selling zines direct to stores, and since I haven't been traveling around much lately, I need your help! Let me know if you know of any stores that carry zines! I already sell directly to some - like Woodenshoe, Red Emmas, City Lights, Powells, Bound Together, Needles and Pens, Downtown Books and News, Quimbys... but I know there are a lot more stores out there that I don't know about.Thanks!!
Anarchist New York 2010
By Michael Duckett
http://wemakezines.ning.com/profile/MichaelDuckett
I really love traveling. Exploring other cities, going to events, meeting new people: all of these are fun (if scary) things to do, and I do them as much as I can (and then make zines about them!). When I can't, I like reading about other people's trips. I love looking at incredibly old guidebooks, and one of my favourite types of zines are those that are about other people's adventures.
I love seeing cities I've already been to through other people's eyes, and I love reading about people experiencing cities I haven't been to (yet), so I was looking forward to reading Duckett's zine about his trip to New York.
The first thing you notice when you open up this zine is that the extra piece of paper that tells you this is an (accidentally) interative zine. It seems that it got stapled in the middle (as you would expect zines to be stapled) by accident, and so your first task is to pry them out, flatten the zine, and then find something to tie the whole thing together using the supplied holes (I used sparkly ribbon stuff from a present or something that someone sent me).
While this format is certainly neat, it does create a few problems, namely that at times the text of the pages goes all the way to the edge, and you can't actually read everything without difficulty.
Of course the greater problem regarding reading comprehensibility is the journal style used by Duckett for this zine. The pages combine illustrations, hand written text, typed text, collages, and photocopied text and images from other sources. There's a lot of information here, and at times it can be hard to figure out who's talking, and what bit you're supposed to read next.
This is a problem I had with Duckett's last zine, where the haphazard way the material is all collected at times just confused me. This one is certainly more coherent, and the asides about anarchist history in New York are both relevant and interesting (though it does assume you already have some knowledge of who some of these people are and why they're important).
One bit I really enjoyed, and this is incredibly nerdy and stupid, was when Duckett just recounts the plots of various Marvel comics in between other pieces of history, treating them as though they really happened.
During a battle between the mutant team X-Factor and their enemy Apocalypse on board the Super Villain's flying head-quarters, the ship struck the Empire State Building, causing the building's antenna to fall off
Stellar! Overall Duckett's zine is definitely interesting, and gave me some new information, but I sort of wish it was laid out in a less cut 'n' paste style.
(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)
Monday, February 7, 2011
DUDE: TRANS MALE ZINE
Forwarding this from a couple of places & friends:
DUDE Magazine to be launched Friday 18th February 2011 in Melbourne, Australia. DUDE is a not for profit, creative resource designed to celebrate positive representation of trans guys and to share skills and knowledge within our wider community. DUDE has been made possible by submissions from a wide span of people across the transmasculine spectrum and endeavours to be diverse in its understanding of gender, sexuality, desire and masculinity.
The launch will be held at Melbourne’s Hares and Hyenas which is located at 63 Johnston Street, Fitzroy. Launch from 7.30pm, Friday 18th February.
DUDE will be distributed throughout Australia and be available internationally. Please contact ashpike AT riseup.net for distribution enquiries.
www.dudemagazine.wordpress.com - Editor: Jez - Phone: 0425 539 99 - Email: coltbaxter81 AT gmail.com
new zines in the distro
at my distro click here for distro
Keep Track: Pocket Calender
This is my little calender and pocket organizer! Cute drawings! Fits in your pocket! There are two pages for each month, with four blank pages with little drawings for taking notes and making lists. The calender part has blank spots for you to fill in the dates, so that you can start at any time, but if you want me to fill it in, I will.
When the Crash Meets Something Solid Issue #002: Hewers of Water
stories, essays, and poetry about drug addiction; sex work - which she did at first by choice, and then how it got twisted; abuse, and survival
powerful and good
The Worst: A Compilation Zine on Grief and Loss: Issue 2
A new issue of this beautiful zine, thick and full of stories and articles about grief and dealing with death. I read it a month ago, and I can't remember for sure, but it seemed like this one had more stories from people who were a little older and had more time/distance from the deaths they were writing about, where as the first issue seemed more immediate. Both are so useful! Both have a wide variety of stories.
Truckface #14
Excellent zine! about her second year of teaching high-school. very funny, extremely tragic, inspiring, depressing, politics, comics, everything you could ask for. I love this zine!
It also has stories about life outside of school - starting a feminist band (the Ovens), bad roommates, and more! Every new teacher and everyone thinking of becoming a teacher should read this, plus everyone else should too!
Truckface #13
Thick little zine about LB's first (hellish) year of teaching highschool. In which she gets named "The Nose" by her students. Deals with a class of 8 bad apples - and how to teach, how to stay sane. Almost decided to not continue teaching. Deals with the religious right protesting at the school (for having a Gay-Straight Alliance), this zine is great and has a million funny/sad stories.
I wish all my friends who were going into their first year of teaching could read this zine! and everyone else too!
Truckface #12
"How do you become an authority figure when you yourself are anti-authoritarian? Questions that should have been asked prior to enrolling in teaching school."
student teaching in Chicago - dealing with bitter, assimilationist teachers; desperation and violence among students (24 students murdered this school year... and school authorities decided that tucking in shirts is the solution); dancing in class with the students, students talking about racism and discrimination, immigration, bravery.
When Lanugage Runs Dry #3:A Zine for People with Chronic Pain and Their Allies
another issue of this great zine. Issue #3 has a beautifully written peice about brain injury; an article about parenting with chronic pain; a comic/theory about Fibromyalgia and invisible illness; a conversation/interview between a step-mother and daughtor about what it was like to have a step-mother who was experiencing chronic pain; and an article about the workbook Living Beyond Your Pain: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Ease Chronic Pain
OCAD ZINE LIBRARY
- OCAD ZINE LIBRARY
- An ever-growing collection of zines created to inspire, educate and entertain, to encourage collaboration between OCAD students and to open up the world of zines for readers and creators everywhere! We are located in the Learning Zone of the Ontario College of Art and Design, 113 McCaul Street, Toronto, Ontario.
Our fair is taking place on the 3rd of March from 11am to 5pm in the lobby of 100McCaul Street, showcasing the work of OCAD students in fields such as printmaking and illustration. We will be screening films in the room beside the lobby, and will be having an exhibition of zine related works in the Learning Zone. It is bound to be a successful and wonderful day! Do come if you get the chance.
Mel Stringer Kicks Ass
Mel Stringer just posted something really cool about Blackguard #3 and Grunted Warning #5 on her blog.
We traded zines when I contacted her after seeing a review of her zine Scene Mean - the review was bizarre, mostly consisting of a mystifying defence of 'hipsters', but luckily the reviewer posted one of the gags from Mel's zine, the Baby Shower one. It was funny as hell. So I immediately wrote to Mel, which led to us trading zines. ... I already wrote about all this, didn't I?... Anyway, I mainly wanted to plug Mel's blog and in particular the very nice things she wrote about my zines.
Thanks Mel! You totally rock!
MC2 Strip Tease
By Ryan Taylor, Laura Howell, Tony McGee, Giuseppa Barresi, and Nigel Lowrey.
www.comicscollective.co.uk
As you can tell from the cover this is a preview book collecting two page samples of work by a number of comic creators in the midlands. The comics range from fantasy to sci fi to one page gag strips to survival guides, though there all pretty damn geeky.
Previews are tricky things to pull off. If you're doing a longer narrative do you just use the first two pages of your comic or do you choose pages from later on that more accurately show what your comic is about. One of the previews here really fails to show you what the comic is about at all, isntead giving you two silent pages of a kid leaving school, walking into a shop and picking up a comic. Ooooh, how thrilling, I definitely want to read more of this (end sarcasm). As it is I have no idea what this comic is about, or even what genre it fits into! As a preview designed to make me want to read more it has failed on pretty much every level.
Of the other previews there's a one featuring some half animal people in Texas (one of them seems to be a cowboy minotaur), one that has two girls scavenging junk yars in the future that seems interesting, two one page gag strips by Laura Howell (who's comics I've enjoyed before) that made me laugh out loud, and two pages of anime con survival tips that seem to be part of a longer work.
This last one was fairly amusing, but also horrifying. I remember I went to an anime con in Vancouver a few years ago (my friend got me in for free!), and the con booklet included tips like "bathe" and "don't touch people you don't know". I really have to wonder how socially incompetent you have to be to need tips like that. This also reminded me of the cat piss man who used to come into the comic shop where I worked, who had the worst body odour I have ever smelt. Ick! Nerds, get it together.
I'm not desperate to read the continuations of any of these comics, but two pages generally isn't isn't enough to grab readers. It's important to note that the two samples that I think worked most effectively were the two without a long form narrative. Something for creators to take note of perhaps!
(Art by Giuseppa Barresi.)
(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Mel Stringer Kicks Ass
Mel Stringer just posted something really cool about Blackguard #3 and Grunted Warning #5 on her blog.
We traded zines when I contacted her after seeing a review of her zine Scene Mean - the review was bizarre, mostly consisting of a mystifying defence of 'hipsters', but luckily the reviewer posted one of the gags from Mel's zine, the Baby Shower one. It was funny as hell. So I immediately wrote to Mel, which led to us trading zines. ... I already wrote about all this, didn't I?... Anyway, I mainly wanted to plug Mel's blog and in particular the very nice things she wrote about my zines.
Thanks Mel! You totally rock!
Toil #2
from Blackguard
52 pages, digest size, 2 bucks or trade, Kimberlee Esguerra, PO Box 20148, Piedmont CA 94620, USA + powerofpaper(at)gmail.com
The theme of this zine anthology is 'work', something most of us can relate to. Who hasn't had a shitty job? Writing about that shitty job can be therapeutic, acting as a big fat pressure valve, not to mention that some of the greatest writing has come from this activity. Example: Charles Bukowski's first novel, Post Office.
Anyway, some of the highlights in here include Julie the Bruce's true horror story of working at the Halloween store in the local mall with creepy,"ex-high school linebacker" boss, Doug;
Mike Baker's excellent 'The Drive To Work', where he compares Starbucks to the competition, a fair trade joint. He stops at Starbucks for his morning coffee because "the fair trade pro hemp and bike riding DIY place doesn't open until two which is when the fair trade pro hemp and bike riding DIY punks who are really fucking hippies but don't have the balls to admit they're hippies finally get up from their weed induced slumber". Haw!
Kimberlee also emailed Henry Rollins, immediately after which and for the rest of the night tormented herself over what she wrote - Maybe it was totally lame, He won't write back, What was I thinking?, etc. But he wrote back the very next morning! and answered all her questions. Pretty cool.
I also really liked the illustrations in here by Mark Fox, he's got a real nice primitive style - eg. drawing of man with banjo next to tree stump sprouting gramophone with leaves floating out.
I enjoyed reading this zine on the bus, and wanted the busdriver to keep driving around until I finished it.
52 pages, digest size, 2 bucks or trade, Kimberlee Esguerra, PO Box 20148, Piedmont CA 94620, USA + powerofpaper(at)gmail.com
The theme of this zine anthology is 'work', something most of us can relate to. Who hasn't had a shitty job? Writing about that shitty job can be therapeutic, acting as a big fat pressure valve, not to mention that some of the greatest writing has come from this activity. Example: Charles Bukowski's first novel, Post Office.
Anyway, some of the highlights in here include Julie the Bruce's true horror story of working at the Halloween store in the local mall with creepy,"ex-high school linebacker" boss, Doug;
Mike Baker's excellent 'The Drive To Work', where he compares Starbucks to the competition, a fair trade joint. He stops at Starbucks for his morning coffee because "the fair trade pro hemp and bike riding DIY place doesn't open until two which is when the fair trade pro hemp and bike riding DIY punks who are really fucking hippies but don't have the balls to admit they're hippies finally get up from their weed induced slumber". Haw!
Kimberlee also emailed Henry Rollins, immediately after which and for the rest of the night tormented herself over what she wrote - Maybe it was totally lame, He won't write back, What was I thinking?, etc. But he wrote back the very next morning! and answered all her questions. Pretty cool.
I also really liked the illustrations in here by Mark Fox, he's got a real nice primitive style - eg. drawing of man with banjo next to tree stump sprouting gramophone with leaves floating out.
I enjoyed reading this zine on the bus, and wanted the busdriver to keep driving around until I finished it.
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