Negative Assets
is a literary zine with a punk ethos produced by students at California
State University. Any time I come across a lit zine with a punk
aesthetic I am drawn to it like a fly to shit. When I discovered this
zine during some boredom induced Googling I immediately emailed the
editor and got him to send me a copy. It arrived a week later and I dove
straight in. I was not disappointed. It is full of excellent writing;
entertaining stories, a smattering of poetry and some punk and metal
album reviews as well. The stand out pieces for me were a story by
editor Taylor Farner called 'Big Red Roger' about a killer Octopus and
two stories by Harmony Hertzog, both of which are tales are urban
exploration with ghostly twists. I await the second issue with bated
breath.
UP THE LIT ZINES!
Shelf Life
zine documents the adventures of its creators Tim & Annie in their
quest for used books. These two intrepid lit fiends will travel high and
low in search of books and their dedication to the printed word is
nothing short of inspiring. This particular issue largely focuses on
their experiences with library sales. Now these library sales are not
something that happen in the UK (not to the best of my knowledge, and if
they do, they are certainly not to same scale as in the US) so they
were very interesting to read about. Their experience of 'scanners'
(people who scan bar codes to assess a book's resale value) was a
particularly frustrating phenomenon to learn about. My only gripe with
this zine was Tim & Annie's predilection for non-fiction books.
Being an avid fiction reader myself I found myself begging them to tell
me about their fiction loves. Next issue, maybe?!
I don't know
whether this is fiction or memoir or an intricate weaving of both. The
writing feels too raw, too tangible to be entirely fiction, but the best
writing always does, doesn't it? This zine is truly beautiful; a
handmade masterpiece. A common trope of zines is that they are robust,
thrown together and rough around the edges. A High Degree of Spring Fever
is entirely the opposite, and refreshingly so. It is delicate and
precious. A myriad of different paper stocks and textures. You don't
read this zine so much as experience it. It is a collection of vignettes
of spring, of heartbreak and regret, of what ifs and whys, of hope and
the future. It is layered and precise and wonderful and I loved it. I
wanted to breath it in and hold on to it forever. I also want to give it
away. To give it to everybody I know and implore them to read it. That
is the worst part about great zines; you want to share them with
everyone but also want to keep them for yourself. There are only fifty copies of this in existence, don't waste any more of your life, buy one
now.
Reviews by Martin Appleby
