Grunted Warning #14

Zine Review: Grunted Warning #14

from One Minute Zine Reviews by DJ Frederick

Grunted Warning #14

from Stuart Stratu

PO Box 35

Marrickville NSW 2204

Australia

$1 / trade / friendly letter

This zine is a lot of fun – full of news clippings ranging from the quirky to the bizarre.We live in a world where anything can happen – and does. Like playing Russian roulette with a sleeping friend (guess who loses). Aliens are kept in the fridge, Zombies fall from scaffolding, Grandmothers harass the neighbors. It’s all here in glorious … black & white, presented for your reading horror, or, in my case - pleasure.

Turbo Supermax

from Blackguard

56 pages, digest, $5.00, Ryan Vella, Lot 18 Homebush Rd, Walkerston QLD 4751, AUSTRALIA Going back to the mid '90s when I started publishing a comix anthology [Sick Puppy Comix] Ryan Vella was one of the dudes whose comix art really made your eyes pop, and he's only gotten better. Also, reading Turbo Supermax, it occurred to me that Ryan was probably one of the kids who, growing up on superhero comics, identified more with the supervillains. Heh heh. TS gets off to a very funny start, with a newsreader telling a crew member off-camera about "some dumb slut..." before realising she's live to air. Her report introduces the world - it's fifteen years since a chemical plant disaster that devastated the city with a thick toxic cloud. Inhabitants who survived mutated, gaining super powers and abilities. OK, you maybe thinking, ho hum, another superhero origin blah blah... but this is anything but ho hum. Like I mentioned earlier, Ryan's art is awesome, loaded with detail (it's always fun to read the stuff he inserts on walls and other backgrounds), and here almost every page sees a new supermutant. Examples: The McRapist, The Homoerotic Anarchists, The Paul Stanley All-Stars, Kid Death, DIAD (Dude In A Dress), The White Triangle Club, and about 23 dozen more. The banter is also hilarious: "Get off me, bitch!" "Eat my heel ya limp-dicked sloth cock! Die! Die! Die!" Wonderfully bizarre characters appear, fight, swear, kill or die, and the scenarios keep your brain fizzing. "The pimp called Hookmouse was murdered recently by the haunted Voltswagen assassin, Hellbeetle. A rival pimp is most likely to have arranged the hit." Did I mention these comix are not for kids? Well, they're not for kids, man. Violence, profanity, nudity, all the good stuff, Turbo Supermax constantly bombards the reader with it, you lucky devils. This comic is so great, so awesome, one of those rare ones I read slowly, savour each page, don't want to get to the end. But I did, and it really sucked! Good news though! Since this is numbered "Issue One" presumably there will be an Issue Two. Meanwhile, I'm off to re-read this. It's that damned good. Superbadass.

Handmade & Bound Call for Zines

August 07, 2012

calls for submissions

zine exhibits

Jenna Freedman

 

Handmade & Bound Nashville is a celebration of Artists' books & zines that involves demos, a juried show and a day-long festival on October 6, 2012. This is our second year and we are very excited to feature a massive zine exhibition as part of our events. The exhibit will be in the library and will be up through the month of October. Last year, H&B vol. 1, our gallery exhibit was very artists' book centered although we had many zine vendors and distros set up during our festival, including Microcosm and Spit and a Half.  This year we'd like to educate and appreciate zines in all formats and all subjects, from perzines, cookzines, artzines and music zines from all regions (particularly Nashville) to minizines, cut and paste zines and comics. We'd love to display your zine whether it's stapled or tied, screen printed or simply xeroxed in this great exhibit.

If you're interested send your zine by September 15th to Lisa Williams, library director, Watkins College of Art, Design & Film library, 2298 Rosa Parks Blvd. Nashville, TN 37228. We'll ship them back to you or happily add them to our library's collection after the show.

We still have room for vendors (deadline Sept. 15th). Come sell your zines in our bazaar.

Zine Collection Opens At Brooklyn College Library

Zine Collection Opens At Brooklyn College Library

Miasma

http://www.etsy.com/listing/106559486/miasma-art-zine?ref=cat1_gallery_22

LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET ZINE

LOST IN THE SUPERMARKET ZINE

$5.00

A zine devoted to celebrating food and grocery shopping in the context of memories and stories. Features interviews and anecdotes on food habits from teenage girls around the globe and original collage created from vintage cookbooks.
14 pages. Full color. 8.5 X 5.5 in.

LET'S SMASH THE PASTRY-ARCHY.

Art Dummy #1

from Blackguard

28 pages, 8.5" x 6", $5.00, by Pteri Dacht-Ullman >>> pterodactylman [at] yahoo.com A weird and wonderful collection of Pteri's drawings, comix, fake superheroes (and superheroines), 'Bad Taste Toys' (for example, Burns Unit Barbie and Crash Test Princess), Coffin Joe Funnies, and other cool stuff. Plus! It comes with a Free Gift! Celebrites de la Rue is a 20 page booklet (first printed in 1863) featuring illustrations of remarkable and singular French personages, like Le Persan, "Official heckler to the French Royal Family, Le Persan ('Leper San' as he was derisively called around the Japanese kabuki circuit) always kept a small toy albino pterodactyl perched atop his furry mega-fez as it seemed to attract young lady fans."

New Zines @ Doris

new zines

from doris zine blog by noreply@blogger.com (doriszine)

Telegram #24
Miranda changes the name of their long-running zine Telegram Ma'am, to more clearly reflect their genderless identity. This issue discusses pronouns, getting tired and frustrated with having to constantly talk the basics - Queer 101, Disability 101, etc. It also has a great article about mental health and supporting friends in daily life and also when they're in the hospital. Plus self care ideas and a piece on sobriety.

Telegram #25
Miranda says "I wanted to make a zine about creating magical, artistic, creative, meaningful daily lives, so this is it." Which really says it all! Excellent and inspiring!

Neither Butch Nor Femme #3 / Curioddity #4
Split zine. Both sides addressing the 7 Deadly Sins: Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride. Lynne address each topic in their refreshing, straightforward way. Curioser Jane writes her side in her powerful storytelling way.

Deafula #3
Another excellent issue of this zine! This issue talks about not wanting to be a "spokesperson" for deafness, identity politics within deaf communities, questions and reaction people have, tips for people who work in customer service about how to accept relay calls (where the operator acts as a go between for you); a piece about "Blind Rage: An Open Letter to Helen Keller" where she talks about daily annoyances, the problems with being a spokesperson - "graciously disabled" - and the rage and the ways spokespersonness takes away your full humanity because people only pay attention to what you have to say about your disability and think you have no other contribution to make. Also: Top 5 things that you don't realize are super annoying for peeps with hearing loss, and 5 top things you are mission out on by being hearing.

Piltdown Lad #4

Zine Review: Piltdown Lad #4

from One Minute Zine Reviews by DJ Frederick

Piltdown Lad #4

The Nasty Oh-Dear

40 pages

Kelly Dessaint

PO Box 86714

LosAngeles CA 90086

There are a handful of zines that, when I’ve turned the final page, make me think: I want to read more of that. Big Hands & Burn Collector are two such zines, and now I have to add Piltdown Lad to the list. Piltdown Lad #4 opens with Kelly Dessaint discussing his zine creations past & present, segueing into what feels like an incomplete autobiographical piece called “The Nasty Oh-Dear” which left me with so many questions about the writer & his brother & their survival through adolescence. Kelly continues with an account of the LA Zine Fest, a generous helping of zine reviews, and the origins of his zine’s name.  Piltdown Lad #4 has the right mix of variety and content – an absolute must read.

Opuntia 251

16 pages, Dale Speirs, Box 6830, Calgary, Alberta, T2P 2E7, CANADA. Available for $3 cash for a one-time sample copy, trade for your zine, or letter of comment. Coolest Opuntia cover I've ever seen. That Cthulu stamp (artistamp?) is badass (and there's another one on page 2). These accompany a thorough review of a Cthulu Mythos anthology, Cthulu's Reign [2010, edited by Darrell Schweitzer]. Then some history of oats (Dale has a B.Sc in Horticulture) with a funny anecdote about Samuel Johnson's dictionary, in which he "...pokes fun at the Scots by defining oats as a grain that in most parts of the world is used as livestock feed but in Scotland is used to sustain humans." Then some book reviews (The Isotope Man by Charles Eric Maine [1957] and Skyship by John Brosnan [1981]. Mailing comments for FAPA #299, another book review, and some Sherlockiana.

Pubs Of The Inner West

from Blackguard

20 pages, 8.5" x 6", Ordering info from Leigh Rigozzi >>> leigh[at]bloodandthunder.com.au + leighrigozzi.com This is a collection of Leigh's strips originally printed elsewhere, mainly Tharunka, the UNSW student magazine. It was assembled for the 2012 MCA Zine Fair back in May. Many of Sydney's legendary pubs appear within, including The Lansdowne, The Annandale, The Townie (The Town Hall Hotel, Newtown), The Judgement Bar... but it's the awkward, embarassing, heartbreaking and hilarious experiences Leigh had at these locations that anybody will relate to. These stories seem to have taken place some years ago, shortly after Leigh moved from Tasmania to Sydney. He was 24. In the intro he writes: "Readers are requested not to discuss this publication with me, or to read it in the same room as me. I feel awkward about this stuff. However, I welcome correspondence..." So write! These comix are really great.

The Zine Explorers' Notebook #3

from Blackguard

10 pages, 11" x 8.5", $2.00/Trade/Stamps/Letter >>> Doug Harrison, PO Box 5291, Richmond VA 23220, USA This zine is stapled in the top left hand corner. Simple eh? Not so. Like Fred Woodworth's The Match!, Doug uses real actual old school print machinery to print his zine: "Our newsletter is printed on a salvaged Multilith offset press from 1957, and our type is composed using strike-on apparatus from the 1960s and 1970s; this issue, an IBM Executive typewriter and a Varityper. Headlines are by Varigraph. Some printing is done by Multigraph letterpress." [Phew!] ... Real nice layout, clean and readable, terrific old illustrations - the kind you see in very old books (nobody can draw like that any more, aside from currency artists). There's a bunch of zine reviews here (as every zine should have, naturally), the funniest being that of Truman Bentley Jr's Newsletters: "This newsletter is extremely demanding to read due to its cramped, multi-directional layout. I have no idea what this writer is trying to say." Doug's letter column has really taken off, and a pleasure to read. One of the more interesting/mysterious is this part of a letter from PJM: "...I hope you aren't trying to piss people off for the sake off pissing them off..." TZEN3 winds up with some 'Selected News', including a worrying item about the possibility of US post offices closing and what might happen to boxholders. The Zine Explorers' Notebook is something special in the zine world, in fact in the world itself, the whole world! Respect! Send for a copy today!

World Of The News [Review & Counter-Review]

from Blackguard

16 pages, digest size, $2.00, or trade or friendly letter, David Puckeridge, PO Box 491, Freshwater NSW 2096, AUSTRALIA One for the Aussies here. There's a 4-page strip dealing with Aussie politics, so if you don't know who Wayne Swan, Tony Abbott, or Julia Gillard are, the humour will probably be lost on you. I'll admit I'm out of my depth when the conversation turns to politics (I walk away, man), so the funniest part of this strip for me was the news ticker at the bottom of each panel. Example: '"Bombings" the best way to disperse protestors says President Sacha Baron Cohen.' Another long strip is based on Channel 7's Sunrise breakfast program, which I don't watch, so that went over my head too. Then a 2-page strip telling the story of David and his girlfriend May seeing Tim Minchin at the Opera House, followed two nights later with a trip to Katoomba to see singer Gareth Liddiard (from Melbourne band The Drones). Is it coming across that I didn't really connect with this comic? It's true, I didn't. I think comix should be written/drawn for everybody, no matter where they are. Most of this is really only gonna appeal to a small Aussie audience. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Two weeks later... I felt kinda bad about this review - I was pretty sure there would be others who would really appreciate this comic, so when I mentioned this to Chris Mikul last week he offered to write a 'counter-review', so here it is. Thanks Chris! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Stratu is a man of generally impeccable taste, but I fear he sells World of the News short. Political satire is not something zine makers tackle often, and certainly rarely as well as here. Obviously created in a fit of drawing frenzy in May 2012, this zine is full of the events of that never-to-be-forgotten month – the Federal budget and the surplus (make that the ‘budgie’ and the ‘slurpus’), Murdoch and phone hacking, Slippergate... Ah, memories. Puckeridge is spot on capturing the speech patterns of our pathetic excuses for politicians (GILLARD: “..the achievements of this government spoik for themselves…”, ABBOTT: “…this is just another TOXIC TAX…’) and manages to take a swipe at TV current affairs programs at the same time. The other strips in this zine are good but it’s the political stuff that made me laugh out loud.

Girl Talk Is A Scorpio

from Blackguard

32 pages, digest size, $2.00 or trade or friendly letter, Jim Hayes, PO Box 1459, Marietta GA 30061, USA + assemblyplantmarietta Jim admits in his intro that he's been writing an essay on Pittsburgh musician Girl Talk for a year now. Is this it? Girl Talk are mentioned throughout, but so is a lot of other stuff. In fact much of this comes across as stream-of-consciousness after many days without sleep. It's all about music though (aside from the few references to ejaculating on newspapers and copies of Moby Dick), referencing The Doors, The Ramones, Velvet Underground, Led Zeppelin ... but then names I'm unfamiliar with: Dash Snow, Zowie Fenderblast, Thomas Kinkade. Who they? Where's the Google button? Jim also throws in observations of modern music, "...all this techno music is just drug music - flashing lights and some type of uber-ecstasy called "molly"" and repetition - the pronouncement that "The entire art world is just a bunch of rich kids taking drugs" appears three times in bold type. There's a lot going on here; a lot going on in Jim's head. He's a good writer and reading this I felt a buzz. I'm impressed when a writer can assemble words and ideas like this. It's pretty cool. Now I gotta go Google Girl Talk. And Dash Snow. And Zowie Fenderblast. And Thomas Kinkade.

Carnato Baa

Booklet Review: Carnato Baa

from One Minute Zine Reviews by DJ Frederick

Carnato Baa and the Coolest Skateboard in the Universe

16 pages / $1 ?

www.cosmicrockbooklets.com

Carnato Baa (or is it Ba?) has a lot of brothers, and a lot of adventures. He receives a skateboard as a birthday present and … I won’t tell you what happens next. Fun drawings accompany this cool booklet / zine for kids. Created by Evan Harris, a zinemaker since 1994. Long live booklets!

Billy Childish is Dead

Weekly Recommendations, Week 24: Billy Childish is Dead

from the juniper bends as if it were listening by juniperbug

When I started writing these weekly recommendations at the beginning of 2012, I commenced by recommending the band, Thee Headcoats, fronted by an English gentleman who goes by the name, Billy Childish. Well, my interest in Billy Childish and his music has not waned, and so nearly six months later I am recommending a great, little documentary about the life and times of Billy Childish entitled, Billy Childish is Dead. This film, which was released in 2005, was obviously done with a very low budget and without the use of high quality video and editing equipment; however, that is actually quite fitting considering that it’s a film showcasing a man who despite his prolific contributions to the world of art, writing, and music, has very little interest in fame and fortune and has probably (without pretentiousness) made it a point to avoid such things. The film consists of various interviews with people associated with or interested in the life of Billy Childish, including bandmates, friends, lovers, and associates. Billy Childish himself is also interviewed, and his comments, stories, and quips were major highlights of the film for me. Mixed in with the interviews is footage from various shows that Billy Childish and his myriad bands have put on over the years. The footage includes performances by the Pop Rivets, The Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Caesers, Thee Headcoats, and The Buff Medways, as well as some solo stuff. The live footage was another big highlight for me, so I was pleased that the DVD included a lengthy bonus segment with extended versions of some of these performances as well as additional ones. This film is a great introduction to the world of Billy Childish, and I would implore you, if you aren’t already acquainted with the works of Billy Childish, to make yourself so. In my opinion, he is one of the few raw, genuine, unexploited, and unapologetic artists out there in this big, crazy world saturated with commercialism and pretended talent.

One of my favorite Billy Childish quotes from the film:
“The Beatles put the idea in mind that you could be in a group, and punk rock put the possibility of actually really being in one without really any talent.”

Toy Camera

Zine Review: Toy Camera

from One Minute Zine Reviews by DJ Frederick

Once upon a time, creativity flowed from within us, not from gadgets, technologies and apps. Toy Camera Zine explores the world of photography with inexpensive cameras and real film, with a focus (ok, pun intended) on the Holga. Lomography.com describes the Holga like this: the unassuming Holga is here to save you from a future of digital pixels and images shared on small screens on cameras or phones. We have all become numbed with photography, there is no denying it, but a chunky camera made almost entirely of plastic has been put on this Earth to save us. It will reawaken your vision, fill you with joy, make you see beauty when you thought it had disappeared forever, and bring out sunshine on a cloudy day.

Nicci’s zine is filled with fun ideas and projects for playing with toy cameras, along with some basic operational info about the Holga, and some examples of her own artistic vision. Toy Camera Zine is quarter-sized, 29 pages, hand sewn binding, printed on high quality paper and available from Sweet Candy Distro.

Railroad Semantics #1

Railroad Semantics #1

from Randy Spaghetti by noreply@blogger.com (Randy Spaghetti)

Railroad Semantics #1 by Aaron Dactyl Microcosm 636 SE 11th ave Portland, OR 97214 . Railroad Semantics No. 1 is a collection of train hopping stories, pictures, newspaper clippings, and letters put together in a somewhat collage-like fashion, and like a collage, it often sparks curiosity in the viewer (reader) and then abruptly changes directions. The descriptions of life on the rail with all the sunsets, contemplative solitude, and vast landscapes are excellent and are the soul of this book. I couldn’t help wanting to know more, however, about the author, and the people he encountered along the way. I loved the pictures of the various travels and all the correspondence written on the walls of the boxcars - unfettered and uncensored- and I really enjoyed the writing. Railroad Semantics is a unique snapshot of a world that most of us will never experience on our own, and a one that I look forward to reading more about in the future.

http://imprint.printmag.com/michael-dooley/harvey-pekar-graphic-novel/

Zine Review: The Zine Explorers Notebook #3

Zine Review: The Zine Explorers Notebook #3

from One Minute Zine Reviews by DJ Frederick

The Zine Explorers Notebook #3

PO Box 5291 Richmond VA 23220

$2 or trade / stamp / letter

I struggle internally around whether or not to abandon the digital world completely and become a true paper-neter, but I fear that would be a difficult reality to navigate mostly due to my role as a radio DJ – so much information and music is shared online now that to not be part of that world would put me in a severe disadvantage for musical discovery.However, the inability to pay for internet access may become a reality in the near future, in which case the choice will be made for me.

The “papernet” (for want of a better moniker) is a place that still teams with people, publications, and ideas. The Zine Explorers Notebook, published by Doug Harrison, is an oasis for thought and conversation, and a place to find new zines and zinesters to connect with. As Doug states in his introduction, “ … This is a meaningful way to participate in life. This publication is more than a hobby.”

Doug goes on to share thoughts on the recent Japanese nuclear disaster, nuclear power, his printing process, and more. There are ample and detailed zine reviews, book reviews and even a music review. Several pages are devoted to letters from readers and items in the news. The Zine Explorers Notebook packs maximum content into ten pages, is stylistically highly readable and an exceptional resource.