Mean Girls vs Monsters

Mean Girls vs Monsters

24 pages, digest

black & white illustrations, green card stock cover

$2.50 + postage

One of the more unique and interesting zines I've seen in a while. Mean Girls vs Monsters is both a comic and a coloring book. Brenna Friesner serves up three short stories about what happens when mean high school girls tangle with an assortment of monsters. Weird and strange in the most delightful way, and a little disturbing. Great fun and makes you wonder.

Order on Etsy

https://www.etsy.com/listing/244738216/mean-girls-vs-monsters-comic-zine?ref=shop_home_feat_1

Three Zine

By Squid
www.squidishere.com
squid.bigcartel.com

One of the first thing you notice about this zine is the way it's printed. I have no idea how Squid did this, but the blacks on this zine are incredibly black and shiny. There are a couple of pages that are mostly black, and they just feel thick with ink. It's really neat.

As to the content, Three features drawings (of monsters!), comics, and recipes, but the majority of the zine is made up of "interviews with cool females".

Squid talks with one of the organizers of the Women's Autonomous Nuisance Cafe (WANC), and female members of the musical groups Lilies on Mars, Seaming To (okay, a person rather then a group), and Creatures of Kontrast.

I enjoyed reading all the interviews, as they range across a fairly wide variety of questions and talk about some cool stuff and actually made me go and listen to the bands online. The WANC interview discusses lady DJs, squatting, and other neat stuff, while all of them feel more like conversations than some of the interviews you read.

There are also reviews of concerts by a couple of the bands. The first of which seems to degenerate into a fever dream ("AAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Giant cockroaches with TV's for brains and temporary bus stop signs for noses!") before returning to talk about the music. Though considering that one of the band members say that they like "confusion, paranoia, and craziness" I think this is probably appropriate.

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Three Zine

By Squid
www.squidishere.com
squid.bigcartel.com

One of the first thing you notice about this zine is the way it's printed. I have no idea how Squid did this, but the blacks on this zine are incredibly black and shiny. There are a couple of pages that are mostly black, and they just feel thick with ink. It's really neat.

As to the content, Three features drawings (of monsters!), comics, and recipes, but the majority of the zine is made up of "interviews with cool females".

Squid talks with one of the organizers of the Women's Autonomous Nuisance Cafe (WANC), and female members of the musical groups Lilies on Mars, Seaming To (okay, a person rather then a group), and Creatures of Kontrast.

I enjoyed reading all the interviews, as they range across a fairly wide variety of questions and talk about some cool stuff and actually made me go and listen to the bands online. The WANC interview discusses lady DJs, squatting, and other neat stuff, while all of them feel more like conversations than some of the interviews you read.

There are also reviews of concerts by a couple of the bands. The first of which seems to degenerate into a fever dream ("AAAAAAAAAAAAGH! Giant cockroaches with TV's for brains and temporary bus stop signs for noses!") before returning to talk about the music. Though considering that one of the band members say that they like "confusion, paranoia, and craziness" I think this is probably appropriate.

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Chiaroscuro Part One

By Dan Dunlap
actsofdan.com

Straight up science fiction comics are something that you don’t see that often. I’m not really sure why to be honest, but there seems to be a lack of them in the industry.

Chiaroscuro is a science fiction comic, and while at first it seems to be filled with science fiction and fantasy clichés, I felt that Dunlap actually dealt with them quite well. When the spooky monks come and tell the main character's parents that he is the chosen one and has to be taken away to be trained, they say that they’ve already arranged for them to come and live nearby so they don’t have to abandon him. When he encounters some “monsters” he immediately attacks and kills them.

This is something that bothers me more and more in video games. Why am I attacking these monsters? They’re wearing clothes and using tools, that means they have intelligence, societies, and culture. I should be studying them, not killing them! (Clearly I should be playing Ultimate Anthropologist instead of Final Fantasy).

However, Dunlap manages to throw a curveball at this trope, and it turns out that the “monsters” that Tog (the main character) attacked were actually just cattle of some form, and the people who owned them are kind of pissed off about it. This even leads to the question of whether Tog is the “chosen one” at all, or if he’s just wandering around thinking that he is. (Okay, maybe I'm reading too much into the story.)

While the overall style of the art is one that I enjoy, I found that certain panels and storytelling were a bit weak. I thought the designs of the aliens was generally fairly good, and although I’m not such a big fan of bipedal humanoids I acknowledge that creating non-humanoid looking species and their culture is a difficult task.

I do wonder how the creatures could evolve on a world which is static in space and thus half light and half dark all the time. Shouldn’t there be a huge difference in temperature between the two halves? Could a creature that evolved to survive on one half of the planet live on the other side for any length of time? (I over think everything.)

I also really like the cover logo. I think it looks really cool, and even works as a representative of the two different groups in the story inside.

Overall I liked this, and my only disappointment is that it’s only part of a story, and even as a first chapter it seems disappointingly short.



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Plan B

By Laura Bifano
www.laurabifano.com

Unlike the zine I reviewed yesterday, this comic does have monsters! Or one monster at least. Clearly I am biased towards unspeakable monstrosities.

This is a wordless comic about a little girl (based on the author) dreaming about becoming a mermaid. She loves mermaids (like a certain person I know), and thinks that being a mermaid will be the best thing ever!

Of course when she actually encounters a “mermaid” she finds it is less awesome than she would hope, and her dream is irreparably shattered.

The art is fantastic, the wordless storytelling is excellent, and the story is both funny, and a little sad (the disappointment of the mermaid! The disappointment of the little girl). The price on this thing is (in my opinion) kind of outrageous, but Bifano is a really good artist (check out this amazing painting of a unicorn), and I feel like her work would be much better presented as part of an anthology like Flight, where it would be presented at a better size and a better price, and where far more people would be exposed to her work. Hopefully that'll happen in the future.



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Monster Mash

By Dan Dunlap
actsofdan.com
dragon-dan.livejournal.com

It doesn’t really matter how much I write about politics or cooking on this blog, all it takes is one small comic and I realize that what I really love are monsters. Because they are awesome. Monsters for everyone!

This (far too) short comic is pretty simple. It just features pictures of monsters fighting each other. But all your favourite monsters are included! I would love to read a longer comic version of this, as long it was done in the same style and humour. I do not need to know the gritty origin of the ninja Frankensteins or the werewolf mummies.

I was recently talking to a zinester friend about zines we liked, and I wondered why I love monsters so much. I really have no answer for this, I cannot quantify my love. They are just fantastic! Which isn’t an argument that will convince someone that doesn’t already enjoy monsters, but if you do like monsters you should check out this comic. It made me really happy.

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Melon Farmer

Melon Farmer 3
By Orson and Zeel
aligon-adventures.blogspot.com
zeel.co.uk

[Yeah! It's my birthday! So to celebrate that (and the fact that someone just asked that I remove the review of their zine that I posted six months ago) here's a review I wrote weeks ago but was unable to post due to internet problems and traveling. More soon.]

When I went to the Brighton Zine Fest earlier this year one of the really neat things they had was a zine scavenger hunt. This was a list of different types of zines that you had to try to collect in order to get a prize. The list included things like "a blue zine", "a tiny zine", "a zine about tea", and other things. However, the organizers wanted to give out the loot bag prizes and would allow pretty much anyone to get one if they made up some decent reasons.

Part of my lootbag was this zine created by a little kid and (I assume) his dad. This is reminiscent of Axe Cop and also a project I was involved in recently that involved redrawing children's characters. I really love the ideas of these projects, as it encourages creativity at a young age.

From what I can tell Zeel drew the panel borders, did toning and lettering, and maybe drew other background background elements. Everything else seems to be by Orson. The art is mostly the type you'd expect from a little kid, with little consistency, and the story frequently doesn't make a lot of sense.

Despite this there is definitely a lot of charm in this comic, and there are some panels (like below) that I really like the look of, as they have a style and energy I really enjoy. There's a lot of charm in the work in here: characters powers being based upon their names (as opposed to vice-versa), diagrams showing the powers and equipment people have. This reminds of what I used to do as a kid, and I think it's awesome that kids are still doing this.

Plus the lootbag also had one of those party noisemakers (with a pirate!), a glow stick thing (which I've broken), a temporary tattoo, and a rad stamp/marker thing.



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Panel 13

Behind the neat cover (both sides open like doors) lies a a comics anthology put together by a group of creators in Ohio. They function like a writing group, getting together every few weeks to show each other what they're working on and to give constructive criticism. Twice a year they put out an anthology, and this is the 13th. Impressive!

This anthology is based around the theme of superstition and bad luck, and, like all anthologies, the contents are up and down with some comics just leaving me confused as to why they were even created. (Though I suppose that could just because because I don't really see the appeal of baseball.)

The two comics I liked the most were one by Craig Bogart that told of the unfortunate ends of the various contributors to this "unlucky" book. Each person is given a panel and their fates are revealed as everything from being forced to see the world like Thomas Kinkade to being burnt alive. No fun!

The other piece I liked was by Molly Durst and Brent Bowman and was a sort of pre-World War II adventure piece that recalled stories like The Shadow. It features a mansion, fencing, chemistry labs burning down, and the Spider King! How can you not love a giant centaur like spider goblin? I wish this comic was longer so that we could have seen more of him.

And so, once again, Matthew's love of monsters triumphed over all.



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Chloe Noonan Monster Hunter #2

By Marc Ellerby
marcellerby.com

Sometimes the comics industry makes me sad. Not because it's mostly based around superheros. Not because it's not the most sexually or racially enlightened of places. Not because they are ignored by so many people.* But because there is really good work put out by amazing artists that seems to be almost completely unknown.

Case in point being Chloe Noonan by Marc Ellerby. This is an incredibly well drawn, well written, and funny comic with characters I like reading about, yet Ellerby is self publishing it with no major distribution. Now sure, maybe he wants to self publish it, but after reading about some of the problems he had getting issue 3 printed I wish that all of that was being taken care of by someone else and he could just draw more comics.

Still, apparently he is currently pitching it to various people. So hopefully we'll have a full book before too long. I certainly can't wait to read more comics about this not very good monster hunter, and her adventures with bands and clothes stealing friends. Until then I'm just going to have to go and read all of his webcomics.

* Okay, yes, all of those things make me sad too.



(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

WJC Comics No 3

By Warwick Johnson Cadwell
warwickjohnsoncadwell.blogspot.com

Cadwell's comics shouldn't really work. His artstyle seems to ignore so many things that I think should be present in "good" comic art. The characters' proportions don't make sense, the panel to panel consistency is weak, and characters warp and change.

And yet I love his style. There's something about the way he draws weird looking creatures, robots, and even humans that really appeals to me. His work has energy, dynamism, and an appeal I find hard to pin down.

Of course it's not all perfect, the reproduction on this is kind of terrible. Greys come out so dark it's hard to make out any detail, and I just know we're missing out on certain aspects of the art. Storywise it's just a chase scene, but it's effective at what it does, and as part of a longer narrative it would work really well.

Cadwell has a book coming out from Blank Slate Books later this year, but until then I'll just have to keep looking at his blog so I can discover awesome drawings like this one of Batgirl vs. Killer Croc.



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

Little Garden Volume 1 Part 1

By Ayo

Whereas yesterday's comic suffered from a lack of monsters, this one is nothing but monsters! Monsters with wings! Monsters with hoofs! Monsters with three eyes! Monsters with horns!

Okay, so I guess they're pretty much just mostly human women with some weirdness, but that's close enough for me. The images contained in here aren't really a comic, rather they just show random snapshots from the lives of these women letting us know how their community functions. They farm, they deliver mail, they hang out, they go swimming. There's no plot, but rather we see these characters just living their lives. It's a fun little book even if I'm not really down with the portrayal of males (either a target of derision or tied up).

The art is pretty clearly not for everyone. There's an ugliness to a lot of it that appeals to me somehow. I find it kind of hard to describe, though funnily it's the way the lips and eyelids are drawn that make these characters look the most monstrous rather than their extra appendages.



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

The Sea Part Three

By Will Kirkby
chamonkee.livejournal.com

Dang, it's been like six months since I last read one of these, and almost a year since I read part one. Maybe I have too many things to read. And maybe (probably) I should dig up the first two issues of this series and reread them since upon starting this one I'm a little lost (but I'm not even sure if I still have those issues anymore).

My confusion as to what was going on in this issues makes me think that anyone picking this up without reading the previous two issues might not enjoy it much (though I suppose I could be completely wrong). We're dropped into the middle of a plot, there's a time jump I didn't really get, characters aren't introduced very well, and one of them only speaks Japanese. Okay, so the main character (who's thoughts we are able to read) can't understand him either, and by not translating the speech Kirkby is putting us more into the mindset of the main character, but it's kind of annoying because he's clearlying saying _something_, I just have no idea what.

The story itself invovles captivity, monsters, escapes, amateur surgery, ominous predictions, and similar things. Kirkby uses first person narration to tell most of the story, and unfortunately it doesn't work as well here as it did in issue one. There the character was trapped on a boat and had only himself to talk to for most of the comic, whereas here we have other characters but have no real knowledge of what they're up to.

While the story disappointed me somewhat I continue to enjoy Kirkby's art. He uses a lot of close-up images of the characters heads in his art, each almost filling the panels. These are good at creating a sense of claustrophobia, and I remember them working really well in the earlier comics. However once the characters escape from captivity I'm left longing for bigger images that show more of what's going on. Kirkby at times does leave the four panel grid behind and draw images across an entire page, but all these really do is make me wish that all of the art was bigger and that this had been released in a different format.

If you haven't read any of Kirkby's comics this isn't the best place to start. Instead you should go and pick up issue one of The Sea or the Birdsong anthology he's involved with. He's an excellent artist, and I look forward to seeing what he'll work on next.



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

Godzilla the Film Critic

By Ben Clark
www.magicbeanscomics.co.uk

Okay, so it's a tiny minicomic, and the joke is pretty much told on the cover, but still, somehow, I was expecting a bit more from this. Mainly I guess because the "plot" (such that it was) mostly involves two monsters arguing about whether Cloverfield is any good or not. Their discussion reaches about the heights of your average Youtube comment (ie. it sucks! It rocks! I'll fight you!).

Meanwhile, several other monsters chime in on what they think of various TV shows and movies. These bits are fairly funny ("It's Britney's kids Gamera feel sorry for."), and I wouldn't have minded an entire comic just filled with their brief "reviews". I guess I set my heights too high, but really, this could have been the Citizen Kane (or insert good movie here) of tiny, humourous Godzilla comics. Or at least Clark could have spent a little bit longer on the art.

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

Bear with a Chainsaw Issue 1

Edited by Devin Renshaw
supercrazymonsters.blogspot.com

In his introduction Renshaw says that there's no "rhyme or reason to this zine", and that is entirely true, as the content switches between his drawings of monsters and completely random written content from others.

The monster drawings are pretty rad. Monsters! Yeah! That's like ingredient number one to make me like your zine. Renshaw draws tentacled monsters, hairy monsters, insect monsters, and more. None of them is incredibly horrifying or anything, but if you spend too much time looking at them and thinking about what they'd look like in real life they can create a certain sense of squeamishness in you.

The other content is considerably less good. A piece about why hobos are terrible which misrepresents homeless people (even if the author claims not to hate them), a poem I don't remember (surprise, surprise!), a nonsensical story about someone trying to find matches so they can smoke up, and some pretty gross "self help" style pieces (ie. "How To Revive Dead Mac n'Chz", and no, I've never put a half eaten pot of macaroni and cheese "in the frig".)

I liked that Renshaw saw fit to put little hand written editor's notes at the end of all the pieces other people wrote for him, but the pieces in general were not really my thing.

I did like the monster pictures though. Monsters! Raaarrrrrr!



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

Chloe Noonan Monster Hunter #1

By Marc Ellerby
marcellerby.com

On Ellerby's site he says that Chloe Noonan is "a terrible monster hunter". This is not to say that she is a terrible, horrifying person, nor that she hunts overly scary monsters. But rather that she is kind of shit at being a monster hunter.

Now don't get me wrong, she manages to capture monsters when she has to, but it's not exactly her calling, it's just a job to her. She'll be hanging out with her friends when oh no! A phone call telling her that she has to go _all_ the way across town to capture some stupid monster. Again. And she has to take the bus to get there.

When viewed in this way monster hunting isn't fun or exciting; it's boring, it's annoying, it's frustrating. Chloe doesn't want to do this job, but well, she has to pay the bills sometimes. And when she's called in to do overtime just before her band has a show, what is she supposed to do?

The monster Chloe fights in this issue is kinda lame, and entirely dickish. Perhaps not really what you expect from traditional monsters, but even trolls are going to have to grow and change with the times.

Artwise this comic is really good. Ellerby has drawn comics for Oni, Image, and Boom! so he's fairly established for an indie comics guy. His style is very...I don't want to say "hipster", but his characters are all kind of like that in that they have haircuts and fashion and does Chloe really need those thick rimmed glasses? And she plays synths in a band (we all play synths). Oh no! How awful.

(I'm suddenly reminded of a conversation I had with John Allison of Scary Go Round last year about how terrible fashion in superhero comics was. He told me he'd been to middle America and was terrified to discover that that was how people dressed in real life! Tshirts tucked into jeans! Noooooooo.)

Uhm, so aside over... I _like_ it when characters have nice clothes. I mean, it's not like I dress that well, but I try sometimes I guess? (My misuse of punctuation should be a crime.)

Anyway, this comic is fun. Chloe throws bombs at monsters and still manages to get to the bar in time to play with her band. Hurray!

And if you go to his site you'll see a pretty rad drawing he did of the band Sleigh Bells who I really like. Hurray!



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