Opuntia 70.1D

from Blackguard

16 pages, digest size, $3.00 cash for a one-time sample copy, trade for your zine, or letter of comment - Dale Speirs, Box 6830, Calgary, Alberta, CANADA, T2P 2E7
With Dale's unique zine-numbering system, '.1' issues are reviewzines, so that's what we got here.
First up a review of 'Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World' by Tom Zoellner [2009] which covers the history of uranium.
Next up a review of 'Fiat Money Inflation in France' by Andrew Dickson White [1921, revised 1933], a study of hyperinflation in the aftermath of the French Revolution.
So far, pretty dry stuff that didn't interest me very much.
But then along comes 'Thar She Blows!' where Dale reviews a whole bunch of volcano disaster movies and TV episodes, including Dante's Peak [1997] (Dale admits that he has no practical experience with volcanoes - "...the last volcano in Alberta cut loose 63 megayears ago, so we don't have to carry extra coverage on our house insurance"); Volcano [1997]; Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York [2006]; a 1966 episode of TV series The Time Tunnel that featured Krakatoa; Krakatoa: East of Java [1969] (Dale points out that "the movie is more famous for its title than its content, since Krakatoa is actually northwest of Java, but Hollywood never lets piddly little details like that get in the way."); Magma: Volcanic Disaster [2006]; and an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that featured a device that can activate individual volcanoes from the other side of the globe. (Holy shit, pretty awesome weapon for a supervillain right there!)
The issue wraps up with 'The State of Zinedom As Of 2010-12-31', including a table that shows numbers of zines received from Australia, Canada, Britain, USA and Others between 1998-2010. In 1998 Dale received 23 zines from Australia, but that dropped off dramatically within the next few years, but seems to have been holding steady at 5 or 6 for each year since 2006.
Despite the 'just the facts, ma'am' layout and occasional dry, uninteresting piece, every issue of Opuntia has something that totally kicks ass.

Jolie's OLD ZINES Zine Grab Bag

Lone Pilgrim and Orochi Pilgrim

By David Blandy and Daniel Locke
www.daniellocke.com

Saturday: I photocopy some zines, I walk around town, I go into an art gallery. Oh that's cool, this artist has made action figures of himself, and created a fighting game staring himself, and made some comic books about himself (or his various alter egos). Neat.

Sunday: Maybe I should read this comic I got like a year ago. Oh wait, that name looks familiar. Ah, I see it was written by the guy who did that art show yesterday. Wait, what? That's a kind of strange coincidence. Especially as I got the comics in different cities, bought one directly from the artist (who is different from the artist of the other two comics), and have never met the writer. Still, it was bound to happen eventually I guess.

The comic is a discussion of philosophy, the meaning of life, and the way of the samurai. It's kind of strange as the characters mostly just walk through a garden and discuss various ideas like the concept of Mu, the idea that reality is an illusion, and similar things. It's probably a bit hard to understand if you don't have some familiarity with East Asian philosophy, though there's an amusing bit of self reference when a character says "Those things that are easily understood are rather shallow."

Locke does a pretty good job of illustrating the many pages of talking heads, though I wouldn't have minded a few more backgrounds. His art style isn't particularly Lone Wolf and Cub-like, but he uses some Japanese styles, and it's all perefectly fine for the type of story being told.

Why'd I just mention Lone Wolf and Cub? Well the comic is designed to look like the Lone Wolf and Cub volmes that Dark Horse put out a few years ago. There's even a neat little glossery in the back like they had! It's a really nice homage to a pretty rad comic series, and it's amusing to see a glossery that switches between discussing aspects of Japanese Buddhism with describing characters from '90s fighting games.




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

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.)

Zine Fair and Youth Arts Market Blacktown

Vstream Zine - the First Ever 54-page Zine about Vegan Blogs

Portrait Zine Class

When: Sat., March 26, 12 p.m.
Price: $40/$35 members

Forget blogs and zine out when the Zootown Arts Community Center, 235 N. First St. W., presents its Portrait Zine Class, which is taught by local artist and zine writer Ladypajama and features the chance for students to use photos and their drawings to create a small zine, from noon–5 PM. $40/$35 members. Call 549-7555 to RSVP and visit zootownarts.org.

Zootown Arts Community Center (ZACC)

• Missoula 235 N. First St.

Tales of Diversity

This is a slickly produced (full colour! Glossy paper!) comics anthology created by Eastside Educational Trust and funded by the UK government. Or the last government at least, I doubt the new one would ever give money to something like this.

It features contributions from about twenty teenagers living in London (or at least I assume it's London), and it's neat that they actually are pretty damn diverse. The photo on the inside front cover features more diversity than seemingly the entire town I grew up in Canada (not that that would be that hard really).

The comics that these kids have created are pretty varied in a number of ways, namely quality and content. Some of them are quite accomplished, while others are kind of terrible. Since there are so many different strips in here I'm just going to comment on a few of them.

The opening piece (The Dollhouse by Leke Adekanbi and Shantel Cherebin) is about acceptance of people with different sexual and gender identities to the norm. It's a good message (though an old one for me), but is more notable for the use of colours (each page uses only one colour, giving the comic an interesting look), and the kind of bizarre way some of the characters speak. I guess this second thing is probably more due to the fact that I don't hang out with many East London teenagers.

The second piece is by Charley Hayter and is kind of a strange thing to be created by a teenager as it starts in 1980 and features some school kids discussing what they want to be when they grow up. Cut to the present day and they meet up again, where one has achieved her dreams and the other hasn't. It's, uh, kind of depressing (the person who hasn't works in retail). I do like the art style (sort of amerimanga influenced, and no, I never thought I'd use that word either), and someone's job is a beekeeper. Awesome!

After this strong start many of the other pieces in here aren't so good. Some don't seem to make any real sense, some aren't really comics but are really more just pin ups, some don't seem to have any connection to the theme at all, and one (the longest in the comic!) seems to miss the entire point of the project and features people going on holiday somewhere, complaining about the food served, and then getting sick after eating it.

That's not to say they're all terrible, several of them have some merit (either in theme or art), and one by Nickita Patterson is pretty awesome. Matching high contrast black and white photos with text the piece (it really isn't a comic) talks about the African diamond industry and the brutal rebel groups, child labour, and general exploitation involved in its running. It's nicely laid out, and has a powerful message, even if it might not "properly" match the theme of the book.

One interesting thing I saw through these pieces was how terrible the lettering generally was. Only a few of the pieces used digital lettering, most preferring to do it by hand, but either way it frequently looked bad and was hard to read. So I guess aspiring comics creators should take note, spend time working on your lettering as well as the other parts of your comic. It doesn't matter how amazing your story is if nobody can read it.



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

Peach Melba #19

By Pearl
PO Box 74
Brighton
BN1 4ZQ
UK

When I was 13 I spent most of my time playing Magic: The Gathering and Super Nintendo, and reading X-Men comic books. I was so cool. (Now of course I do...much the same things. I think I play cooler games than Magic at least.)

What I wish I'd been doing instead at that age was making rad zines like Pearl does. Each intricately folded zine is filled with lists of what she's been doing, what's interested her lately, and random other things.

This issue's got lists of things Pearl doesn't like ("evil twins"), ways to eat people (how would you even mash someone to eat them? They don't have the same consistancy as potatoes. I don't think this was throught through to the extent that I am doing so...), and things made of metal ("the angel of the north", "some parts of clocks") amongst others.

There are also instruction for how to make a square envelope, that I haven't tried, but I'm sure work well. This isn't my favourite issue of Peach Melba, but it never fails to put a smile on my face when I read it anyway. Hurray!

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

What We Did For Kicks

What We Did For Kicks

from Blackguard

36 pages, digest size, by James Andre with art by Jacek Zabawa, Jase Harper and Luke Pickett, www.milkshadowbooks.com
...Kicks is a lit zine with a bunch of short stories and poems, mainly dealing with drug-fueled nights and days. The writing is strong and relentless (James also wrote the excellent pornstore zine, XXX Neon Sign), really dragging the reader into these seedy, strung-out scenes. There is some less grim stuff in here, like the story "Low Level Geeks With High Level Lighters' about a school formal which the narrator and his friends decide to sabotage with smoke bombs. There's also a bizarre story, 'Punkzzz On The Prowl' (set in 1979) about a group of punks stealing beer, then wanting to chain whip some "pretty kid", but they couldn't find him, but before that they attempted to pierce their nipples and cocks with syringes, which didn't work because the needle blunted too quick, so they instead got out a homemade tattoo gun and one of them wrote 'hate' on his neck, figuring he could change it to 'fate' if he ever got a job.
There's real mutant-looking illustrations throughout that fit these stories well.

The Leeds Thought Bubble Festival

By Aaron "Smurf" Murphy
aaronsmurfmurphy.deviantart.com

I got this at last year's Thought Bubble comicon (probably the best big comic event in the UK, it's really fun!), and it's really just a comic about going to the event itself. It's kind of weird metatextual in that way, but if you read it outside of that context it's really just a diary comic about, well, about how fun and well organized the event is.

Murphy's art is pretty good, though the oversized format he printed this at really kind of hammers home the lack of backgrounds in many of the panels. Probably the funniest thing about the art is that he is (or at least was when I met him) entirely unrecognizable from version that shows up in this comic, having shaved off all of his hair and beard for charity.

Overall the comic is a decent idea, but it's incredibly general about the event as a whole. Murphy seems to have been at the event before, so I'm kind of curious as to why he didn't include any anecdotes, or even the aftershow dance party in the casino (it is a kind of weird comic event).

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

Smog City #2

Smog City #2
58 pages, 6 x 10
$5 US, $7 Can/Mex, $10 World
No Trades

This motherfucker can write. Of all the self published "serious wannabe writer" zines I seen so far, this is by far the best. Mulnix has raw talent and mastery of the written word, but more important, he has what many writers lack; the ability to identify his weak spots and improve. This issue is a single piece of fiction, and that's all I'm saying. In addition to the kick-ass prose, this also has some of the most creative, interesting layout and graphics you'll see, the likes of which you usually find only in artist books. Live long and prosper, Mulnix.

MULNIX
PO Box 29753
Los Angeles CA 90027

wospress@gmail.com
http://eddiemulnix.blogspot.com

Of Martial Traditions & The Art of Rebellion

By Seaweed

Sometimes I find writing this blog really strange. I mean, the concept of zines is so vague that I really can review anything I want as long as its printed on paper. (Or even if it's not!) Since I review everything that I've received this leads to me reviewing comics where Godzilla and other monsters review movies one day, and an anarchist treatise on the importance of learning martial skills the next.

The whole idea of using physical force to achieve your ideals is something I struggle with. I feel that the things happening in the Middle East are pretty important and exciting, but there are many different things you have to consider before you start a revolution in your own country. This zine actually takes a pretty pragmatic take on the whole thing, and there are two quotes I thought were important enough to write down.

The first is "all rebels who want to overthrow the present social order[...]need to ask themselves what success means for them" and the second is "[...]it makes absolutely no sense for a minority of revolutionaries in North America to contemplate attemtemping an outright military contest against the police and army. The states [sic] combat power is simply overwhelming.".

These two pieces of information answer some of the questions I had about the idea behind this zine. The author may want societal collapse and a new system in place, but they know that there is no way for that to happen now (and if the economy hasn't collapsed after everything that happened in the last few years I don't know if it ever will), and so they advise people to take the long view. That is you must stay in one place, gain local support, create communities, and eventually you may be able to create real change in the way that people live. It's kind of depressing, but it also makes a lot of sense.

However, there are lots of other ideas in here, and at times the author seems to be arguing themselves in circles. I mean, how do you create "an anti-authoritarian culture that values martial skills" yet doesn't have warrior aristocracies? The only way to prevent a warrior aristocracy seems to be to train everyone in the community in weapon skills, which leads to the fact that you are taking away the ability for people to _not_ do something if they don't want to.

One thing the author references are tactical works, such as The Art of War, and how it is important to know about these even if you don't plan on using them. Seaweed explains that this is because those you are confronting on issues will be aware of them (think about how many business people read those books).

There are definitely a lot of interesting ideas in here, and there are also a lot of things that I don't really agree with. I'm not really down with using physical violence to achieve my goals, but at which point does violence become justified? The zine asks these questions, though doesn't give me a satisfactory answer.

The zine is well written (unlike this review!) in a somewhat academic style, and if you are capable of dealing with that and are interested in the idea of rebellion and revolutionary change it's probably worth reading this and discussing it with others.

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

he Comics of J.T. Yost

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

www.Birdcagebottombooks.com
jtyost@gmail.com
www.jtyost.com

I always like it when I can look at a single panel of a comic and instantly recognize the artist. So often people seem to learn how to draw comics by mimicking other artist’s work and then don’t seem to get very far away from it. Not the case with J.T. Yost’s work, he has a very distinctive style. The stories are gloomy and weird, which I like, and the panels are consistently interesting to look at on their own without following the story, which I also like.

Tales of Good ol’ Snoop Doggy Dogg, & It’s Dream Time Snoop Doggy Dogg
$3 and $4
These are illustrated dreams that the author has had about Snoop Dogg. They are weird and fun to read. Also contained within is a childhood story about being a geekish loner, befriending a tough guy and going to a party. Insightful and entertaining.
‘It’s dream time’ is more of the same: illustrated dreams that make you go hmmm? After reading them (which would be the case for most of us if our dreams were illustrated I suppose).

Loosers Weepers # 1&2
$5 each
Apparently J.T. Yost is pretty adept at finding notes, letters, and journals in random places. He then comes up with a story behind those finds and illustrates it. This is a great idea. It’s interesting and funny to read the actual notes and letters and then see what kind of a kooky story he has concocted from them. There are homophobic raps scribbled onto the back of envelopes, silly schoolyard checklists, and notebook journals from distraught lovers, all of which play a part in the various characters’ lives. Awesome.

Old Man Winter
$7
As the title suggests this is a story about an old man and his sad daily interactions with family members and the public. It’s a beautifully drawn tale of a broken person at the end of his days. Also included in this book are some pro-vegan comics that point out the process of meat production and animal experimentation in a unique and highly effective way. I really enjoyed this comic and after reading all of these zines, I now consider myself a fan.

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I Left Blues City

05 Dec 2010

I Left Blues City, but the state of misery didn’t leave me

Aside from being handsome as shit Benjamin Weir writes some truly beautiful poems. Harsh with the truthfulness of reality and gorgeously somber. They are the kind of poems that linger after you’ve read them even if you don’t remember the words. I love words that convey a state of mind, the kind that make you feel like the artist was feeling when they wrote them. And even if it isn’t what the artist was feeling when they wrote them it doesn’t matter. Because they made you feel something and through them a connection is established. Benjamin Weirs poems do this for me and I know they will for anyone who picks up this zine. If you’d like to get a hold of this zine you can reach Benjamin at benjaminpweir@gmail.com

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.)

Somnambulist Number 16

09 Dec 2010

This zine is “all about Oregon” according to the author, but that description doesn’t do the zine justice. The stories are set in Oregon, and one story specifically is about a scenic highway in Oregon, but the zine is a lot like remembering childhood/teenage memories. Some that actually happened and others that Martha created herself. Along with her stories there is some poetry sprinkled in. I’ve always felt that the sign of a good writer is the ability to communicate things without directly communicating them. The precision with which she conveys the ambiance of her stories is what makes this zine stand out. This zine will take you through experiences that were never yours and leave you amazed at how real and vivid something that never happened to you feels.

If you want to get a copy of this zine, and you should definitely want to, you can contact Martha at marthagrover@hotmail.com or at

PO Box 14871
Portland, OR, 97293

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.)

Dog Stories / Kalamazoo

By Martin Winch

Remember how yesterday I said I'd be reviewing some stuff I'd had for ages and ages and never gotten around to reading? Well here's exhibit A: two sampler zines that I picked up at the Portland Zine Symposium in 2009. That was almost two years ago!

I think I avoided reviewing these because I didn't think either of them was worth a full review. I still don't, however that is handily cured by reviewing them both in the one post. Progress!

Both zines start the same way, with a strangely defensive page telling you how you can get a hold of the full version sof these zines. Even from just reading that I kind of got a vibe that I wouldn't really enjoy these stories.

And I was right.

Dog Stories features a terrible story about some dude being really sexist and one told from a dog's point of view about how horrible it is that their owner won't let them shit everywhere and have sex with everything. Not my thing.

Kalamazoo (yes, it's a real place) features stories of gorwing up in the late '70s and early '80s in Michigan. Characters drink Bud, smoke cigarettes, drive shitty cars, and listen to shitty music. None of which I have any interest in reading about whatsover. (Well, there was half a paragraph about exploring sewers, but that's not a whole zine.)

It's hard to even judge whether these stories are well written, because the content and the style are so completely "not my thing". If you're into Americana they might be worth checking out.



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

Lambiek No. 40 Avontuur Strip

By Chris Ware
www.lambiek.net

So later this month I'm planning on heading back to Canada. While this shouldn't cause any major changes to the way this site is run (other than less UK based comics/zines showing up), I have decided that I want to finish at least one of the boxes of zines that I have lying around before I go back.

And so, over the next couple of weeks we're going to be looking at some stuff that's been in this box for ages. Either because it's so small I didn't see it (like today's) or because I kept putting off reading it for whatever reason.

Don't worry though, there'll still be reviews of newer stuff, and you never know, some of those comics and zines I've ignored for months might turn out to be really awesome.

Today's is a tiny comic that Chris Ware created for Galerie Lambiek, a pretty exciting sounding comic book shop in Amsterdam that I unfortunately never got to visit.

Ware is incredibly well known, and really the only reason I'm reviewing this is because it's really, really small (5x6cm) and as it was a promotional item in Holland probably isn't that well known.

Ware is an incredibly talented artist. I've seen his original pages on display in art galleries and they're impressive things. The only problem is that I generally cannot stand his stories. This story is in the same line as his others: the fat babyman superhero on the cover is sad and depressed. Is liquor the answer? No. Prostitutes? No. Comics? No. In fact they all leave him crying even harder than he'd been before. It's only when he somehow manages to combine them all that he gains some amount of non-depression. It's kind of funny, but my general dislike of Ware makes me not care, even though he drew a headshot of Tintin!

I gave my copy to the Schulz Library at the Center for Cartoon Studies, so you can go there and read it if you want.

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