My best friend Liz has been sending me care packages of zines while I'm in Florida. This saves my life. With the first package I got, I felt this great satisfied joy as my hands held xeroxed newsprint. It was like I was back home.
Tiny Unicorn - A comic with many, many words and one teeny unicorn. Our bitsy pal is a lot like you and me -- it watches TV, gets cranky about LA heat, slaves for minimum wage, smokes, buys stuff at IKEA. But mostly it likes to comment Andy Rooney-style on all sorts of goings on from the political to the hallucinatory.
You Don't Get There From Here #2 -- Hot damn, this comic was dense. No wasted space here as Ms. McNinch draws a slice of every day from 11/27/06 to 2/23/07 (not a day was skipped!) in three or four panels. I didn't realize it at the time, but the thing that really struck me about this comic was its balance. Sometimes it seems, to me, like some zines and comics reflect a sort of radical independence in a vacuum, like all the creator ever does is perfectly, carefully craft their existence in the most underground, politically aware, artistically dynamic way. And man, do I aspire to that level of dedication. But it's also kind of nice to read about someone who freely admits to vegging in front of a cable channel, indulging in fancy chocolate or drinking too darn much while also mentioning vegan homecooked dinners and wise use of public library resources. Did I mention each day's entry has a different theme song? This is day-in-the-life at its finest.
