user reviews

1-3. My fellow NAMAC panelists: Moderator Kyle Harris of Free Speech TV—a terribly charming person and eloquent speaker on issues of political aesthetics, which by the way was sort of what our panel was on, and we sort of forgot to mention it, but this wasn’t Kyle’s fault; Franklin Lopez , a really smart and thoughtful corporate detractor who’s fortunately also incredibly prolific; and Cynthia Carrion, who along with the equally cool Mariela Rosario is working on MNN Youth Channel.

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.

It's a bad sign when I have to judge a book by only its cover and a quick glance through the first two chapters before handing it off to a real book reviewer, but that i decided to do anyway with Emily Pohl-Weary's STRANGE TIMES AT WESTERN HIGH, because any chance a girl gets to talk up this book, she should probably take.

A little bit HARRIET THE SPY, but slightly older, and a teensy bit Nancy Drew, if Nancy were a zinester, Natalie Fuentes is a snappy but reluctant girl investigator who would far prefer to publish her zine MY VERY SECRET LIFE than deal with the latest crime.

Pick it up if you like the genre or know a kid who does; I promise you'll have a hard time passing it along. I know I am.

Mary Van Note’s Experiences (of the sexual variety) v1
by Mary Van Note, $2

One paragraph per experience, per page, per crude drawing. It was a pleasant change to read a zine about positive sexual experiences – the animated Alf playing a flared electric guitar on the cover set the mood well. No huge insight or revelations here, but for two dollars, you get a lot of bang for your voyeuristic bucks.

Contact:
Email: marybabushka-at-hotmail-dot-com
Web: www.myspace.com/maryvannote

Breakdancing for the Pope
poems by Katie Haegele
20 Pages. ½ Size.

So I know you wanted to stop reading after seeing the word "poems" in the subtitle. But that would’ve been a huge mistake.

Katie has put together a powerful little packet of poetry in her latest zine, Breakdancing for the Pope. I enjoyed the title track the best, a piece which includes the metaphor "words put on paper / are tin cans with strings / they twirl and buck in my mind / then in yours".

Most of the pieces are free verse, and some are closer to prose than poem, but all are beautiful. "The Inside, on Being Broken" even includes a tutorial on making your own maraca, and violence, and music.

Mend My Dress #4

With past themed issues on incest and letters written to various step-dads, an issue about rabbits might sound cute. Then you read this issue is about leporiphobia, a fear of rabbits. Then you read that the author is "not fucking joking."

Mend My Dress explores the phobia, mostly in references to rabbits in pop culture, old stories and the darkest of all days, Easter. The author offers up a possible explanation of her fears. It’s not cute, but it’s a solid read.

cost: $2.00 US, $3.00 everywhere else

Kimagure na Dowa no Hon (a storybook of whimsy)

Kimagure na Dowa no Hon (a storybook of whimsy) is a split zine by two American zinesters in Japan. Before embarking on another country, Jennie and Carolee agreed to create something every night before bed and publish those creations, with only minor revisions allowed, as a zine upon their return.

Accompanying the two girls’ journal-esque musings is a beautiful layout consisting almost entirely of found objects (receipts, stickers, stamps) from the streets and floors of Japan. Kimagure is an enjoyable vicarious trip, with none of the associated turbulence.

It comes down to this, Dana or the QPP.
I chose the QPP.
I need it.
It's cheap.
That's that.

Introvert #5
by Nicole Introvert
¼ Size. 32 pages.

Hey Nicole,

I just got a chance to read issue #5 this morning. I meant to get to it last week, but things kept getting in the way. I am so impressed that you were able to write the words you did. I have gone years without telling some of my closest friends my biggest fears and anxieties, constantly lying to or shying away from them. And you’ve been able to not only face those anxieties enough to document them, but then had the courage to mail them out to all of us.

Bats In The Bridge is a bat fanzine by Ms. Film's director, Niku Arbabi. That's not a misspelling (Sinker) – it's not about Batman, or the Batmobile – but a fanzine about bats! Niku sent me one of the first 30 copies; the only ones to include a black velvety, glittery hand-sewn on cover. Though she swore to me it's not a Halloween zine, and that the timing was just coincidental (or as Bob Ross used to say, a "happy accident").

The zine focuses on Batfest, the annual celebration in Austin, TX honoring a colony of over a million Mexican Free-Tail bats. The bats migrate to live under the Congress Avenue Bridge. Once a year the bridge is closed off to traffic and opened to educational activities, drink mixing contests, artists, crafters, live music and more.