Comic, Marcia Iwasaki, 8 pgs, etsy.com/ca/shop/tamikoart, $3
In this eight-panel comic zine, you’ll find lots of art and ideas to drink in: a recipe for a proper cup of English tea, a description of the physical effects of too much caffeine, a historical lesson on tea, and the anthropomorphic representation of the author as a frog. Iwasaki’s images use simple colour palates, existing mainly in white and green with hits of red and brown. The zine is compact and yet busy with both illustration and text. The true appeal of this zine lies with its sweet sentiment. As someone who drinks buckets of tea but is not a tea connoisseur (and as someone who grew up on cheap, black tea), I can appreciate the weight of love and history that exists in a steaming hot cuppa. It is this sense of familiarity – a shared smile – that makes Iwasaki’s zine so endearing. For those of us that appreciate the simple luxury of a steaming beverage in the mid-afternoon hours, Coffee, Tea or Me? captures the feeling of that first sip so very well. (CJ Blennerhassett)