Zine Review: Static Zine #10

ZINES_Static-Zine-10Jessica Lewis, Aviva Cohen and Melody Lau, staticzine.com, $2

A 10-issue run is something worth cele­brating, and the Static Zine crew does just that in this milestone-themed instal­ment. Three editors and 20 contributors is quite a crowd to wrangle, but Jess Lewis and company manage it, appar­ently having lots of fun along the way, according to the introduction.

Like previous issues of Static, the zine is comprised of single pages by each con­tributor. Featured milestones include tat­toos, memorable vacations, supernatural experiences, overcoming childhood fears and more. Standout pieces include Robb Mirsky’s impeccably-drawn comic “Be­coming A Man” about nervously surviving his bar mitzvah and Lily Pepper’s level-headed mini-essay “Fuck A Milestone; Be A Tender Baby.” Pepper invokes a hard-won and healthy ambivalence toward con­ventional life milestones and the stubborn tenacity supposedly required to achieve them. It is refreshing wisdom to re-con­vince me that the kids are in fact all right.

One milestone bonus: the Static Zine mixtape also returns, with a link in the zine, to songs representing milestones in the authors’ lives. (Joshua Barton)