I don’t know that I’ve ever digested a copy of this zine and been disappointed. There is no other that I am so willing to squint my eyes for to get good and up-close with (’cause things are little in here!). This mom doesn’t mince words, and finds humor in the awful and mundane events of our everyday lives; she is, essentially, a stand-up comic on paper. She possesses the great skill to talk about her life avec kids in a way that actually interests others instead of prompting them to tune out. Her drawings crack me up too. This issue is the “Jambo Tribute Issue.” Jambo was Halliday’s old hellion of a cat, and he recently turned in his earthly papers. The highlight of the issue was the tale of how Jambo used up his first cat life by getting his paw stuck in the radiator. A panicked Halliday was instructed by a vet that her only choice was to cut his foot off (yes, at home, by herself!). I’m not going to spoil the ending of that tale by spilling it here, however. I also thoroughly enjoyed her story about the origin of the cat’s name: “This was something I used to hear (and say) many times a day in Tanzania & Kenya. If there’s one word us camera-toting Western types can figure out how to say in Ki Swahili it’s ‘hello.’ Can you imagine how aggravating it must be to walk down a 7km hill with a heavy jug of water or an enormous bundle of firewood on your head, only to pass an endless string of chipper foreign visitors clad in expensive safari gear & big old honkin’ Masai earrings, every single one of whom feels compelled to say, ‘Jambo!'” (heze douglas)
Zine, Ayun Halliday, #29, US$2, 36 pgs, P.O. Box 22754, Brooklyn, NY, 11202, U.S.A., [email protected], www.ayunHalliday.com