Half English, half French and all heart. That’s the recipe for The Happy Loner, a perzine with one of the most bang-on titles in recent memory. You see, the zine’s founder Iza Bourret is a self-professed loner and she’s quite happy with that, thank you very much. She uses her zine to showcase personal e-mails from other loners worldwide and, thusly, we’re afforded a unique glimpse at what happens when loners interact through the magic of computers (trust me, it’s far more interesting than it sounds). Iza also includes a four-page rant about copycats and the degree to which she’d like to kick their butts-no argument here as I also think they’re dumb jerks. Otherwise, we have instructions for how to steal a pepper shaker from a restaurant, some reviews of other zines, a Xeroxed copy of Iza’s passport photos and some French stuff that I wasn’t able to decipher. On the whole, The Happy Loner is a nice, matter-of-fact read that does little to add or subtract to the genre. Just don’t tell Iza; she’d rather be alone. (Cameron Gordon)
Perzine, Iza Bourret, #2, $2, 16 pgs, 5591 St-Laurent, Levis, QC, G6V 3V6, [email protected], www.geocities.com/girl_w_cat