When Deadlines Become Zombies #10
Zine, Z.F. Thrimej, 26 pages, www.zfthrimej.wordpress.com, [email protected], $5
While I have read (and dug) many a hand-written, cut-and-paste perzine about mental illness, bullying, and race, I have to admit this is the first one I have ever read that is completely written in rhyme. And Deadlines Become Zombies not only rhymes – it also has a killer layout. However Deadlines is a zine that wants you to come to it and navigate its small type with its maddening tendency to change direction, which caused me to squint and flip the zine around to the point where I began to lose the thread a little.
While Deadlines is funny and detached in some ways, there is sincere feeling here as well – real pain. I was impressed that some of the pages were colour photocopied, but more stoked that the zine included a suggested soundtrack at the end; this is one of my favourite carry-overs from ’90s zines. The soundtrack is an eclectic mix of music and stand-up comedy including no-brainers like Fugazi, New Order, and Gil Scott Heron and comedians like Bill Hicks, David Cross, and Richard Pryor. While $5 is on the pricey side for a zine (probably due to the colour photocopying), if I saw a future issue of this, I’d probably pick it up. (Chris Landry)