zine review:
Mentally Ill #2
In this “second frustrating issue,” redguard provides another candid document of his struggle with depression, as glimpsed through a series of one-page comics. Readers without much experience of mental illness are unlikely to be won over, especially since the presentation lacks focus: the nondescript sketches tend to fight each other in cramped layouts that smother the insights of the text. A tidy system of regular panels or a sustained narrative thread might sharpen the material by giving it some structure. A more palatable design could only make the zine’s content more intelligible and, as a result, probably even more frustrating. (Daniel Marrone)
Zine, redguard, Absent Cause, P.O. Box 1568, New York, NY, 10276, USA, [email protected], $1