Zine Reviews

Readers might expect to encounter more about the Walkman itself and all the great cassettes she devoured back in those days. Aside from a surprisingly accurate drawing of Tina Turner’s Private Dancer, the zine morphs into a story about memory, sound, and even grief.

Ryan Downum’s chapbook is a weird and wonderful treatise. It resists full comprehension and manages to do so with both elegance and gruesomeness.

Austin MacDonald’s colour choices give the pages of Squire’s Reunion a sense of foreboding. Houghton’s writing complements this. To make a recent reference for fans of swords, it’s as though the petite protagonist of Ranking of Kings popped up in Elden Ring.

Not only is Cleopatria hilarious, they’re the kind and generous sort of artist who will proofread your bad poetry for you before you commit to screen-printing it.

Created to challenge beauty standards, Rose Riot is a fashion and activism zine founded in Portland, Oregon that is by and for kids.

K.G. Wehri drums up fear largely in service of amplifying the sexual tension. None of it is gory but at some point, the fangs do come out. These stories yield themes of loneliness, hope, staying the course and the flexibility of time.

The stories in Kym Cunningham’s poems literally grow from women’s bodies. It takes time to connect, to unpack the rearranged speech and to try and find meaning that goes beyond the surface stories.

In the grand Oulipo tradition, Considerations sees Montreal’s Fortner Anderson undertake a constrained writing project: 1,000 numbered sentences, each with only one verb. Treat it like a daily Far Side calendar, serving yourself to a gag or observation when you feel like it.

In just a handful of words, Andromeda skillfully sketches Maria as a brash teenager, in a Puerto Rican family in New York City, and then as an equally brash ghost haunting the halls of their old apartment.

Max Morris’ Gary Panter-esque edu-comic should resolve all of your greeting related problems in the post-lockdown world.

No need to flag down a server — your bill has arrived. This zine’s six poems come stuffed inside an authentic leather restaurant bill holder. They’re typed on thin strips of paper that mimic receipts, and all end with “CUSTOMER COPY.”

Andy Brown, a scholar of Kirby and founder of Conundrum Press, has collected three of his essays regarding Kirby’s work after the ‘King of Comic’ bitter departure from Marvel.