Zine Reviews

Review: Spread Love Comix

More so than the numerous instances of porking and bodily fluids flying about, the passion of each of the contributors to Spread Love is clear. There’s a lot of passion on full display and I’m not just talking about the smut!

Review: Planet Heaven

What if there was an app that could tap into your brainwaves and wash all your worries away? Help you manifest your dreams at the touch of a button? And what happens when that app is made by the densest men on the planet?

Review: Hi-Fi Anxiety

Jason’s memories of his first time hearing a band always seem to occur in some hole-in-the-wall record store in the ‘90s. It seems the real trick here is that this unassuming zine sneaks up on you with its grassroots charm.

Review: Greater Power: A Vince McMahon Zine

Speaking as something of a lapsed wrestling fan, Greater Power makes a compelling case for once again investing oneself in the strange, strange world of sports entertainment.

Review: Crowdfunding for Designers

Craig Berman outlines an inspiring — and, quite frankly, increasingly necessary — approach to creativity that questions whether the labour of design must always be in service to others.

Review: Mario 69

Mario 69 is part of multidisciplinary artist Jon Clark, a series of faux home media covers that each express ‘cursed’ feelings in their own way. Here, a ‘lost’ Super Mario game through lay-outs of the various enemies, characters and girlfriends.

Review: Blue 4 U

Nicholas Teixeira is like a hyper Max Headroom, be-bopping his way through an explosion of pop culture and its intersection with the self.

Review: Strange and Mysterious Creatures

Amidst loss, struggle, and pain, Douglas owns her experience and contention with mental health with a true gift for language. Her facility with the narration of emotion is moving and resonant.

Review: Ticket for Reference

Prolific Australian zinester Kate Dunn writes a frank but sentimental mini-memoir of her call centre work. Drawing on several years experience of frontline phone wrangling, caught between customers, bosses, and a year of middle management.

Review: Run Wolf Run

Run Wolf Run is a well done comic-and printed in nice risograph package to boot, but does that make it worth howling over?