Review: No Shelter
Henry Doyle’s No Shelter is a plainspoken and authentic record of the grinding and unacknowledged quotidian battle with day labour, despair and displacement.
issue 96
Review: Considerations
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.
No Cure In Sight: Grant Ionatán on COVID, Isolation, Disability and Against Forgetting It.
A lifetime of alienation from my peers and reluctant obsession with death had turned me into some kind of stoic mutant, able to see in the metaphorical dark. It felt good to say that I had been preparing for this my whole life, whether or not it was true.
Review: Shelterbelts
Shelterbelts is an understated but forceful debut — a modern prairie drama with its own distinct visual language and memorable cast of characters, an impressive work that leaves one wanting more in the best way possible.
Review: Maria
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.
How Club Quarantine Kept the Party Going
Club Quarantine became the place to be when you couldn’t really be anywhere at all. With lessons from lockdowns, the party ensemble plans to make partying more accessible to all.
Review: Fictional Father
Joe Ollmann’s latest work follows the mid-life tailspin of Caleb, a recovering alcoholic and only child of world-famous cartoonist. One would expect Caleb’s sad-clown shtick to get tiresome in this kind of long-form work, but it’s a testament to Ollmann’s storytelling power.
Review: Delightful Garden
An anthology consisting of pieces inspired by Hieronymous Bosch’s delirious triptych, Delightful Garden is a heavenly sight.
Folio: Joy Gough and Community Fridge Art
Folio asks artists and curators to gather works made with unexpected materials and adapt them for the printed page. In this issue, Joy Gough, one of the five organizers at Community Fridges TOronto tells us how how art can divert attention to dire local issues.
Review: The Butter Lamb News
The Butter Lamb News stakes out a delightfully bookish zine niche, championing print dictionaries over their digital conquerors, even while acknowledging the battle is lost.
Review: Nightlight
Like peanut butter and jelly, dream poems may not be the most innovative recipe, but the taste of the two together is often much richer than their reputation.
Zines Take TikTok
When Bre Upton first joined TikTok it was simply as a means to curb quarantine-born boredom. Now her tutorials on zine making have over six million views. How ‘Zinetok’ is uniting DIY-ers around the world.