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.
Reviews
Review: Refugia
Told in fragmented, rapidly oscillating points of view, Refugia muses on the insufficiencies of language in the face of a vast and unexplainable island.
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: The Animals
A look into small-town life with a magical air, The Animals reminded me a little of my own travels through some of Ontario’s tourist destinations, and even the game Night in the Woods.
Review: Cursed Bunny
In a series of stories mostly set in modern-day South Korea, Bora Chung writes of heads coming up out of toilets, robots that fall in love and unexpected pregnancies. Her stories read like parables, where decisions made for business’s sake have long and supernatural repercussions.
Review: Atticus
This full-colour, richly collaged mini-zine is a touching tribute to a real-life friend, Atticus, and a rendering as fable of Atticus’s coming out and transitional journey.
Review: The Birth and Death of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl
Despite a few odd omissions, this is a crisply presented fanzine and final exhumation of the exhausting early-aughts archetype.
Review: Contagious Imagination: The Work and Art of Lynda Barry
Contagious Imagination contains a collection of rigorously researched essays and artistic texts that reify Lynda Barry’s teachings. Like Barry’s own idiosyncratic work, it touches on memory, relationships and the everyday.
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: Pacifique
Sarah L. Taggart’s remarkable debut plays with being a psychological thriller, working in elements of a love story. Never patronizing or judgmental, what sets Pacifique apart is how Taggart writes about mental health.
Review: On Writing and Failure
Orwell, Joyce and Austin could barely get jobs, never mind publishing deals. Stephen Marche asks: “Why would it be any different for you?”
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?