As part of International Zine Month, we’ll be posting a zine review a day on our blog in July. Today’s zine review is from Issue 53 of Broken Pencil.
Zine, Kate Dawson, loveinthebikelane.com
The DIY spirit is alive, heartbroken and peddling about in this short zine that does its best to explore the relationships between cyclists and their bicycles. “What is it that makes cyclists so attractive?” asks the author on the zine’s inside front cover introduction. “Certainly it’s not the helmet.”
What follows is a small handful of personal memories of failed relationships that mourn equally over ex-lovers and the bikes they rode before their respective demises. Obvious metaphors and too-short snippets make it hard to truly commiserate, but then again, drawing out these stories might have killed the quick and innocent cuteness of the whole package. There is the inconsistent partner who can’t make up his mind about what kind of bike he wants or whether or not he wants to be in a relationship, and then there is the one who wears a helmet because an ex-partner always did.
The stories are cute, and the presentation is simple. Certainly, each story will be more relatable to avid cyclists than anyone whose post-breakup possession swap has not included a tire pump, but this zine reiterates that there’s more to being a cyclist than owning a bicycle.(Carly Lewis)
Punk Tree is meant to be the perfect small eclectic distro that can be packed into a few crates and taken on tour with a band. We’re a ramshackle non-profit community resource, offering tools and inspiration to get you making your own art or activism. Here, you’ll find political zines from a variety of radical perspectives, DIY/how-to zines, music zines (particularly punk and indie), and participatory art zines that encourage you to interact with the content and your friends. We publish a collaborative ‘flagship’ zine called Fire Season, which focuses on the live DIY show experience through personal anecdotes from musicians and fans from the West (from the Pacific NW down to the Southwest, including L.A.). We’re proudly part of the Labels Are For Jars Collective !