2 AstroNuts in Tinderized Meat
Humour/fiction zine, Neal Armstrong and Devon Marinac, 40 pages, [email protected], $5
An idiot man who can’t get dates because he’s a slob, but is willing to visit the moon to meet a Tinder match. An Italian restaurant is used as a front for underground space launches. A story told as if by a witty but very very high friend, where you can’t tell if they’re freestyling or have told it before. The zine Two Astronuts in: Tinderized Meat is a cascade of nonsensical events with no apparent endgame, a parental advisory on the cover, and a notice that it was “made without help from Canada Council for the Arts” on the back.
Tinderized Meat features some pretty awesome art: rougly assembled collages of words and images, doodles, staples, figures, bold contrasts. These take up most of the space on the pages here and though I’m not anything of an art connoisseur, I think they balance out the light story with something a little more substantial.
And to be quite honest, despite the disclaimer that “This particular story concerns the sexual attitudes of two idiots,” presumably in order to distance authors from the common but dreadful “sexual attitudes” of the protagonists, it still feels kinda bunk. As in: two straight boys conspire to get laid. I just don’t want to see/hear/read/be anywhere near that story anymore! Ultimately, this isn’t too far off from “Jay and Silent Bob try out Tinder” stoner sci-fi goofballery. If that’s up your alley, this should work out just fine for you. Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Neal Armstrong’s zines before, I would say it’s unfortunately not his best work. (Stéphane Doucet)