Static Zine: Sex
Compilation zine, Jessica Lewis, Aviva Cohen, Melody Lamb (ed.), Issue 14, [email protected]
Picking up where Salt-N-Pepa left off, the latest issue of this popular D-I-Y magazine says, “Let’s talk about sex, baby!” As a hopeless prude, I braced myself and kept some Pepto on hand in case this mag was about to expose me to a cringe-worthy orgy of youngsters oversharing. Luckily our friends at Static keep it pretty classy, earnest, and even somewhat darling at times. Over 20 contributors cover a lot of ground ranging from loss-of-virginity stories to righteously asserting the legitimacy of ones’ trans body to, on the more daring side, recounting the pursuit of threesomes. There’s even a joke about pegging that involves the ‘90s sitcom Frasier that I’m not sure I totally got, because I didn’t watch the show. What I’m saying is, if all this interests you even a little, you’re likely going to find something that floats your boat in here. Static Zine has been around for a while now and if you’re from these Toronto parts, you probably know it as a local favourite. It adheres to the classic ‘90s aesthetic of the medium’s heyday with printed, cut-and-pasted text combined with drawings, narrative pieces or comics. It’s a grab bag of scrappy contributions from decent folks just like you. I won’t lie, parts of this zine were obviously not for me: I personally found some of the poetry more than a little tedious, I am easily grossed out by bodily stuff, and I am somewhat disturbed by the eroticization of Jenga (I play Jenga with my niece!). But you and I are different, dear reader, and this was made for the sake of harmless fun so check it out, why don’t you? (Chris Landry)