Perzine, Stacey Bru, staceybru.storenvy.com, $3
Through a mix of hand-written text and a few comics, the first issue of Queer Fudge tells the story of Stacey’s journey through the maze of identities a lot of us find ourselves navigating in early adulthood. She talks about how as a child she dreaded the onset of puberty, “Breasts, periods, and dressing differently was the stuff of nightmares. It caused my first panic attacks and even triggered a lifelong fight with depression.” Stacey strug- gles with labels, and whether they’re even useful or serve more to divide people than unite them, but ultimately settles on “queer” as the most comfortable because it’s inclusive enough to encompass all of her sometimes contradictory identities. I enjoyed the inclusion of photographs of her friends and I liked the comic showing the author as a lonely astronaut stranded somewhere between the planets “Straight” and “Very Gay” the best. I was a little surprised by Stacey’s preamble to the story, in which she emphasizes that this is her personal journey and notes that she doesn’t intend her conclusions to apply to anyone else. I’ve been on the internet, so I know why she said so, but I felt disappointed that it’s become necessary for writers to note that their words are their words and their experiences belong to them, and that expressing themselves is not an invitation for other people whose experiences were different to lash out. Near the end of this story, Stacey does find a tribe of like-minded “fabulous queers, straights, and gays, who were happy to be identified as such.” (Mary Green)