This bonus issue of Jelly Cake is a disorganized collection of scenes that were either deleted or not included in Ben Castle’s other zines. I have not read any of the previous issues, and I felt as though I was missing something for the first couple of pages. My advice to Ben Castle would be to forget about what he calls “crappy Saturday morning sitcom” writing, and focus on making more of the diary entry style scenes. I don’t want to read about two women discussing the ways in which they would improve upon Star Wars, but I would love to hear more about suicide notes to a pet goldfish named Plop-Plop. In Deleted Scene #7, for example, the speaker yearns for someone to ask him why he hasn’t been riding his bicycle this spring, so that he can explain that he has been waiting for the thunderstorms to wash away the sand and salt. Unfortunately, no one seems to have noticed that he hasn’t been biking. I thought that this was a clever and gentle way to communicate the speaker’s loneliness; it could be developed into a really honest piece of writing. (Norah Franklin)
zine, Ben Castle, Free, [email protected], PO Box 581412, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 55458-1412, USA.