Zine Review:
Sunflower Skins
You don’t need to have a penchant for murder, dismemberment or the goo of guts and gore to totally love this zine, but it wouldn’t hurt if you do.
Sunflower Skins is a morbid little zine that tells stories of a more unearthly and shocking nature. Stories about killing people, more specifically, and it’s cool how the authors go about it.
You see, there are two stories in this zine–“Re-Membering” and “Acts of Omission”–that both revolve around a murder.
The first story is about two pathologists who fall in love. The story starts to get weird when their obsession with their work becomes manifest in their love for each other. In other words, their relationship becomes a fetish of the physical‚ the internal and external components of a human body. They perform seductive‚ play‚ autopsies on each other, talk about loving each other’s guts and enjoy a bit of “corpse sex” every now and then. The usual stuff, y’know?
But then there’s the kill. The two pathologists believe that their love transcends that of the emotions and hormones type. It’s inside them. Literally. So the only way to truly love a person is to find their “core,” the essence that unites mind with physical being. Basically, you gotta spill their guts. I won’t spoil the ending, but I will tell you that the murder was by far the most brutal and beautiful act I’ve ever read.
In “Acts of Omission,” beauty is the last thing you’ll find. The eloquence of the first story is snuffed out completely as the second author presents a more blatant, harrowing tale about a guy who wants to know what it’s like to kill someone. He decides to prey on a homeless man–someone whom he feels people don’t notice or care about. Someone who wouldn’t weigh heavy on his conscience. Again, the ending is for you to discover.
What amazes me about Sunflower Skins is the complete emotional contrast that the stories produce; both have someone die at the hands of another, yet the reader’s reactions to the two scenarios differ. It all comes down to what the author is willing to reveal to you about the character. For that reason, the stories utterly disturb as they rationalize the insane; you get inside their head and they show how “normal” people can be responsible for such acts of brutality.
It’ll send chills, to say the least. (Amy Greenwood)
Litzine, Britani Sadovski & Darren McMullin, $1, myspace.com/sunflowerskins, [email protected]