Trees is a sweet little quarter-page perzine full of stories taken straight from Samantha!’s diary. She and her punk rock band, Self Rule, spend a summer touring across Canada, and of course there’s dumpster diving, drama, van troubles, crazy shows and lots of thoughts on life and death and love. This zine is a great bedtime read–it’s reflective enough to be interesting, there’s kind of a plot (the tour’s a good way of moving things forward–things get a little scattered once Samatha!’s back home), and it’s angsty, but not cringeinducingly so. Just enough to make you feel like you’re reading someone’s journal, and who doesn’t want to do that? The handwriting’s even clear! The one qualm I have with this zine has to do with the inserts by a few of Samantha!’s friends, which are about problems they’re currently facing like depression and Crohn’s disease. While these parts contribute to making the zine what it is–intensely personal–they’re inserted somewhat haphazardly in the middle of Samantha!’s stories, so all of a sudden in the middle (literally) of zine reviews or a story about working as a caregiver there’ll be a completely different story in completely different handwriting about a completely different subject. Which, needless to say, is confusing. Aside from that, though, Trees makes for an entertaining and thoughtful perzine. (Emma Healey)
perzine, Samantha! McCarthy, issue 3, $5, 8902 81st Ave, Edmonton, AB, T6C 0W8