zine reviews

2021 Zine Awards winner O. Ashby skillfully weaves together the tangible, unignorable presence of trains with the subtler substance of the time and place in this unnamed part of the Chicago in ways that evoke its status as a home.

Zinester Karin Panther produces this series in a quest to reunite people with their long lost photo slides. She combines analog and digital methods to scavenge and print these vintage pictures for public consumption.

More so than the numerous instances of porking and bodily fluids flying about, the passion of each of the contributors to Spread Love is clear. There’s a lot of passion on full display and I’m not just talking about the smut!

Jason’s memories of his first time hearing a band always seem to occur in some hole-in-the-wall record store in the ‘90s. It seems the real trick here is that this unassuming zine sneaks up on you with its grassroots charm.

Speaking as something of a lapsed wrestling fan, Greater Power makes a compelling case for once again investing oneself in the strange, strange world of sports entertainment.

Craig Berman outlines an inspiring — and, quite frankly, increasingly necessary — approach to creativity that questions whether the labour of design must always be in service to others.

Mario 69 is part of multidisciplinary artist Jon Clark, a series of faux home media covers that each express ‘cursed’ feelings in their own way. Here, a ‘lost’ Super Mario game through lay-outs of the various enemies, characters and girlfriends.

Nicholas Teixeira is like a hyper Max Headroom, be-bopping his way through an explosion of pop culture and its intersection with the self.

Amidst loss, struggle, and pain, Douglas owns her experience and contention with mental health with a true gift for language. Her facility with the narration of emotion is moving and resonant.

This full-colour, richly collaged mini-zine is a touching tribute to a real-life friend, Atticus, and a rendering as fable of Atticus’s coming out and transitional journey.

Despite a few odd omissions, this is a crisply presented fanzine and final exhumation of the exhausting early-aughts archetype.