MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL
I have a preview copy of this nicely put together poetry chapbook, and the blurb reads.. “Crank calls, cat calls, call-outs and close calls are just part of the make-up of this brave and surreal collection that examines the enactment and denial of American violence. Gina will drag you through the dirt and you’ll thank […]
Read full "Star 67 #1" Review
This comic is really fuckin silly. It’s like if a bunch of background characters from Futurama had someone follow them for a week and diarize their lives as they descend into this kind of angry paranoid mania. There’s a couple of rabbits, who I think may be the unwitting stars of an alien reality TV […]
Read full "SportsbÁ¤r New York Part 1" Review
The subtitle to this edition of Tom Foote’s long-running Chattanooga punk zine is the very apt “Self publishing during wartime.” Bristling with rage and merging personal reflection with a wider politics, the zine compiles three texts, two from 2016 and one reflecting on the first half of 2020. This is my kind of zine—meandering through […]
Read full "$pare ¢hange #38" Review
High production value on this one, but with a pure DIY spirit! You can tell the author has thought thoroughly about their work. They explain at the end that they have tendonitis from the meticulous (and aesthetically excellent) handwriting, and unfortunately the next issue will be typed. Sluice is an in-depth guide to the Huntsville, […]
Read full "Sluice #6" Review
Punk Life is a zine dedicated to DC hardcore, founded in 1992. 26 years is a pretty good run, and this was the Anniversary issue. It is almost wrong to say this issue is a DC hardcore zine though; the author brings up the Stone Roses, Lamb of God and the Beach Boys, and just […]
Read full "Punk Life vol. 26 issue #50" Review
This issue is kind of a split zine. One half is the second part of mental health nurse and journalist Brenton Gicker’s ongoing series on Eugene, Oregon’s dead, missing, and unidentified people. The second is a profile piece by Jeremy Lybarger on Meaghan Good, the singular figure behind the Charley Project, a community database that […]
Read full "Out From the Void #2 / Encyclopedia of the Missing" Review
So, you have the photo issues 2 and 3—those are spin-off zines from the regular Not Like You zine. Let me start with the photo issues. Both the covers are full color, the inside is black and white. Issue 2 is full-sized while issue 3 is half-sized. I don’t like the different formats. My collecting […]
Read full "Not Like You photo issue #2 / photo issue #3 / issue #8" Review
This issue, “an incomplete history of long-gone illegal punk venues in Boston from 2000-2015 or somewhere around there” is designed for three types of people. 1. Someone who went to illegal punk shows in Boston from 2000-2015 or somewhere around there. 2. Someone who is interested in documenting their own local scene and needs an […]
Read full "Magical Spaces #1" Review
A clever concept for a project: the author lost a friend’s copy of Henry Rollins’s now out-of-print memoir, Get in the Van, and is selling these zines to raise money to purchase another. The text of the zine recreates conversations with the author’s friends about this endeavor, imagined emails to and from Henry Rollins, reviews […]
Read full "Getting Get in the Van" Review
It’s about new things, new treats, new romances, new friends, new homes, all kinds of new stuff. This is a sweet little zine that covers quite a lot of ground. I actually read this whole thing in one sitting (which is unlike me) and there were times when I thought I was getting bored… but […]
Read full "Drivel #1" Review
DisturbancE. With a capital D and E for Delaware. A local scene zine, with a classic off-center cover and the photos, interview and reviews you’d expect. Well done and essentially perfect for what it is. DIY till I die production value. Good fun photo layout inside, and well balanced with a decent interview with Erin […]
Read full "DisturbancE Oct. 2019" Review
I should disclaim at the outset that the compiler of this zine and some of its contributors are pals and I received a copy hot off the Xerox. It’s a great document of Portland in early quarantine, back when the government was trying to kill us passively rather than actively. Contributors describe their lockdown routines, […]
Read full "Chasing the Night #7" Review
Boothaeven’s has that very specific cut and paste layout. Now don’t go categorizing—Lowie is the best at this style, he mastered the cut and paste! So you get a full sized zine, black and white (and I really mean high-contrast black and white, there’s no grey in here) cut and paste. It’s great! Content-wise you […]
Read full "Boothaeven’s Magazine #5" Review
This is chiefly a collection of interviews with multidisciplinary artists, musicians, and writers, touching on a laudably broad range of topics from vaporwave to Liberace. The interviews are lengthy without feeling rambling or unfocused, punctuated with large illustrations and quotations from influential writers and artists of the past. The production values of this publication are […]
Read full "Baited Area" Review
As far as I can tell, this zine is a collection of notes on various songs the author may or may not be listening to on YouTube. Instead of posting comments below the video, the author has done it on unlined paper. Yes. It is exactly as coherent as it sounds. Nevertheless, buried inside are […]
Read full "Background Paper #1 / #2 / #3" Review
Don’t let the blood-red cover and gothic font fool you into a false sense of impending terror—this is a very cute and fun romp from MRR columnist N.L. Reynolds. Charting Nicky’s attempt to finally face up to their long-term fear of Dracula, it’s an illustrated story of run-ins with various “Draculas” a.k.a. bats, actually existing […]
Read full "An Interview With Some Draculas" Review
