something I missed: Fight Boredom #4

Apparently I have been a mess lately. I forgot my wallet at a friend’s while solely there to pick up my sweater, I put the peanut butter in the fridge the other day, and I forgot to review the fourth issue of Fight Boredom, which I was a part of this time! What the bloody shit is wrong with me? Crikey.

Why do I like this zine so much? LET'S SEE. The concept of this comp zine is simple: how to fight boredom in a small town. It’s a zine with purpose, made to make people take charge of their lives, to provoke ideas, responses, reactions. This issue has 14 contributors, including Tukru of Your Pretty Face Is Going Straight To Hell, Kira Swales of Exploding the Myth, Maranda Elizabeth of Telegram Ma’am, myself and others. Maranda Elizabeth suggests getting the fuck off the internet, Sheena Swirlz gives good advice such as food jar swaps and fundraiser parties, and Dave Cave writes a hilarious list of things to do (such as “strap a party hat to a dog”) which gets bonus points for rainbow and unicorn stickers. There are also recipes, an interview with Lizzy from Marching Stars Distro, and an old mixed tape list sent from a girl who can no longer be found. It was all really good. Even though everyone had different backgrounds and sent their pieces in from different countries, it formed a sense of community and unity.

In graphic design, it’s frowned upon strongly to use more than like two typefaces for a piece, but in this case, I liked it. In fact, I’m glad it wasn’t done any other way. I’ve seen comp zines where the information from contributors had been taken and re-formatted by one person, and it’s really boring (I’m thinking of an issue of “We’ll Never Have Paris”. This is more authentic, gives personality and emotion.

You can buy Fight Boredom #4 in Hello Amber!’s etsy shop. I know you want to.

Fight Boredom Distro

The author of Hello Amber! Zine Reviews and zines such as Fight Boredom! and Culture Slut has finally come out with her own distro based from her home in Montreal, Quebec featuring English AND French zines, with also some French translation on the website. Lo and behold, Fight Boredom Distro! How is exciting is that?

While there are a couple Canadian zine distros out there, most of their stock is available in person at zine fairs and festivals, making it hard for us smaller-city folk to benefit from. Amber has an online catalogue for orders, so as long as you have PayPal or wanna risk well concealed money via snail mail, buying's pretty easy! The design of the site is nice and straightforward too, definitely a pleasure to deal with when I made my order today.

So if you're Canadian (and ESPECIALLY if you're into feminist/queer/personal zines) take note next time you're thinking of going through a distro.

#10 - I'm back!

Hey everyone! I know it's been a while. April and May were two crazy months with a lot of crazy shit happening, but I'm back, and I'm planning on posting once a week from now on as long as I have zines to review. Which is where you come in! So if you want me to review your zine, send it to me! (After reading zine submission guidelines, which will save us both a hassle)

DISCONCERTING #7
Janell Hoong
http://janelloshea.etsy.com

I was intrigued by the looks of this zine when I got it in the mail from a girl named Janell - who lives all the way in Singapore. I loveloveLOVE it when people spend the time to make a zine attractive looking. Too many times do I shake my head after seeing zines with extremely uneven and crooked pages. Clearly, love was put into all 54 pages of this one, especially the cover. The content, however clever at times, lacked flow and interest a lot. It’s a definition of a per-zine: thoughts, ideas, stuff floating around in your head at the end of the day that nobody cares about but you messily scrawled on paper without thinking. I think people who like per-zines often enjoy ones that have a certain theme they can relate to - this one reads like a diary: rambly and all over the place. I’m going to keep it though, instead of donating it to the zine library, purely because of aesthetics.

CULTURE SLUT #21 / STAB HEART #11 (SPLIT ZINE)
Amber Forrester / Jane Boston
http://helloamber.etsy.com / janeboston at gmail dot com

CS21: It’s no secret that I love Amber and her zines, and this is no exception. Amber talks about staying positive, and provides lots of lists like, “bands I can’t stop listening to,” “current obsessions,” and “words that make me swoon.” I really enjoyed the piece on funny/interesting things about the French language, a) because I’m French and b) I love etymology and language in general. And obviously there is a lot of vintage imagery, plus hand-coloured covers! Then she closes the zine with some zine reviews and it goes on to the other half.
SH11: I get really excited when people make artsy zines using their own photography and things for collage. Sometimes I feel uninspired with all the stolen imagery zinesters use, it feels impersonal and ripped-off. It’s so much better to use your own stuff, definitely more interesting and authentic from an artistic standpoint. Jane uses exposures from her Fuji Instax Mini (which I also have!) and photos from her Fisheye cam while also providing lists, some with the same titles as Amber’s.

Both zinesters include recipes. I really like this zine - even though they both have clearly different styles, they go together in one zine nicely.


CEMENT, FLOUR, SAINTS
Teri Vlassopoulos
teri.vlassopoulos at gmail dot com

I liked the first part of this zine, double spaced and typed in Times (a typeface I can live without, but oh well). It talks about growing cities, noise abatement, paying attention to your surroundings (CEMENT). Beautifully written, really, it kept me reading onto the recipes (FLOUR) and then ... a story about religious statues and saints (SAINTS), which I’m really not into considering I’m strongly atheist, so I feel it would be ignorant of me to give a strong opinion. It was well written though, and I’m sure those of religious sorts would appreciate it more.

SUBROSA #1
Taryn Hipp
http://badideasleepover.etsy.com/

I like Taryn. I like her blog. She is on my Facebook, and I think she’s a nice girl. Super cute, too. She sent me this zine a while ago in hopes I’d review it, so here it is! Better late than never maybe?
I don’t like to normally review zines like this because its rather depressing and I try to stick to positive type zines that make me feel good. I once heard someone say that writing about anything can be good if it’s written well, and that’s what I thought of when I first read this. It’s sad but also honest, heart-felt, and very real. I felt it was sometimes over-dramatic, but excusable (it’s a zine, right? Everyone gets a bit of lee-way). Some of the things she writes about are potatoes and cabbage, being young, being dramatic, bad-ass girls, body hate, coping with her father’s dead after 9 years, and mentions of Johnny Cash and Courtney Love. One thing I want to say though, and EVERYONE should take note: there isn't a single reason out there to use a script typeface for a zine! This one was really hard on the eyes. Perhaps a slab-serif would have been better. I’d definitely want to read other issues though. **NOTE: Titles were written in script, not the whole thing.**