#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.**