zine, [zeen] noun. 1. abbr. of fanzine; 2. any amateurly-published periodical. Oxford Reference

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Friday, September 28, 2012

Cop Dad

Cop Dad #1

Cop Dad #1 “pay what you want” www.copdad.com I have been getting some really great zines in the mail lately and Cop Dad is no exception. In fact, this is one of the best zines I’ve read all year. Cop Dad is a strange name for what’s inside this thing. It’s a collection of stories, pictures, and art. inside: an internet hookup with a tragic twist, motorcycle travel (through some of my favorite places), the Castro District’s present & past, hardcore interior decorating, teenage swashbuckling, and an interview with an eclectic do-gooder. That’s what’s inside. No cops, no dads. Just great writing. This zine/literary journal is destined to stay in my mind for a very long time. Simply fantastic reading.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The Migraineur #1

Zine Review: The Migraineur #1



The Migraineur #1
By Carrie Mercer
c/o Alterior Motives
4513 41st Ave S.
Minneapolis MN 55406
28 pages / half sized / $3 + postage

Carrie authored a zine that I enjoyed reading immensely (Bookstore Thief) so I ordered this one when I saw it listed on etsy. The Migraineur #1 relates Carrie’s ongoing struggles with migraines in excruciating detail. I use that word because those of us who don’t experience migraines firsthand have no idea what it is really like – the physical and emotional intensity, and the social fallout. This zine is an education, Carrie includes an interview with her mother who is also a migraineur, information about foreign accent syndrome, and her firsthand accounts of coping / not coping with pain most of us can’t even imagine. This is an exceptional zine, infused with Carrie’s quality writing.

Monday, September 24, 2012

The Radvocate #7


The Radvocate #7
32 pages, Digest
$2, £1, €1

     If you’ve never read a copy of the Radvocate, this is a great issue to start with. The bulk of both the prose and poetry range from above average to very good, and there’s great art peppered throughout, with a kick-ass full color cover by Fade Hurricane.
     Matt gives us another chapter in his skate-punk travelogue in which he and his French cohorts rampage through Switzerland. Photo of Vlad sleeping on the asphalt in front of the van.
     Top notch writing includes micro fiction by Anthony Muni Jr, poetry by Missy Solis, some rambling stream of consciousness stuff from Kevin Yee, and Michael Kraft starts with what seems like a cheesy freshman writing exercise but ends up with a quite brilliant little vignette.. very sly, you don’t see it coming until you’re all caught up in it.

The Radvocate
Matt Lewis / Ayahuasca Publishing
3245 University Ave 1430
San Diego CA 92104


Friday, September 21, 2012

Thank You for liking us on Facebook

We got the 30 likes we needed. Now we can look at those nifty analytic toys they have!

Saturday, September 15, 2012

AVOW #24

AVOW #24

Avow #24 $3 Microcosm 222 S. Rogers St. Bloomington, IN 47404
This issue of Avow is a bit of a time capsule for me. Keith writes about bands, people, zines, and topics that mostly happened when I was in my twenties. I’m 40 now. Reading about Karl Alvarez defending Brett Gurewitz in the pages of Tatterfrock zine is like breaking the shovel out and digging that time capsule up. I’m quite certain that there is not one other person in the greater Coeur d’Alene area that I associate with that knows who in the hell those people are or what in the hell a Tatterfrock is (well, maybe one). This is exactly what still draws me to zines today; the fact that not too many people know what they are, even fewer know much about their history, and even fewer still have read any, if at all. For people like me who are tapped into this underworld, and know some of its history, reading about old controversies in a new issue of a long running zine, along with debates about what is and is not punk and/or hardcore, well that just makes me happy. This issue is aesthetically beautiful to look at. Keith has a wonderful design style and is an incredible artist. Avow 24 is mostly record reviews done in a unique way; he reviews old records that meant a lot to him, sometimes for their politics, or the artwork, or the memories of loved ones that they conjured up, and sometimes simply for the sounds coming from the speakers. The writing is great. Also included are some comics about seeking meaningful employment, and an interview with Joe Lachut of ‘Seven Inches to Freedom’ zine that had me disagreeing loudly, to nobody. I love it when an interview does that.

Thursday, September 13, 2012

from The eloquent page by Elaine Bulluss

Just a scroll lot of fun!

I recently catalogued two scrolls and a zine in a typewriter.  Much earlier I also catalogued a zine in the shape of a paper plane. So zines are not always in book form. These are part of our Nick Henderson Zine Collection.
The paper plane is titled: Space people team initiative : together everybody achieves more
After cataloguing, of course I couldn’t resist and had to test this plane out (once) and yes it flew fine! A winner creatively and aerodynamically!
The scrolls are a bit of a challenge for reading, as soon as you unroll them they also go flying (were they watching that paper plane and getting ideas?). Maybe a very good reason why scrolls aren’t used today! They are titled Germany 2008 by Vanessa Berry and Alice by Alice McDonald.
Alice was written in a typed script and there was a spacing issue with the letter T. Which always makes me curious, was this deliberate, or not?
Now my favourite, that zine in a typewriter. My record for this zine is titled: 1:25 pm City park, under tree. Raining. It challenged me as I was actually cataloguing the zine, and the paper typewriter is a prop to showcase the zine. It is made from a series of images of a typewriter, printed in black and white, cut out in sections and pasted to an inner cardboard frame. It is just over four inches square and an inch high. The zine is rolled round the platen.
Now, how do we store something like this on our shelves so it doesn’t get damaged? I went to our expert Preservation staff to ask about the housing of the typewriter, and a phase box was made by Erika Mordek to keep it safe and snug. Here are her photos of the zine before and during boxing.
1:25 pm. City park, under tree. Raining.1:25 pm. City park, under tree. Raining.

Boxed paper typewriterBoxed paper typewriter
There is an interesting blog entry by Robert Messenger about the I am Typewriter Festival which was held in Melbourne by the Sticky Instute in 2011 that has some great shots of some paper typewriters.
What really surprises me is that some of the photos look amazingly like real typewriters.

Five Years Dun Write

September 2012 marks five years of service to the zine community here at Syndicated Zine Reviews. We are fast approaching 100,000 hits on the site!

Much LOVE to the volunteers who have made this a reality. -------------- >

To celebrate this milestone we've come up with the IF YOU WANT SOMETHING DUN WRITE campaign.

Are you sick and tired of biased reviewers who obviously don't get your zine? Or having it skimmed and getting a 20 word review? How about editors who take a really long time to get an issue together? Having you zine "misplaced?" Getting contact info wrong? And all around just not getting the respect you deserve?

Friends, the time has come to get it DUN WRITE! During the month of September write your own damn review. Give your zine the long overdue praise it deserves. Get it DUN WRITE and get it SYNDICATED!

send reviews to quazipseudo (x) gmail.com

Bizarrism #12

from Blackguard
40 pages, 12" x 8.5", $6.00 Aust/$8.00 World, by Chris Mikul, PO Box K546, Haymarket NSW 1240, AUSTRALIA + cathob [at] zip.com.au I don't think I've written about how I discovered Chris Mikul and his wonderful Bizarrism zine. It was 1995 or 1996 and I was working for a pathology company, driving around picking up blood and urine samples from medical centres and nursing homes. One day as I was driving around in the company's hatchback loaded with bodily fluids and listening to JJJ, Chris was interviewed. He was talking about eccentric Sydney characters and it was so fascinating, then the DJ asked him to let the listeners know how to order a copy of his zine. I screeched hard over to the side of the road, grabbed a pen and wrote down the info and when I got home dashed off a note with five bucks, and the rest is history. This new issue is great as usual, this time around featuring articles about stigmatic Padre Pio; the Grainger Museum at the University of Melbourne (Percy Grainger [1882-1961] was a prodigiously talented pianist, composer, and confirmed sado-masochist); a terrific piece on the history of the Hare Krishnas; vagina tattooist Roderick Mackenzie; 'My Favourite Dictators No. 6 : Mussolini'. ... These days people think they can Google anything to find info, no need to hunt down books, or go out of one's way for research, but that ain't so. As Chris writes about his Mussolini quest: "I thought researching a figure as famous as Mussolini would be a doddle, but this turned out not to be the case..." He ended up reading four books to collect material for his article. And that's another cool thing about Bizarrism - every issue ends with a bibliography of sources for each piece. If you're not hip to Bizarrism yet, now is the time. One of my Top Five Zines.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Zine World #31

Zine World #31

ZW 31 ZW31 p9
28 pages, 11" x 8.5", Single Issue: $4.00 US, $5.00 Canada/Mexico, $7.00 Worldwide Subscription $10.00 for 3 issues US, $13 Canada/Mexico, $18.00 Worldwide >>> New Address! PO Box 3556, Portland OR 97208, USA + jerianne [at] undergroundpress.org + www.undergroundpress.org
First of all, this issue features the most awesome stunning cover of any ZW to date. I can't find a credit for it though. Whoever was responsible, don't let 'em go!
Second of all, I flip to page three - the first page of the letter column - and the first (and it's a long one) letter is from Elihu Edelson, editor of Both Sides Now zine. Man, he really rips into ZW reviewer Ryan Mishap over his review of BSN last issue. To Jerianne's credit, she defends Mishap in her reply, admitting that not everybody is gonna give your zine a glowing review, and that's why her policy is to hand out one person's zine to a different reviewer each time to get different perspectives. Anyway, so ZW31 gets off to a pretty exciting and dramatic start, which is soon followed by an excellent (and another long) letter from zinester James N. Dawson who fires a few shots of his own at overly precious and sensitive zinemakers. A great letter.
Another thing I noticed going back through this issue on the bus after work this afternoon (yeah I've had it for at least a month, but you know, nobody is surprised it takes some of us a while to get around to this stuff...) is how many reviewed zines I circled and emailed asking for trades, or just how to get a copy, but the shitty thing is most haven't even bothered to write back. What the fuck is up with that? I get an email from somebody wanting a copy of Blackguard or Grunted Warning and I write back as soon as I see it, man. Maybe it's because I live in Australia and these Americans think it might as well be four or five planets out from Earth. "Yikes! Australia? I don't think I can do that. ... Australia? ..." etc. whatever they think... Yes, I'm bitter! You send your damn zine out, so let's go crazy and assume you want other people to read it, right? Well, you might consider answering them when they write to you. If not, quit making zines and fuck off.
Ahem. OK now that's out of my system. Heh heh!
Another cool thing about ZW is the reprints of illustrations and stuff from zines reviewed. And the free classifieds are really great. Who has free classifieds? Nobody else, that's who.

P.S. Can you see images for ZW at the top or just thin strips? I'm serious. Something weird is going on with LiveJournal...

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

OCD Throws Bows



OCD Throws Bows
By Dirk Keaton
26 pages / half letter

OCD is a serious disorder that has been minimized by inane cultural references (as have many other mental health issues). People who do not experience a mental health issue have no idea what a person experiences who lives with OCD, PTSD, bipolar, schizophrenia, or anything else we have labeled a “disorder”. The only way we can get a glimpse into these experiences is to hear & understand people’s personal stories.

Dirk writes about OCD clearly and directly. He guides you into his world and how it affects his functioning, and leads you through his recovery process. OCD Throws Bows is first person journalism at its most powerful.

Editorial: Drug companies have convinced most people (and definitely most doctors) that there is a cure for everything via medication. This is simply not true – medications often cause more issues than they resolve. I might write a zine about this at some point from my firsthand experiences. In order to deal with OCD, depression, or any mental health concern one has to do the inner cognitive and emotional work, as Dirk has clearly done in his personal journey to treat OCD and reclaim his life.

Monday, September 10, 2012

Zine News Round-Up: 12.08.12

Zine News Round-Up: 12.08.12




1. Zine Releases
2. Upcoming Events
3. Submission Calls
4. Distro News
5. AOB (Any Other Business)

---

1. Zine Releases- Feminist perzine ‘Buy Her Candy’ #3 was released a little while ago!  Buy a copy, plus some cute crafts, at Bettie’s etsy.
- Tukru has released ‘Your Pretty Face Is Going Straight To Hell’ #17: A 24-Hour Zine!  Buy your copy at Vampire Sushi distro.
- Bloomigrant, a 24-hour zine written by the author of Bloomurder, is out now!  Details and order info can be found at etsy.
- Here. In My Head. #11, a 24-hour perzine, was released last week.  More info at my blog.- Perzine 'Ellipsis' #2 is out now! To buy or trade, get in touch with Sarah-Beth at her We Make Zines page.- 'We Are Adventurers' #1, a 24-hour zine about recent adventures, is out now!  Buy a copy from Tracey’s etsy. 
- Ingrid has released two issues of Mythologising Me: #5.5, a 24-hour zine, and #6, subtitled ‘Change and Consumption’.  Email her at mythologisingmeATgmailDOTcom to buy or trade.
- Jean McEwan and her brother have created a zine called ‘OK Werner’, about their favourite filmmaker Werner Herzog.  Buy your copy at
http://jeanieszines.bigcartel.com/product/ok-werner.
- 'Angry Violist' #6, a zine about music-making and experimental string playing, is out now! Etsy again.
- 'Elderflower Tea' #3 was released last week!  Details and ordering info can be found at Sarah’s blog.

2. Upcoming Events- You can catch readings from Chella Quint’s zine ‘It’s Not You, I Just Need Space’ at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival tomorrow at 2.50pm, venue 156!
- Girls Get Busy Zinefest: 25th August at The Shacklewell Arms, London.  Spill the Zines has a table, so come and say hi!  More info can be found at the event page here.
- Zine Readings & Rock Music: 15th September at Chameleon Arts CafĂ©, Nottingham. Organised by Steve Larder (author of ‘Rum Lad’). Download the flyerhere.
- Birmingham Zine Festival: 12th – 15th October.  Want to get involved?  More info can be found at http://www.birminghamzinefestival.com/.
- Leeds Zine Fair: Sunday 4th November at Wharf Chambers.  If you'd like to get involved in organising the zine fair, or hold a stall at the zine fair then get in touch at footprintATfootprinters.co.uk

3. Submission Calls- Bettie (of ‘Buy Her Candy’ zine) is making a compzine all about the 90s, and needs submissions!  There’s no fixed deadline as of yet, but Bettie is hoping to put it together in September.  More info can be found here.

4. Distro News
- Vampire Sushi and Pushpin Publishing have recently been updated with loads of lovely new stock!
- Marching Stars is on hiatus until September, when it will reopen with a new website, shopping cart system, customer order history, and an intergrated loyalty card system!

5. AOB
- Download Richard Herring’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival podcast (#10) to listen to a review of Chella Quint’s compzine ‘Adventures in Menstruating’!
- Bettie wrote a nice review of last weekend’s Little Zine Party’ event, which you can read at her blog.
- I was interviewed for culture blog 'twenty-four hours'! Check it out: 
http://www.twentyfourhoursonline.com/2012/07/spilling-zines-with-cath.html

Wednesday, September 5, 2012

The Ken Chronicles #23

The Ken Chronicles #23

The Ken Chronicles 23
28 pages, digest, $2.00, fair trade or letter of comment, Ken Bausert, 2140 Erma Dr, East Meadow NY 11554, USA + PassScribe [at] aol.com + thekenbausertchronicles.blogspot.com
I lost touch with Ken after moving from Paddington to Marrickville (back in 2010) thanks to my shitty postal trauma, where I thought mail would be forwarded, but, ha ha!, it wasn't. Rather, it was returned to the sender, even though I had filled out a redirection form. Anyway...
It's great to receive another issue of Ken's Chronicles. An extremely active and cool retired dude, Ken writes about his travels, his home improvement projects around the house (now fixing up the computer room), along with my favourite column 'What I'm ______Lately' - books he's read, TV shows and movies he watched, records he listened to (regular TKC readers know Ken's a huge Todd Rundgren fan). I love that stuff. Ken's also got a terrific letter column. This issue also has a two-part piece on flea marketing.
TKC is published quarterly, coming out on or around the first of the months of February, May, August and November.

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