November 2003
Capillaire, 24p, odd size (3X3), $3
This is a beautifully drawn, tiny picture book detailing a mere moment involving
a bird, a boy, and a drop of blood. The style is reminiscent of children’s
illustration, suggesting a whimsical quality, yet the content is ambiguous
and somewhat dark. Very little text, excepting some words of French. This
is well worth reading, especially for fans of mini-comics and art zines.
My Mean Magpie
PO Box 68568
360A Bloor St. W.
Toronto, ON
M5S 1X1
Canada
info@mymeanmagpie.com
www.mymeanmagpie.com
--AR
Crash #2, August 2003, 32p, half-sized,
$2
Well, let's hash out the positives first: this zine has a clean layout (almost
too clean at times) and the interviews with Northern State and a member of
Positive Force DC are pretty good, which is impressive to me just because
I find most interviews in zines, especially with bands, to be unbearable.
My only problem with the interviews is that in the Positive Force DC interview,
"a lot" is misspelled as "allot", which has a totally
different meaning. I don't know if that was the interviewee's fault or the
editor's. As for the rest of the zine, first off, I can't read the warning
label on the cover because it's too small. I don't know if it was put on there
just to be silly or not, but it's a bit irritating. I also get the feeling
that most of the articles in the zine were not directly contributed, just
taken off of other websites, which is something that bothers me a lot. I don't
even know if they were used with permission. What's even worse is how much
the quality of most of the articles vary, which is bad because most of them
are written by professional or semi-professional writers (it seems like anyway,
by the credits given at the end of each article) and one is by a Congressman
(which was sort of the tip-off that these were not directly contributed articles).
I just visited the website for this zine, and I still can't make heads or
tails of if the articles in the print zine were just taken from other websites,
because the website doesn't feature the articles or archive them, I guess,
if they're working on a new issues.
P.O. Box 20455
Newark, NJ 07101
crashzine@hotmail.com
www.crashzineonline.net
Available at: Lost
Product Distro, Rocket
Strip Distro, Tastes
Like Newsprint Distro, Moon
Potatoes Disro, Sticky (Australia), Quimby's,
and Atomic Books
--Sarah Maitland
Girl Swirl Zine #10, 46p, quarter-size
Another fabulous issue of Girl Swirl from Taryn Hipp. The writing is, as always,
honest and straightforward, but this issue feels overall very scattered compared
to others. Despite the apparent randomness of the structure, this issue is
still as engaging as ever. She talks about all sorts of thing, mostly here
family: about the death of her stepfather six years ago, about her brother’s
heart problems, about her relationship with her mother. She also presents
a short story and an amusing list of 50 things that she has done. There is
a good deal more material besides that. Like nearly every issue of Girl
Swirl, one finds a very complete, if somewhat disorganized, picture of
Taryn’s life. Always a worthwhile read for Taryn’s personal and
sincere style.
Taryn Hipp
PO Box 8
Allston, MA 02134
taryn@girlswirl.net
www.girlswirl.net
--AR