Note: for unknown reasons, our computer is not allowing us to include apostrophes in text on the website, so we have replaced all apostrophes with a *. Sorry for the inconvenience:
Nuts!!!#9 Winter 2011-2012
Po box 7302
Olympia, WA 98507
This publication has been growing in popularity. This issue is unique — five posters printed on newsprint, some of which are double sided. No staples, no cover…no bar code number. It had to happen with the amount of energy generated about this, it was going to either die or evolve. The content seems heavy on impressionistic art, which strikes me as odd since the HC punk scene this is attached to rarely appreciates this aesthetic. There is one page that reviews shows and explores women*s involvement in early punk, which will appease people stuck in the mundane past of printed matter. Given that no one expected this approach, the name Nuts will continue to cause ripples in zine circles.
(eggplant)
The LandLine
Po Box 891231
Chicago, IL 60608
A gnarly looking project packing homespun articles and art on sixty pages of newsprint. The poetry, essays, comics, opinions, reviews and politics run hot one minute — and cold the next. A descendant of the Skeleton News, with some of the same staff and much of the same approach. Hopefully the next issue will rely less on rejected academic papers and focus more on what needs to be communicated to their community.
(eggplant)
Flying Into the Chandelier
Po Box 401
Berkeley, CA 94701
Stories and insights that is largely Bay Area focused, with lots of adventures into spaces that are overlooked and unappreciated. There is an edge to this that has as much influence from the Beats as it does from punk rock. An air of enthusiasm and wonder is what motivates the writing — without all the shock and mental health issues that was dead baggage to those movements.
(eggplant)
Super Trooper #4/5
angela.k.roberts@gmail.com
These two zines seem to be in narrative form. Though not political, issues and resistance creep in at the edges. In issue four which is set in Korea, gentrification threatens displacement of poor people as a decrepit house absorbs the interest of the author. Anarchist, artists and activists are in the background of the story, but what seems central is a sense of establishing intimacy with the people around the author. Issue #5 is more focused on character sketches, evidently of people in Oakland CA.
(eggplant)
Negative Prophet (Mission Mini Comix)
Missionminicomix.com
This is from the highly active San Francisco artist Mike who usually collaborates his talents in one sheet mind blasts. This issue he goes solo and it is more comprehensive because of it. The art is killer, with the content and story peering into despair and idealism under our crumbling reality. It*s a short read but heavy in thought. But don*t blink — Mike and the gang will surely have a new issue out by next week.
(eggplant)
Baitline
74A Coleridge
SF CA 94110
An underground classified ads that provides an open forum on the projects, schemes and desires of radical deviants. Kink, art, and commerce are the main things being offered often priced as “trade” or some other anomaly. The covers are usually as provocative as the ads.
(eggplant)
Moira Scar Vs. The Shopping Maul
scar.press.blogspot.com
This crudely made comic from a San Francisco band would be more common in today*s environment if it wasn*t for the widespread gentrification so prevalent.
(eggplant)
Entropy
$5+4 stamps (No trades)
Po box 13502
Olympia, WA 98508
Lots of care went into making this taking the author five years to write, contemplate and assemble the content. We are warned right off the bat that this has triggering episodes inside. An early experience of sexual abuse by an older family member haunts the author and compels them into a life of seeking healing in the counter culture. The total look of the zine is impressive. The pages have stark solid images often of nature to accompany the text, and a thick cover printed on forest green paper. A cursory glance at the finished work it would seem like an environmentalist pamphlet. In fact the author is solidly footed in anarchism, and some theory of anti-civilization and counter culture wisdom does come out, but the zine is largely about emotional survival. There are a few assertions made that have a pseudo-scientific language that I found suspect — but faulty facts are endemic in zine culture. What is rare is the long time that went to getting this to readers, and because of that a lot of what*s here resonates.
(eggplant)
Food Eaters #1
3124 Shattuck Ave. Berkeley, CA 94607
Food Eaters makes its first appearance in the zine world with a collection of esoteric scribbles. The introduction describes the issue as a sort of artistic prank. It*s not clear whether this one is even material. The only way you can get this one is by sending in a fucked up drawing for trade.
(joey)