Welcome one and all to the last but certainly not least segment of Slingshot! Enclosed here is a trove of curiosities and wonders to satiate your seemingly endless appetite for radicalism — go forth and feast. But enter with caution, for the world of independent publications can dazzle your spirit, expand your mind, and whisk you into a world of possibilities.
On a serious note, every time I review a zine lately I think of Des Revol — a comrade arrested in July of 2025 for the crime of possessing zines. He’s still in Federal prison today (you can get updates at freedes.net). Free press in America is in danger in a way we haven’t seen since Nixon. Zines are the new Samizdat, which makes reading and sharing them all the more important. Seek out small publishers and zines, and know that if you don’t find what you want — make it!
Submit your creation to Slingshot for future reviews, share with your friends, and wreck havoc on the status quo. Now, without further ado, we present a wonderful array of fascinating (and possibly dangerous) reads!
You Are Not Immune to Conspiracism
Free PDF – 47 Pages
drive.proton.me/urls/HTMCM5GS64#SGiGoVMJfve0
Media Literacy in the digital era is a wild west of bullshit, memes and AI-powered propaganda. It’s enough to make you want to drop your phone in the snow and sprint off into the woods without any intention to return.
Do not despair. There are ways to tune out the voices on the internet. You do not have to give up the media, or even mad ravings. It’s just that not all the voices are to be trusted. Do not go towards the light.
This zine tells us that the most important thing to hold onto is your skepticism. It delineates clearly between misinformation and conspiracies. There are also pages of resources that go beyond basic pre-bunking.
I think most of us pay far too much attention to our phones now. It’s daybreak and the internet is demanding your attention. That cellphone is standing over your reclining body, shining a big 12-inch Maglite® right in your face, poking its fingers right in your eyeballs, blasting Wagner’s Ride of The Valkyries from somewhere in the living room. The best defense is a good offense; maybe try turning off your phone sometimes too.
Pivot Point – Issue #1
24 pages – Free instagram.com/pivotpointdistro
I called into my doctor’s office recently and the automated phone attendant was an AI. It was not just a phone menu. It responded to my answers with synthetic sympathy and I have never been more offended in my life. It was a new, existential kind of offense; an inert insult against humanity. Their tens of thousands of servers are an ichor upon the human race, masquerading as a tool. They are supplanting every human aspect of our lives. Phillip K. Dick tried to warn us.
This zine speaks to me. Jameson and I both seem to feel the same righteous burning ire for artificial intelligence — AI. It’s certainly artificial but it’s not very intelligent. Editor Alan Jameson put together this first issue himself, and the text on the cover reads “FUCK AI” in a 50 point font, black toner on bright green paper. It’s as subtle as a traffic flare.
Jameson doesn’t come bearing much in the way of hope. His essay on page 15 is succinctly titled “We’re Fucked” which he backs up with cold hard facts. He even concedes in the introduction “There is no chance of stopping it at this point.” But you don’t have to forsake the internet and go Amish. Despite that resounding lack of optimism, he concludes the issue with six pages of action steps you can take in the analog world to protect yourself and preserve your sanity. Good luck.
Circuit Punk #2
38 pages – $6 circuitpunk.org
It is one thing to repair… It is entirely another thing to hack. This zine dives right into the deep end of electronic hackmongery. The first article is about connecting an electrode to a bluetooth MIDI controller to record your brain activity. Does it work? No, probably not. But we are soldering a $20 sensor to an Arduino and strapping it to your forehead anyway. No, this zine is not OSHA compliant. Keep a fire extinguisher handy.
I appreciate that this pirate crew didn’t just start another hacker channel on Reddit or Discord. This is a series of curated projects in the spirit of old head sparky magazines like Popular Electronics, Nuts And Volts, and Circuit Cellar but with a decidedly strong music focus. It is self-evident that this zine is put together by some serious nerds.
The skill level for these projects is pretty varied. I’m pretty adept with a soldering iron but some of these kiddos leave me in the dust. But that Ashton Felix tutorial on converting radios into guitar amps… that’s my speed. Good job, weirdos… good job.
Hammer Times – Issue 29
2 legal size pages – Free hammertimes@riseup.net
The first thing I noticed was the logo, three inches tall on a page that’s just 14 x 8. I can make out some, but not all of the letters. The title looks like a black metal logo but more stylized like rippling smoke in a Simon Bisley comic. In the lower right hand corner of it is the eight-arrowed symbol of chaos magic, from the work of Michael Moorcock. This zine is chaos magic indeed.
I contacted the editor for a little more background. They let me know that Hammer Times was originally inspired by a newsletter from New York called Chaos Star which had a similar format.
Hammer Times very intentionally does not exist on the internet. This review might be all you ever find, and that’s how they want it to stay. Get out of the house you basement dweller, not everything is on the internet!
Hammer Times comes out monthly. You can find issues at the front desk zine section at the Long Haul in Berkeley, CA, the Bound Together bookstore in the Haight, the Hasta Muerte Coffee shop in East Oakland, and the Ape curiosity shop in the Mission District among other fine subversive establishments.
Puget Sound Metal Bulletin
8 pages – $3.50
instagram.com/pugetsoundmetalbulletin
When you think of places that are very metal, certain cities come to mind: Tampa, FL; New York, NY; Birmingham, UK; Gothenburg, Sweden; the entire nation of Finland… Admittedly the Puget Sound region was not on my metal radar. But now it is, and I think that’s the purpose of this monthly-ish zine: celebrating all things local and metal.
The editor, Old Man Winter, keeps every issue fresh. Album reviews are a given and both music news and gossip are assumed. But his long-format interviews go deep, to the bottom of Lake Sammamish. His concert calendar can only be the work of a deeply obsessive person. Subdivided by month, city and venue, the effort is an excel-induced nightmare for mere mortals.
The Puget sound stretches from Olympia in the south, to Mt. Vernon in the North. Everything beyond that is the Salish Sea. It’s not clear how strict the criteria for “local” is but I haven’t heard of a single one of the bands in this issue. My spell check keeps trying to change Puget to Pungent; how very metal.
A Common Treasury! – Issue #1
theanarchistgardenersclub.substack.com
There is room in the world for every venn diagram of interests, including British Anarchist Gardeners. To quote the zine: “The AGC has no members list, no structure, no AGM’s. If you believe in anarchy, in the death of capitalism, in the realisation of the most beautiful idea through connection to land and community then hey, you’re in the fucking club, babes.”
In the real world, anarchists have often been like this: Kropotkin was an avid gardener, advocating for more vineyards and orchards. Vives Miréd in more broad terms advocated for growing food locally, as did Marco Casagrand and Mike Hamilton, editor of EMAB. Emma Goldman wrote endlessly about gardens, literally and metaphorically.
To paraphrase one of the pseudonymous writers, the simple choice to grow vegetables in a city is the anarchist choice. The choice to grow your own veg is the anarchist choice. To eat vegetables when they are in season is the anarchist choice. To grow your own vegetables and opt out of the industrial food system is the anarchist choice. I adore this zine.
The Communist: Issue 18
15 pages – $5 communistusa.org
The title “The Communist” has some deep roots for the party in America. It was the name of the official paper of the Communist Party of America for its first print run starting in 1919. That iteration ran for three volumes, ending in 1921. There were several dozen different Communist newspapers published at different times in the 1920s and 1930s but few were bold enough to assume the title. One that comes to mind is “The Communist,” a monthly journal of the Workers Communist Party based in New York City.
This newspaper is published by the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, often known as the RCP. That’s not the same as the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) which does have a newsletter but does not have a print edition. This is a shame since the CPUSA is the direct descendant of the 1919 publishers of “The Communist.” Instead, that paper pulp miracle is left to the RCP, whose roots go back to radical student groups of the 1960s. Both groups have survived multiple schisms (and CIA infiltrations) in the intervening decades.
While always risky, every influx of new members brings new ideas and new energy to any movement. Their success at integrating new people proves that Communism isn’t just the fading value system of wrinkled bolsheviks on the Commune. This paper is chock full of relevant political news about current events. It reads very professionally, a bit like Policy Review for pinkos. What kind of Communists cite FICO scores and YOUgov Polls? This is either written by CIA plants or these kids are going to change the world.
The Shadow: Issue 66
25 pages – $2 – PO Box 20298 New York, NY 10009 – Free PDF shadowpress.net
I had to delete a lot of profanity from the first draft of this review. I can barely type the acronym “ICE” without the prefix “Fuck”. I endeavor not to project my politics onto these zine reviews so as to let the zinesters speak for themselves. I’ll quote Frank Morales from the opening paragraph of the issue:
“The mercenaries of ICE who have invaded cities across the US are a lawless gang of trigger-happy thugs relying on deception and brute force… They have been given a free hand to utilize all means of violence, including murder, to force their way. Numbering in the tens of thousands, ICE “police” and their associated partners in crime … are a danger to the citizenry, a stark violation of Constitutional norms, a violent social pathology masked as “law enforcement.”
The Shadow is a very bold zine. One article describes the murder of Alex Pretti more factually than anything I’ve read elsewhere. Everyone knows Nazis are garbage people and that fascism is a bullshit ideology. But it’s a whole different level to publish an article like “The American Empire is Dying” and then lay out your argument as thoughtfully as a eulogy. You should read this zine.
Let’s Talk About the Mainstream
28 Pages – $4
The zine title comes from a talk Aaron Cometbus gave in Moscow. Aaron gave his talk then at the end an audience member asked a question that clearly stuck with him.
“…the older I get, the more I suspect that not only were we right, we weren’t extreme enough. I believe more than ever that we need to turn away from pop culture, celebrity culture, and the idea of making it big. We should ignore the blockbuster movies, the music on the radio, and art in big galleries. I’m not saying it’s all bad. But most of it is.” I can’t add a word to that thought. I can only raise my hands and shout hallelujah.
This zine is one of four in a set, the other three being Pensacola, Cometbus Mail, and East Bay Beat. The self-published series takes an odd position in his lengthy bibliography, collecting his rare and unpublished works. This one includes, among other things, articles from New York Nights, AVA, Drawn & Quarterly, Fleabites and even one from issue #140 Slingshot, back in the hot Summer of 2024. With Cometbus, the B-sides are just as strong as the A-sides, so this read is for all fans of Cometbus, not just the completionists and collectors.
The Stowaways: Issue 21
80 pages – $5
romancandlesmusic@gmail.com
This beefy zine was put together by Christopher Gyorgyovich of the band Roman Candles. I think the writing in Stowaways has shown tremendous growth since the first issue back in 2011. This issue is chock full of interviews and show reviews. It’s thick like a novella, inviting you to curl up with it on a cold, snowy day and drink tea. I was reading up on the back issues and I discovered that Craven Rock kind of crapped on the last issue and had previously shat on issues 11 and 12. I asked Chris about it and he didn’t take it personally. Clearly he is much nicer than me.
Gyorgyovich usually describes The Stowaways as a “fanzine.” The terminology usually means that one is a fan of a certain genre or band. There have been many bands named “The Stowaways”. My hope had been that he is a fan of the 1970s Stowaways from Cologne, Germany, for no reason other than that it would be hilarious… but we need to know the truth.
So I asked, and he told me that the name actually came from his fascination with train hopping. At UC Berkeley, he wrote his senior thesis on the history of hobos, tramps, and trainhoppers. This is super cool, but I will resist changing the subject. I would absolutely rate Stowaways in a class similar to other fine zines like Ear of Corn, or Noise Widow.
Gutter Bravado: Issues 11 & 12
$8.88 – 32 Pages yarrowtomorrow@gmail.com
Mindi’s subconscious was talking very loud from inside her brain stem when she typed this zine out, confessing into every carriage return. She sent a nice personal note with her zines. I do like it when zinesters do that. I have been keeping them. Do I have a plan or am I hoarding? I’ll decide later and retcon as needed. Continuity is over-rated.
Issue 12 is subtitled “Monsters” and opens with the phrase “The smell of shit hangs heavy in the air from having hit all the fans.” On the cover is a Labubu. I realized over just a few pages that the author’s voice changed when there was a Labubu on the page. Mindi contains multitudes. Whether intentional or not, the Labubu takes the form of her id, the devil on her shoulder. The Labubu tells her to rip up the carpet in her dead brother’s room. The Labubu says that this is the robot zombie apocalypse. Labubu says no one is illegal on stolen land, and never surrender. It says boycott the internet. If you see the Labubu throw a rock at that cop, no you didn’t.
I’m sorry life is hard. I can’t promise it will get better, only that we all get better at dealing with the hard parts. It sounds like she’s moved past the pursuit of normality. Good — normal is boring. Mindi is much too interesting for that. Please listen to the Labubu.
Fifth Estate: Winter 2025
$5 – 48 pages – PO Box 201016
Ferndale, MI 48220 – fifthestate.org
I always look forward to reviewing the Fifth Estate. It’s nice to review a high-brow periodical between punk rock diatribes and reviews of Estonian black metal 7-inches. Nothing against diatribes, I just enjoy the variety. I read in the New York Times that mass market paperbacks are going extinct. In the long term, I fear for the survival of print. I enjoy the stink of ink, so these rough pages feel like home to me.
How can you not love a magazine that’s half book reviews? That is la grande Indulgente. This issue has reviews of 14 books. Highlights include anarchist geographers, surrealists, colonialism, anthropomorphism and a nice review of The Popular Wobbly. The Wobblies never get enough column inches. Long live the IWW.
Some of the essays were more topical like the psychopathy of Alex Karp, but others were more educational, at least for me. The article Queerness & Prison Abolition hits hard. Its subtitle “Love is Contraband in Hell” hits even harder. There’s a piece by John Zerzan whose name you probably recognize. The feature about David Chichkan, an artist who died on the battlefields of Ukraine, was short but genuinely touching. I think my favorite piece was a colorful writeup on Wooden Shoe Books & Records in Philadelphia, an infamous anarchist bookshop. In Philly, they grease the poles because they have to.
Razorcake: Issue 150
$3 – 112 pages razorcake.org
It’s a momentous occasion, the 150th issue of Razorcake. It’s been in publication for 25 years — a quarter century. In ancient Rome, one was not fully an adult until the age of 25. So by any measure Razorcake is now an adult. It can drive, it can drink and even pay taxes, but maturity? Let’s hope not. I opened to a random page and found a quarter page advert for “Alien Snatch.” I think we are safe.
I learned so many things from this issue. Cumbia has always been punk, John Reis of Rocket has corrosive Portuguese sweat, Fuck ICE, Travis Millard likes to draw dogs, people miss their flip phones and there is some debate as to the actual name of the Ramones Atmos Collection. Razorcake is a national treasure.
Every time I get a copy of Razorcake I flip straight to the back. It’s not like a novel, there are no spoilers. Sure, I want to read the record reviews and the zine reviews. But the first page I flip to is the Top 5s. There is nothing more chaotic in Razorcake than this section. A Top 5 is most often records, concerts, books or zines, but there are no rules. Top 5s this time include the anti-fascist whistle warriors of Chicago, a deceased cat, the instagram account calloutfakeclinics, gluten-free pistachio donuts, and the Razorcake Happy Hour. Thesis papers have been written about less.
Murrwat Slushes Zerklenyne
Free PDF – 9 Pages
instagram.com/p/DSQPPjSD2kD
I don’t totally understand this zine. The bottom of the page reads “Made by donated lumpenproletarian labor of the Murrwat Collective.” Lumpenproletarian we all understand, that’s the unorganized underclass. But Murrwat or Zerklenyne? I remain baffled. Zerklenyne is very similar to the German word zerkleinern, meaning to crush or pulverize. Slushes? I don’t know. It kind of sounds dirty. They all seem to be made up words, but as a friend reminded me recently… all words are made up. I did email the maker but there was no response. They decided to remain mysterious, which is sometimes for the best. May the mystery endure.
The meat of this zine is a series of tips on activism. The structure lands somewhere between a numbered manifesto and an old 1960s “list” zine by the Fugs. It reiterates a few key points: activism is messy, don’t ever take the cops’ side, read, and all those things are all surely true. But “Bernie Sanders is a fraud?” Elon Musk said the same thing, and that alone gives me doubt.