Zine material ranges from shocking and awkward to poetic and funny, but there’s nothing predictable, watered-down or politically correct within their varied pages of cartoons, essays, drawings, prints and photographs. Self-published, handmade and often community-based, zines come in a variety of sizes and formats, from photocopied paper double-sided and folded four ways, to the meticulously screen printed or origami folded.

Morrison is Executive Director at Trouser House, a non-profit contemporary art and urban farming initiative in New Orleans. In her curatorial statement, she mentions anarchists and pseudo-anarchists, how she had been living out of her car, punk rockers, lesbians and freeganism. The content within several of the zines reflects these fringes of mainstream American life; they’re not represented in InStyle, and only in W if appropriated by fashion. Mass media’s continued promotion of stereotypes stirred the Riot Grrrls, a generation of feminists who emerged in the 1990s and fought against these images. Like other ‘90s subcultures, they used zines to express their punk aesthetic and alternative female identities.

The title of Enola D’s zine of personal essays and observations, No Gods No Mattress, plays on No Gods No Masters, an anthology of anarchism by the French political and gay activist Daniel Guérin (1904-1988). In one essay, she describes getting out of her sleeping bag on a particularly cold morning and going to a coffee shop for a cup of hot water to put her teabag into. On her way she finds a cell phone in the streets of New Orleans, and is accused of stealing it when she tries to return it to the tourist who owns it. Their suspicion that she stole the phone in order to get a reward exposes an ugly side of class differences, between the people she calls yuppies and “entitled tourists” and her own vagabond life. Like many zine producers, Enola D’s resistance to mainstream modes of consumption extends to her the way her zines are distributed: they circulate only physically, not virtually.

Haley McMichael folds a long strip of screen-printed paper into beautiful three-by-five-inch books titled Observations and Daily Life. Funny and poignant observations accompany her illustrations, such as “Today I saw a vulture. Vultures don’t hurt anyone, but nobody likes them, maybe because they smell.”

There are multiple print issues of Pazmaker, a zine published by Perros Negros, “a production office of artistic projects” in Mexico City. Pazmaker #7, an audiozine, plays in the background. The forty-two tracks range from Joan Jonas reading The Anchor Stone (1988) to Marcel Broodthaers’ Interview with a Cat (1970).

This anthology of voices and sounds aurally illustrates the cacophony of voices speaking out in its printed counterparts. Because of their DIY ethics and self-distribution, zines are inherently political, though many possess particular sociopolitical agendas. The seductively illustrated a red rimmed star, published anonymously, tells a nightmarish and gory tale about a fated hunter who meets the hunting goddess.

From Poopsheet:

Justin Giampaoli
THUNDER ISLAND by Tim Brown

This ‘zine style book quickly grabs your attention with an attractive wrap around cover design and overall sense of packaging that I just loved. Having consumed as much pop culture as I have in the form of comics, books, magazines, movies, music, and fine art over the years, it’s rare for me to find something I’ve never seen before. Brown’s introductory text summarizing his early years is an example of an original and clever trick that I appreciated. Thunder Island is a little slow to get going, but enjoyable once it does. Brown begins discussing the background of the namesake of his school, notes about his first grade teacher and a slightly humorous anecdote, a fight with his mortal enemy Ernie (which is a good lesson in never appeasing an aggressor – that’s “standing up to a bully” in kid speak), and has very funny and on point observations about the difference between boys and girls bathrooms as an explanation for social behavior. The boy’s bathroom, with its “institutional style,” means it would be a “foaming pants situation before I ever took a dump in there.” He proceeds with my favorite part of the book, in discussing the “ladies of the second grade,” including Carmen Dresch, who grows up to be a promiscuous sorority type, aka: “sor-whore.” There’s mention of other memorable teachers like “fuck Jeanie fucking Harrison,” which made me chuckle at the pure genuine emotion on display. He ends with the exotic flair of Joy Jordan and a very interesting observation that informed early on the archetype of what he looks for in women today. Brown is able to perfectly capture the electricity of that youthful “crazy tingling sensation” that seems to course through your entire body when you kiss, as well as the fleeting allure of chasing that feeling throughout life. Brown’s figures are serviceable enough, but the real conversation starter here is the style of the text, since it comprises at least 80% of the book by my estimation. The handwritten text is sometimes difficult to read, on rare occasions it degenerates into chicken scratch and the characters are near impossible to parse. It’s not riddled by any means, but there are occasional misspellings and sentence fragments to be found as well. By the end though, I was having such a good time with this writer’s authorial voice that I was willing to overlook the small errors and focus on the larger accomplishment. Tim Brown is certainly a creator to watch. Grade B+.

and from Optical Sloth:
The problem with all the whiny autobio comics about love and missed opportunities in the lives of artists is that it usually focuses on the same period, roughly from high school to some point in their 20’s. Tim decided to get an early start on all that with this comic and detail the early loves of his life from the first through third grade. Actually, it’s a little iffy to even call this a comic, as the sampled image below is as much of an illustration as you’re going to get on any given page. Many of them have no illustrations at all. So does that make this a zine, technically? Ah, definitions like that give me a headache. He sent this to me for potential review, I run a site about small press comic books, so this is a comic. It’s easy when I can change the rules when it suits me. One other technical note: as this is primarily text, it would have been nice if he had proofread a bit more, as words are inserted or crossed off fairly regularly. At least he kept the spelling errors to a minimum. There’s also some confusion right off the bat when he says on the third page that he had no interest in girls, then spends the rest of the comic talking about how he had crushes from an early age and how most of his memories from that period involve girls and not his guy friends. Anyway, there are some funny moments of discovery about himself, some surprisingly detailed memories of various people and events of that time, and a hilarious way to deal with bullies that want to confront you in the bathroom. The only trouble with this is that, as it was written by an adult, there are times when it feels like child Tim has the confidence of adult Tim. It’s a minor thing though, as his detailed memories of most of the things about this time of his life (there are some gaps, as is natural) makes this a fairly compelling read. No price listed, but going with the “fancy cover” rule I’ll say it’s $4.