I should probably mention off the bat that I'm not a big fan of comic zines. I understand the need for them, and I understand that for some people, this kind of thing is the expression of a latent artistic talent. (Or a realized one.) However, they just can't grab me the way that a well-written one can. I find them, in general, to be just a little bit vapid most of the time. Unfunny, not as deep as they'd like to think they are, and I usually get the feeling that they're written by 14-year-old boys who haven't ever touched a girl, much less seen one naked that wasn't in the pages of a magazine.

So I wasn't going into this review with a very good attitude. Which is unfair, I know. Sue me.

The first page didn't do much to counteract my viewpoint. Then again, it was at a disadvantage. By the second page, though, at a piece called "mergermania" by Jim Siergey, I started to sit up and take some notice. Here was a piece done in that comic book style that was about the way cultural amalgamation could start affecting world cultural identity, and it was funny. Strange, yes, but intelligent and funny.

As I got further into it, I found some well-drawn artwork, interesting themes of isolation and mysticism, and even a tipped-in zine resource guide called ZINEHEAD that was useful.

Although it hasn't changed my mind totally about comic zines, I have to say that this one is very well-produced, insightful and interesting. I probably wouldn't run out to subscribe, but I won't immediately dismiss comic zines out of hand as being vapid anymore, either. It's worth a look-see, and I might even subscribe, which, for me, is the highest form of flattery for a zine of this kind. Check it out for yourself by writing to Karl Thomsen at P.O. Box 2061, Winnipeg, MB, R3C 3R4, Canada.

[ by Elizabeth Badurina ]
Rambles: 30 March 2002