Peach Melba #1

By Pearl
PO Box 74
Brighton
BN1 4ZQ
UK

After that last not super awesome zine, here's a unicorn chaser bonus review of a zine I like.

Pearl is a 13 year old girl who makes a new issue of Peach Melba every month. She’s up to issue 16 or so, but I keep finding back issues amongst my other zines, and I like her zine, so I’m going to keep reviewing them.

Edit: Apparently this is issue one, not ten, so ignore some of the below content...

This issue's got lists of things that are sad, Pearl's favourite places, and things that fall apart ("Yugoslavia"), amongst others. There's also a cute little 'equation' that uses drawings to indicate that pens plus a notebook plus a bicycle plus trees equals happiness. Aw, that's awesome and sweet.

Probably the most amusing thing in this issue is in the list of lies. One of them states that Pearl “bought this type writer for 50 pence and it works perfectly”. The type written words that fill most pages are filled with weird gaps, overlapping letters, and other errors (that would make reading anything longer than this zine incredibly annoying) indicating this blatently isn't true.

I wonder if zinesters are the people that most use typewriters nowadays. I’m sure there are quite a few letter writers that use typewriters as well, but those two groups seem like they would overlap massively on a Venn diagram. It’s sort of curious that so many zinesters would find the typewriter aesthetic appealing. Considering that zines are already considered to be old fashioned just for the fact that they’re printed out on paper, perhaps using a piece of technology that harks back to an even earlier time, before the advent of computers, is fitting.

Sure, I think typewriters are neat too, but I can’t really imagine using one to write anything on. They generally require different techniques, and a lot more finger strength, than computer keyboards do. Plus removing a mistake is so annoying. I’d rather see/use typewriters as parts of artworks, rather than contemporary tools.

One of my only disappointment with this issue of Peach Melba is that, unlike some other issues, it’s only one sided. I kind of wish that Pearl had spent a little bit more time on it to make a full issue.

You don’t have to make a new zine every month Pearl! You’re already showing up all the older zinesters who only get one zine out a year, you can wait until you have a full issue! : )