Dog Stories / Kalamazoo

By Martin Winch

Remember how yesterday I said I'd be reviewing some stuff I'd had for ages and ages and never gotten around to reading? Well here's exhibit A: two sampler zines that I picked up at the Portland Zine Symposium in 2009. That was almost two years ago!

I think I avoided reviewing these because I didn't think either of them was worth a full review. I still don't, however that is handily cured by reviewing them both in the one post. Progress!

Both zines start the same way, with a strangely defensive page telling you how you can get a hold of the full version sof these zines. Even from just reading that I kind of got a vibe that I wouldn't really enjoy these stories.

And I was right.

Dog Stories features a terrible story about some dude being really sexist and one told from a dog's point of view about how horrible it is that their owner won't let them shit everywhere and have sex with everything. Not my thing.

Kalamazoo (yes, it's a real place) features stories of gorwing up in the late '70s and early '80s in Michigan. Characters drink Bud, smoke cigarettes, drive shitty cars, and listen to shitty music. None of which I have any interest in reading about whatsover. (Well, there was half a paragraph about exploring sewers, but that's not a whole zine.)

It's hard to even judge whether these stories are well written, because the content and the style are so completely "not my thing". If you're into Americana they might be worth checking out.