Monday, February 25, 2013

The Swaying Dog Issue #1


theswayingdog@gmail.com
theswayingdog.co.uk

There is that point where I look at the letter I received with a zine for the nth time, reading that it's the person's first zine, and that they'd love to know what I think about it, and I wonder what I should say.

The inside front page says that the zine is about "nothing", and that pretty much describes it. There're random cut and paste writing and images, a top five moustaches, and other stuff. The whole thing is printed in colour (which looks quite nice on some pages, but has issues on others), and is put together in a competent and attractive cut and paste style. But (and you knew there was going to be a but) the writing style just doesn't appeal to me. I mean, it's hard to tell from the brief pieces included, but they didn't do very much for me at all.

And I feel bad saying this because this is somebody's first zine, but everyone who reads this site should remember that I am not the be-all and end-all of reviewers. There are zines that I didn't like that pretty much everyone else does, and zines that I love that lots of other people hate. I remember I used to read one comic review site years ago because the reviewer had such diametrically opposed opinions from me that if they didn't like something I thought I should check it out, and if they were really into something I'd avoid it.

Reviewing is based on opinions, not facts (I mean just look at this terrible review of My Neighbour Totoro, it's like this person saw a completely different film!), and, unless they're about comics by Chuck Austen and their terribleness can be proved by graphs, it's always a good idea to take reviews with a grain of salt.

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