About a Ghost Town Bike Tour

By Celeste
PO Box 226
Irvine, Alberta
T0J 1V0
ofcourseyoucan.tumblr.com

I love exploring abandoned buildings, though I really don't get many opportunities to do so. I did recently get to check out a weird fake building that is actually a train tunnel ventilation shaft, and that was pretty cool even if the building itself wasn't that interesting.

This zine is primarily photos of abandoned buildings that Celeste discovered while cycling through (I think) rural Manitoba. The black and white photos accurately capture specific moments of the decay of these buildings: rotting staircases, collapsed roofs, debris, remnants, and general signs of nature returning to where humans had "conquered".

Each photo has some typewritten text placed over it. Some of these pieces describe (in a rather poetic manner) the buildings the photos were taken in, and what was found inside them ("honeycombs, the hard work of bees, smashed."). While others just talk about the idea of ghost towns in general, and how civilization can change and move and retreat from where it once was. They also explain some of the various reasons why a rural community might wither and die after being successful.

The text describes the few encounters with actual people that happened on this trip, and how these encounters describe "what a town is like just before it becomes a ghost town". Or, in one case, how a family that doesn't speak English (but rather "something like german") gets annoyed when you visit the cemetery where their goats are grazing.

I liked this zine and its descriptions of crumbling buildings and towns, though I think you can find the same decay and abandonment in cities as well as rural areas. Despite the continued existence of certain buildings throughout human history, we seem to forsake things far more frequently than not.

Digital Denial (analog photographs in the digital age)

By Dandy Denial
digitaldenial.tumblr.com
PO Box 226
Irvine, AB
T0J 1V0
Canada

Coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee.

Of so the cover of this zine says. To be honest I don't really like coffee. Sure, I used to drink it, but I eventually realized that the amount of milk and sugar I was putting into it to make it taste not like coffee wasn't that good an idea. I mean, I don't like consuming too much sugar (please ignore all those cookies I just ate), and if I'm going to drink a hot beverage I'd rather drink cocoa or a herbal tea or something. Plus the number of people who end up addicted to the caffeine in coffee kind of distresses me. I've known people who get headaches when they don't get their morning coffee. That's kind of crazy.

But lots of people like coffee, and this is a zine of photos of people enjoying coffee (or at least feeding their addiction). The photos are candid shots, and they're kind of cute. However the scanning of the analog photos, and then the printing/copying of them has made some of them overly dark, and I think seeing an exhibition of these photos in real life would be a better way to experience them.

There are also two brief stories about drinking coffee. One about busking, which I thought was pretty funny, and the other about not sleeping and drinking terrible coffee. If you're a big fan of coffee, you very well like experiencing it vicariously through this zine.

A collection of black & white photographs taken while walking through a ghost town.

By Jason Niebauer
www.jasonniebauer.com

I was kind of excited when I saw the cover to this zine. A ghost town! How cool! I’ve enjoyed the other zines about ghost towns that I’ve had a chance to read.

However, inside I was kind of disappointed. The black and white photographs are the only content, and there is no text or explanation of where the town is, why it’s a ghost town, or how the photographer ended up there.

The photos, for the most part, seem like they could have been taken in any kind of run down town or neighbourhood. I’m pretty sure I could find some places in the city I live in that are more interesting and “ghost town like” than these ones.

I can’t really criticize the quality of the photographs themselves, as the small size in which they are reproduced, and my disappointment of their subject matter makes it difficult to do so.

I'll Never Again Dance

By Helen Flanagan and Alex Bailey

Poems and stockings and blurry images,
Pictures of skulls with their horns, teeth, and ridges,
Zines filled with photos tied up with strings,
These are a few of my favorite things.

(Based on a song from the Sound of Music, who knew?)

Okay, so you know I'm lying about poems being one of my favourite things, but I did still like this zine filled with strange, at times ghostly, pictures. The pictures here run the gamut from what look like spur of the moment snapshots to carefully framed and posed photographs to artisic blurriness.

The images are full bleed, printed to the edge of the paper (except for a couple of places where there's a bit of a white border along side where my copy was apparently miscropped). The full bleed images look really nice here, and make it apparent that, despite the occasional text, the images are what are supposed to be the main attraction.

There are some pixelation and contrast issues on a few of the photos, but they actually end up adding to what are some of my favourite photos in this zine. The photos show faded, blurry (like in really old pictures) images of what kind of look like ghosts. Actually, the more I look at one of these images the more I wonder if it's actually of a real person. However, even if it's just a digital image, or a piture of something that is not (or was never) a person, I still think it looks pretty good, just like the zine as a whole.

Jeg Ser En Mand

By Claus Handberg Christensen
www.hurricane-publishing.com

I have no idea what the title means, and the contents are almost as mystifying. They consist of six photos, with no captions or text of any sort, of a man in a suit walking down a broken and decrepit street. He looks up at something we can't see, then continues walking.

There are so many questions raised here: where are the photos taken? Are they part of a larger set? Who is the man and whey is he walking through such a grimy area? What is he looking at?

None of them have answers, so I'm left to try and think up some of my own. (Okay, there is a street name sign visible in the photos so I could probably figure out where it is, but I'm not going to, and I'm just going to assume he's looking up at a pterodactyl fighting a giant robot.)

All the photos are shot from the exact same height, angle, and whatever other photography terms I have forgotten. The shot itself is really interesting, as part of a wall is so white it looks almost like a margin, separating the photo into two parts. I'm not sure if this was intentional or is just something that I'm creating with my mind, either way it looks interesting.

Finally, this was part of a set of small books that were also designed as postcards. There's space for you to write an address and message on the back, and the orange bit on top actually sealed the book close (until I tore it open to look inside). Neat! I'd love to get something like this in the mail.

(And yes, I guess this is an art book, but it's basically just a zine.)

Pink Mince #2

pinkmince.com

"For the confirmed bachelor of exceptional taste."

If you’re not into photos of toy soldiers simulating sex with each other you might as well stop reading this review right now.

Not that I’m as into it as some people (the FAQ asks “Is it wrong that I’m so turned on by these pictures?”), but I do think these photos are really amusing.

One of the reasons I love zines is because I end up being exposed to things like this that I would never see otherwise. Gay porn made with action figures isn’t something I’d ever seek out on the internet (though I know it exists, even if only because this zine started as a website), but as something I can pick up at a zine fair I am totally there.

Technically none of the photos actually show any sex as the figures aren’t anatomically correct. Not that all the photos are of simulated gay sex, some of them are just the toys hanging out or posing. However, no matter what the toys are doing, they’re all carefully posed and lit, and a few of them could actually be mistaken for photographs of real people if you don’t look too closely.

One of the most amusing things about this zine is that all the photos were made with products you can buy. The creator actually says how surprised he was that he could find so many tiny handcuffs and leather trousers, as though someone was encouraging him to put the figures in these poses and take their photos.

My favourite photo is probably the one on the back cover. It’s a purposefully out of focus shot featuring one toy taking photos of two other figures. Meta!

Pink Mince is worth checking out even if you’re not a confirmed bachelor, into buff, semi-naked guys, or lack exception taste. But as even my mom wants copies to give to her friends, most people will probably find it worthwhile.