Guts Power #1

By Paul Jon Milne

http://cargocollective.com/pauljonmilne

http://gristtothemilne.blogspot.com/

Unemployment seems to be a bigger part of culture in the UK. I mean, I've had plenty of friends who have been unemployed, and who have collected unemployment benefits, but people seem to make less of a deal about it. Perhaps that's because it's harder to actually collect. I've never had an opportunity to collect unemployment in Canada, but was able to get it in the UK despite never having worked there. (Hurray!)

But going "on the dole" seems to show up a lot more frequently in UK media, I mean, I've already reviewed comics about it, and the fact that it can show up in this bizarre science fiction comic really shows how the aspects of attempting to collect unemployment are part of the national consciousness. 

Guts Power exists in a bizarre alternative Scotland (I think) where weird aliens/monsters with strange names (Lovelaffs1820) seem to be casually accepted into society and end up trying to get jobs along with everyone else. The main characters in this are a weird monster and their roommate, a sort of fetishy transvestite. They go to the DOLE (Department of Limited Earning) office, are forced to wait forever (despite people having figured out "that all times happen at once", which prevents people from being late), and have to go through the rigmaroles of soul crushing interviews about why they haven't found a job yet, and horrible mandated group discussion sessions.

Thankfully everything turns out all right in the end (up to a certain point) as some people are debrainwashed and various characters are allowed to go and do what they actually want to (write a novel, plot revolutionary action, etc.) instead of sitting around in offices wasting time. There are several more issues of this, and I wonder what the future has in store fore these characters.

Buy My Zines?

If for some reason you are interested in my zines and happen to be in Chicago you can purchase some of them at Quimby's and The Boring Store.

Quimby's has the Roberts Street Casual Gaming Federation 2011-2012 Yearbook, Ten More Videos I Watched On YouTube (not pictured), Autonomous Oblast (probably never to be reprinted as it uses UK paper size), and Flash, I Love You, But We Only Have Fourteen Hours to Save the Earth. All of these are $2 each.

Plus! Both stores have copies of my newest zine Two Fisted Librarians! Only $2.50!

Quimby's can be found at 1854 W. North Avenue, Chicago.
The Boring Store can be found at 1331 N. Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago.

The Archer

By Nate Doyle

http://crookedteethcomics.tumblr.com/

If you just looked at the cover of this comic you might think that it was a medieval or fantasy tale about a Robin Hood type character. And you'd be completely wrong.

This is a comic about a major event (a death) in the modern day, the steps that led up to it for the various people involved, and the resolution. It could definitely give more background about the characters and their motivations, but what is there is presented in a really interesting manner. In the first part there is no dialogue, and the character who appears is never shown to speak. Yet through their actions (both in the present day and flashbacks) we get a look at who they are and why they're doing what they're doing.

In the second part of the story there is dialogue, and a conversation in a car is portrayed using many small panels with no gutter between the border, a large contrast to earlier scenes in the comic which occurred outside and lacked any sort of panel border at all! This succeeds in making the car seem cramped, and showing the speed at which things happen. The third part again lacks dialogue, but this time we're inside a character's head and we're able to see their internal thoughts.

Artwise Doyle uses a style that features a lot of lines to give definition and texture to the characters and the scenes. The variation between styles of panels I mentioned above really shows the amount of thought that went into this comic, and I really appreciate that. The one problem I do have with the art is that sometimes the portrayal of motion is not successful, and instead of moving the characters look stiff and posed. Still, I ended up enjoying this comic far more than I thought I would based on the first part of the story.

(I feel as though I've been reviewing too many minicomics and not enough zines recently. Hopefully that will change in the near(ish) future?)

Brain Parts

By Holly Foltz

Huh, so Americans like fireworks a lot. (Guess what day I'm writing this review on!)

This brief comic features a bunch of reasons why Foltz hates her job (or rather, why she hates the people she has to deal with at her job). The reasons themselves are nothing that fantastic, but the art style is accomplished enough that I think Foltz could produce some pretty good work. This is backed up by an amusing comic on the back page, which features Foltz pretending to be the Alien from the titular movie using a cat. It's cute, funny, and the art has good facial expressions and body language.

These Things Happen Issue 1

By Sam J. Carbaugh

So this past weekend was the American Library Association annual conference. It was in Chicago (where I am right now!), and I spent a lot of time at the Zine Pavilion, and it was super fun. Expect more info about it soon, or you can check out the tumblr for some photos and stuff.

Anyway, this comic starts off pretty well, with a story about a guy's dead wife coming back from the grave. It's wordless, and kind of sweet and sad at the same time. I enjoyed it! Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the rest of the comic.

The rest of the issue is a bunch of one page comics that I generally found pretty stupid. In one Carbaugh complains about having to pay to have his car fixed. People complain about this shit all the time, and the solution is clearly to not have a car. Now some people are like "Waugh waugh waugh, I live somewhere that doesn't have public transportation," but there are other options like bicycles and rideshare, and so forth. Also, loads of people who do lives in cities with public transportation also complain about cars.

The other comics were kind of dumb too.

Conclusion: If you complain about the expense of owning a car, I have no pity for you.

10 Things I Love About Zines!

Hey! It's International Zine Month! You should all go check out that site and see all the awesome zine related things you could be doing this month!

Today (July 2nd) is: "Make a Top 10 list of reasons why your love zines, post them online if you would like."

Above you can see the poster I made for the Zine Pavilion at the American Library Association conference last weekend. We'll have the reasons other people loved zines on the Zine Pavilion tumblr soon, but I want to know what your reasons are! (You don't have to write ten, any number of reasons is good!)

As for (some of) my reasons... (Completely off the top of my head, and I'm sure there are many, many more.)

1. I love that Zines allow people to produce their own media, and that creators don't have to care about editors or advertisers.
2. I love that Zines let me to do graphic design stuff that I doubt I'd ever get paid for.
3. I love that Zines let me create weird little projects and discover that other people are into the same things.
4. I love that writing Zines allows me to look at the past and come to grips with my emotions.
5. I love that zines have let me meet lots of cool people from all over the world.
6. I love that anyone can make a zine (you can never be too old or young!).
7. I love that zines can be about anything.
8. I love that zines expose me to many different styles of writing, and types of content that I might never have seen.
9. I love that zines have given me something to blog about for the past four years.
10. I love that zines exist.

xZINECOREx An Introduction

By Milo Miller
Download the zine flats!

So I don't usually review digital zines, but occasionally I do. This is one such special occurrence, both because this is post #666 (!!!), and because it is a super nerdy zine about libraries, metadata, and zines. Plus I had to print it out to read it.

(Also! By the time this posts goes live I'll have been at the ALA conference, and I will have seen real live copies of this zine there that I didn't have to print.)

So this is a zine about metadata, and while I am currently in a program where I study metadata (and even meta-metadata), I'm sure most of you aren't. Metadata is data about data, and is all about how you sort and organize information.

xZINECOREx is an attempt to create a metadata system for zines, similar to ones that are already in place for other material in libraries. It covers stuff like genres, contributors, titles, etc. This is like hyper-nerdy stuff, and most people won't be into it, but as someone who used to catalogue zines _before_ I was even in library school, it certainly appeals to me.

This isn't a definitive guide to zine metadata, and it even says so right in the zine itself. Zines are still relatively new additions to libraries, and librarians are still discussing the best ways to catalogue them in collections. In fact, when I go to the Iowa City Zine Librarian (un)Conference next week we'll be discussing this very topic. I can't wait!