Poems WIthout Words

By Mark Bilokur

Okay, so poetry (the written kind) isn't really something I get. I mean, I understand why people write it, but it's never really been something I've enjoyed that much. My eyes tend to glaze over while reading it, and I remember one time I was over a hundred pages into an epic poem by Aleksandr Pushkin (which one exactly I can no longer remember) when I realized that I had actually read it before. Over a hundred pages before I realized that. I'm amazing.

That's not to say I dislike poetry. There's some I enjoy, and I'm a pretty big fan of hip hop (which can be spoken word poetry with backing music), but overall it's not something I seek out.

Visual poetry is probably about the same for me. I can go "oh this looks cool", but at the same time I don't "get it". A lot of the art in this zine (people with hands for heads, burning skeletons, etc.) is pretty awesome, but I'm left with the feeling that there's something that I'm missing. Still, sometimes just looking at nice art is fine, and I enjoyed looking through this zine, even if I didn't really understand what the creator meant by the art.

animal facts volume one

By Katy Curwin

It's not often (or ever) that I call out zines for false advertisement, but I have to put my foot down somewhere, and animal facts volume one is that place. I'm kind of sad to be doing this, but this really has to be said. This is important and I don't want anyone getting this zine under false pretenses.

There are no facts about tigers in this zine.

In fact there are no facts about any type of cat at all. None, nada, zilch, zip. And don't try to tell me about tiger shark facts. That picture up there is clearly a land tiger. Tiger sharks not only live in the sea, they aren't even mammals!

Sure there are cool facts and pictures about koalas and giraffes and pigs and other animals, but I was promised tigers and there are no tigers here. Terrible!

Cat Circus

By Sarah E

Cats! The internet loves cats! Zinesters love cats! Thus everyone (internet + zinesters = everyone) will love my review of this zine that features cats, right?

This short zine combines pictures of, and text about, cats and circuses from a children's encyclopedia. Giant cats ride on top of buses, children gather around posters advertising the cat circus, and we learn many amazing facts. Did you know that the "common domestic cat is one of the many strange animals obtained by circuses from far-off lands"? Clearly you can believe everything in print! It is all entirely factual.

To be honest, I kind of wish this zine was longer. I need more pictures of cats. The internet is not supplying me with enough.

The Robot's Cat

By Jen DesRoche
monasterylane.tumblr.com

I recently helped my partner print her first minicomic. It's a really sweet and funny series of stories featuring a robot and its cat, told entirely without words.

While I am slightly biased, I think it's pretty awesome and that you should check it out! You can see some of the artwork for the comic, plus lots of her other drawings and comics, on her tumblr. She'd really appreciate it!

The Adventure Journals of Sin Cat #2

www.milliondollaryack.com/meszcomics

If nothing else The Adventure Journals of Sin Cat isn't a quick read. It takes quite a while to read it all, because every page is filled with huge amounts of tiny text.

The comic itself is confusing. While each page looks quite nice as a whole, and I quite liked the art in some individual panels, reading it as a comic is pretty damn confusing. It's not always obvious what panel to read next, text can be too small to read (and frequently makes no sense when you can read it), and the plots (or whatever passes for plots in these comics) is frequently just ignored for bizarre jokes and other things.

Sometimes when the way the plots go into completely random places it reminds me a bit of Jamie Smart's Bear, but that has much more comprehensible art, and is far more enjoyable over all.

On some pages it seems as though the comic is an attempt to create a narrative around doodles that were already on the page, while most of the time it seems as though the creator is just making it up as they go. It's kind of funny how some of the pages reminded me a bit of Chris Ware, as his pages are incredibly over designed, and the only real similarities are lots of small panels and each page looking nice as a whole. And that, while I can appreciate them both as "art", I don't really like them that much.

Confusing, at times hard to read, but still at times interesting. I can't really say much more than that.

Entropy no. 4: Good Neighbours

By Aaron Costain
www.aaroncostain.com

This short comic is an adaptation of one of Aesop’s fables and after reading it I realized that I know nothing about Aesop whatsoever. Well, that’s not true, I’ll list the things I do know.

1. Liked telling stories about animals.
2. Is dead.
3. From ancient Greece (?).
4. Male (?).

So I looked this person up on Wikipedia and discovered that “his existence remains uncertain”. Aha! That explains why I don’t know anything about him. Hell, people apparently can’t even decide what continent he was from (he’s been depicted as a black Ethiopian). The page also discusses how many of the fables attributed to Aesop were from other sources, and if Aesop did exist he certainly didn’t create all the stories credited to him. So in truth there are only two things we know about Aesop.

1. May have existed.
2. May have created stories.

But, we know that this specific comic does exist! It tells the story of the eagle, the cat, and the sow (pig). It’s a kind of weird story, and I can’t figure out a moral for the story other than “cats are lying jackasses, only out for themselves, and not to be trusted” or maybe “lie to other people, and play them against each other to provide for yourself and your family”. Either way, I don’t think I’m learning the correct moral from this story.

The comic is pretty cute though, tells the story pretty well, and overall is successful. Plus: drawings of cats doing cat stuff! Everyone loves that.