Suicide Cartoon Girls

By Ertito Montana
www.zona00.com

I kind of expected the worst from this zine based on the title and the cover. I mean, it was just going to be pictures of naked girls right? Well, not that I really have any problem with that, but there's always the concern (at least for me) that it'll be incredibly exploitative.

Surprisingly (to me at least), there's no actual nudity in this zine, though there are lots of pinups of girls in various states of undress (and how you feel about that is your own decision). Well, some of them are fully dressed, but there's also lots of fishnets, corsets, and tattoos (which is pretty much what you have to expect based on the title).

Montana has a pretty distinct style at work in their artwork, and many of the images feature stylized perspective and proportions. These definitely seem like purposeful decisions on the part of the artist, though for most of the art on display here I can't say the style appeals to me that much.

Chicken With Penis

chickenwithpenis@yahoo.com
PO Box 20204
Seattle, WA
98192
USA

[The images at the bottom of this review is NSFW, just letting you know.]

I've reviewed a couple of issues of this series before, and I really didn't like them. So when faced with the idea of reading more issues I hummed and I hawed about reading them as they sat in my review pile.

Eventually I decided I'm not going to review them, or even read them. I'm sure they're much the same as earlier issues.

Carck Presents Menagerie

By Harriet Jones & Vicky Samuel

Oh look at the adorable kitty cat! Awwww. And it's head is on a folded paper spring thing, how clever!

NO! Do not be fooled! This zine is nothing but smut! Once you open it you are exposed to a pop up penis! And that's it, it's kind of funny, but I can't imagine how much work went into cutting, folding, and gluing everything together for this. And the penis even sticks out of the side! How shoddy! (I'm joking.)

It's kind of impossible to review something like this. I do really wonder why there are twenty three different website addresses on the back page. Are they sites related to the creators of this zine? Why am I supposed to go look at them? I have no idea. (Actually looking at them it seems a couple might be related to the creators, but I really can't be bothered looking them up.)

Amazing vs Asshole

By Bernard Boulevard and Gordon Gordon
Chow Chow Productions
PO Box 20204
Seattle, WA
98102
USA

This is one of a series of really weird little zines. They're short, thankfully, as I'm not sure how much of these things I can read. (And yes, I do try to read every single word in every zine I review on this site. If I don't I generally mention it.)

So this is two sort of strangely written rants, one about how people overuse the word "amazing" making it meaningless (ie. towels aren't amazing, major events are), and the other about how some people are assholes, but real assholes can be awesome? Like I said, it's rather strange. And all accompanied by pictures of the aforementioned assholes, both people and the physical part.

I'm not really looking forward to reading the ohter one of this series that I have, but as this is apparently the third printing of this issue I am apparently somewhat alone in that.

Dreamy vs Sucks

By Bernard Boulevard and Gordon Gordon
Chow Chow Productions
PO Box 20204
Seattle, WA
98102
USA

I really didn't know what this zine was going to be about, the cover is just vague enough not to be pornographic but I wasn't really sure what the insides would hold.

The zine is short (one double sided page folded down to quarter size), and once we open it up we have the two words of the title broken down and discussed. Well, the concept of "dreamy" isn't discussed so much as made fun of. The crucial part of this side can be summed up with "Dreamy people are boring". There's an interesting idea there, that people who are deemed "dreamy" because they are attractive but unachievable (due to their celebrity). It becomes safe to express your attraction to them because you have no chance of rejection. However, the zine goes on to insult people that are dreamy, which I think might be missing the point. Surely people don't describe themselves as being dreamy do they?

The "sucks" side discusses why the word has come to gain negative connotations despite being involved with lots of awesome things. The zine equates the negative use of the word "sucks" with the way "gay" is used as an insult. The idea is that stright men would never suck on anything (or one particular thing specifically), and use the word as a way to demean people that actually do suck things.

It reminded me of the MC in a burlesque night I used to go to in Vancouver. He said basically the same things (ie. sucking is awesome), and that we should instead use a different word to experess our dislike of something. He was pushing for the use of the word "puke" (because who likes vomit?), but it doesn't seem to have caught on. Yet.

The only downside is that I think the zine is written in way that is kind of...not juvenile, but not journalistic either. Despite this it did make me think about the two words in question, so I guess it succeeded on that point.

Big Sexy

(Cover art by Colleen Frakes.)

Edited by Daniel Barlow, Colin Tedford, and Anne Thalheimer
www.offshorecomix.com

It’s Christmas! A holiday I grudgingly celebrate for my family, but generally dislike as it celebrates two things I’m not an especially big fan of (religion, capitalism). So clearly, what better time to review porn comics?

Big Sexy is a fat (over ninety pages) anthology of porn comics from a bunch of different creators, many of whom are involved with the Centre for Cartoon Studies. When I look at something like this I’m really left with just one question, why not get another couple of submissions, get it professionally published with a spine and release it as a book? I mean, I love minicomics and zines as much as the next person (or more than, as the next person probably has no idea what they are), but I also know that they limit your potential audience. You’re not going to get rich doing comics of any type, but at least with professional publishing and a spine you can get yourself onto bookshelves in shops around the world (except Canada, who generally won’t import porn comics) and gain access to a larger readership.

Perhaps someone got a great deal on copying. Or the CCS has their own print shop and so they could run these off for cost. I don’t know, it just confuses me a little.

But none of that is talking about the actual comics, which are porn! Penises! Vaginas! Breasts! Penetration! Cum! Yum! The stories here range from sexy to sweet and even verging into a bit creepy (sometimes all at the same time). The art styles are many and varied, and like all anthologies some of the works are better than others.

Rachel Duke’s comic (see below) manages to be both funny and sexy in its treatment of oral sex. Denise Warren’s tale of her time as a phone sex operator barely counts as comics, but is still interesting, and oddly sweet. While Meagan Frappiea’s adaptation of this song is perhaps not what the original creators had in mind, but manages to be sexy, though no doubt in part due to my fetish surrounding space girls. *swoon*

That’s just scratching the surface though, as there’s more than a dozen other stories, featuring both gay and straight sex, lust, longing, desire, a whole lot of sex toys, and a few more unicorns than I expected.


(Art from Kitty vs. Kitty by Rachel Dukes.)

The Youthful Erotic Fantasies of the now Decrepit Dr. Pembrose

By Matthew Phelan
mphelan.blogspot.com

This comic claims to be based on an attempt two people made at creating a documentary film. Whether this is true, or even what the documentary was supposed to be about, I don't know, as the comic just deals with the fantasies of the titular doctor.

The comic is, thankfully, just made up of panels of the interview subject talking about his fantasies interspaced with those of the film makers looking more and more horrified. This is one of the few times when I think a comic has broken the "show don't tell" rule and had it be incredibly effective. Mostly this is because the fantasies are incredibly lurid and I don't want to see them.

The fantasies are both creepy (at least in part because they come from an old person talking candidly about sex, which we as a society aren't really down with), and hilarious. I mean, they are completely insane, and the way they're described in such a deadpan manner with a sense of superiority really amuses me.

The art's pretty good, though I'm kind of confused by the layout of some of the pages. There are sometimes small bits of head of leg left floating off the bottom or top of a page. It's almost as though the comic was designed for some online "infinite canvas" style setup, but ended up being reformatted oddly to be used as a webcomic. Strangely these bits don't seem to match up to any other sections of the comic. It doesn't detract from the comic, I just think it looks a bit odd.

My only real complaint is that it's pretty short. I'd have been enjoyed reading more of this stuff (though not too much, I don't want a 200 page graphic novel or anything).

Phonebox Phantasies

By Mark Oliver
www.dancingeye.co.uk/markoliver.html

I’m always fascinated by the phonesex cards that are put up in public phone booths in some places. I wonder who actually calls the numbers, and I’m always tempted to start collecting them. I wouldn’t actually call any of the numbers, and I’m not sure how other people would feel about my collection of porn cards, but I’m still curious.

I picked up this zine in the hopes it would manage to satisfy me with what I thought was a collection of photographs of telephone booths and the cards they contain. But I was pleasantly surprised to discover this zine is not just that, for Oliver (who I've previously reviewed) has created his own creepy cards and posted them in phone booths and documented them.

While what happens if you call some of the numbers isn’t revealed, in one case we are told that the numbers on the flyers posted in two adjacent phone booths correspond to the phone in the other booth. I wonder if anyone actually tried calling that number, and if anyone answered the phone on the other side.

Did anyone call those numbers? Where did the number go? Can I get some of the fake cards? I don’t know, but I hope Oliver lets us know at some point.

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.

Baitline June

What is this thing?! What’s going on? I just realized that the cover of this is smut featuring animals? What is that cephalopod doing? What has become of my blog?

This is a zine of classifieds. Mostly classifieds by queer/punk people. Mostly classifieds by queer/punk people looking for other people to have sex with.

Okay, that’s not totally true, there are lots of other classifieds and ads in here. They range for things varying from Indian restaurants, to accordion repair shops, to tape trades, to sport utility wheelchairs for dogs, to roadkill snakeskin gloves, to lots of stuff. It is kind of insane.

And holy shit, the back page advertises a minicomic drawn by Celso that I own! Awesome.

But a lot of it is queer people looking for other people to have sex with. It’s like a print version of craigslist. Was it caused by one too many bad experiences using online equivalents? I hope someone is collecting all of these, because it is a fascinating glimpse into various subcultures in San Francisco, and really interesting and educational I assure you.

But really, with entries like “Tired of Mr. Nice FTM? Ding dongly hung studly cowboy w/strong hands wants to strangle and beat you up till the cows cum home.” is it any wonder I ended up hanging out in a Lesbian bar with several people of uncertain gender while I was in San Francisco? (You should go there by the way.)

The Sex Workers of Planet San Taurus

The Sex Workers of Planet San Taurus
By Robot Earl
robnoxious.wordpress.com
$3, half sized.

This is a collection of two pieces of “queer sci-fi smut,” which is kind of an awesome idea. I remember several years ago I was dumpstering a bookstore for coverless magazines (collage material!), and found a bunch of romance novels that had been ripped in half. One of the (only) ones I took was a sci-fi romance novel, about a space alien who came down to earth and had sex with a girl. I couldn’t believe that it existed. I don’t know how it ended, as I only had the first half, but it can’t have been any worse than the romance novel I read about a girl starting (or stopping?) a revolution in a small European country for a guy who she hates/loves.

Anyway, while I was surprised at the time, the shelves full of “supernatural romance” (ie. vampires) show that there is a huge market for weirdo romance stuff, so hopefully this too can find its audience!

Both stories are set in the same universe, one where Earth has made contact with another planet and its inhabitants, the San Taurans. They’ve come to earth, given humans technology, and are, of course, fascinated by sex, which they don’t have. So in their cyborg bodies, which imitate human functions, they meet and have sex with Earthlings. The first story features some lesbian sex, and the second one features some guy-on-guy action, plus some group sex. Woohah.

How’s the writing? Well, it mentions space herpes, and the writer keeps using “tho,” “thru,” and other words that might be intended to make it sound more futuristic, but only succeeded in annoying me. But really, you know if you want to read this based on the title alone.

Hotshower 10!

Hotshower 10!
By Joshua Isaac
Half sized.

Behind this somewhat odd cover, featuring a thinking snail and a floating head, are some not quite as strange comics.

The comics are mostly one or two pages long, and cover a lot of ranges: a guy with a tiny robot (which I think is from Star Wars) on his shoulder walks through the country side, people crash their car into a lake, other people have conversations that are really confusing.

There's also porn comics! Visible penetration! That’s not something I see that much in comics, though maybe that’s because I’m not buying issues of “hot moms” (or maybe because I’ve mostly lived in countries where you can’t import that stuff).

Some of the other comics seem to be diary entries, or at least slice of life stories that I generally feel might as well be true when presented in comic form. Hell, maybe the porn comics are real. They could be. I don’t know.

The art can be pretty scratchy at times, though not without its charm. Other times the artist prefers to use really thick lines, which combined with the simplicity of the art makes me think the comics have been blown up from a smaller size to fit the page (maybe they have).

The longest comic in here is very different from the others, featuring a style that uses lots of cross hatching to indicate that it happens at night. The story seems to be based on the artist’s life, when he went to a tree sit protest. Unfortunately there isn’t that much about the actual protest itself, and most of it is about getting into the trees in question. This could be because he wasn’t there for long, or because it was really monotonous in the “and then I read a book for 6 hours/days” sense. I’d like to read more comics about that sort of thing, so hopefully some show up somewhere.