Photography in Botany and in Horticulture Volume 1

By Emily Davies
flickr.com/untouchedurchin
untouchedurchin.tumblr.com

This zine really reminds me of student presentations I sat through in university. It starts with an introduction as to what the zine is about ("the link between photography and the natural sciences"), has a bibliography, features quotes and source material from history to show how the photography of plants is seen and has evolved, discusses the pros and cons of various tools you can use in photography, and generally makes me feel as though Davies should be speaking to me and giving me more information about every page/slide that comes up. The pages seem more like starting points for Davies to discuss than complete pieces of information.

This isn't to say that the zine isn't informative, I learnt more about pressing and photographing plants than I ever knew before. It's just that it seems stuck between being a totally ground entry introduction to this topic, and being something more in depth. Sadly, I think it kind of fails on both accounts, though I'm not sure how interested I would be in reading a full length piece about the history and methods of plant photography.

I did like the pictures of the plants (both pressed and otherwise). I'm not generally someone who stops to smell (look at) the roses, so being "forced" to look at them is actually kind of fun.

It also has a fantastic back cover ("This is the back cover."), though the whole zine is stapled awkwardly. You know, that stapled through the whole thing near the spine, but not actually into the spine. If you don't have a long arm stapler it takes a bit longer to staple zines "properly", but I generally think it creates a better experience for the reader and is thus worth it.

Lusty Tales Number One

By B. Elston

From the cover of this I really had no idea what to expect. A sort of Black Pete looking character spitting up...something under the title "Lusty Tales"? Was this going to be furry porn?

Thankfully no! (Though I have caught the Wikipedia disease, and just had to drag myself away from reading about Goof Troop and other Disney cartoons after I went looking for the name of Black Pete.) Instead, this is a comic featuring anthropomorphic animals living in an "old west" style world. There are miners, people wearing cowboy hats, claim jumpers, and other stuff that would fit fine into a Mickey Mouse comic. Well, apart from some of the characters getting shot, the nudity, and so forth.

The characters and style are very reminescent of old funny animals comics and cartoons: hearts appear above the head to indicate a character is in love, the steam from a kettle acts as a thought bubble for a character, and there's a fair amount of slapstick style violence. This just causes the deaths that occur to seem more out of place. When you've seen talking skeletons, and characters being hit on the head with rocks and pouring scalding hot coffee on themselves to no apparent harm, it's hard to take the guns they're firing seriously. Especially when they're firing them from handstands.

Yet, this could all work, the art is nice to look at, and I have no problem with creating a dissonence between the expected and the actual. However the story itself is a bit of a disappointment. It starts strongly (down on their luck guys wondering what to do with their lives), but ends up meandering after the apparent climax, only to end on a cliffhanger of a sort. It could pull itself together when (if?) there are further chapters, but I did go in expecting this to be a complete story (I only discovered this was issue one of the comic when I looked at the back page), and so can't help to be a bit disappointed by the lack of conclusion.

Rounding out the issue is a short comic by Bernie Kosar about Hiawatha, which I guess retells part of that poem. It's alright, but didn't impress me too much.

A Fall A Part

By JP Coovert
onepercentpress.com
jpcoovert.com

The inside front and back covers of this zine are filled with not quite spirals. This almost terrified me enough to throw the zine across the room, run away, and find somewhere to hide. Why? Because spirals are terrifying. Don't believe me? You should read Uzumaki by Junji Ito, one of my favourite comics of all time. Look at this page. (Don't look at that page if you are squeamish.)


(Inside front cover.)

Coovert's actual comic isn't anything like Uzumaki, though it is still somewhat scary. It's about when his mom was diagnosed with breast cancer. It's a scary thing to experience I'm sure, and as her hair falls out, her body fails her, and her marriage starts falling apart it's not exactly happy reading.

I don't really want to ruin anything about what happens to the various characters, but not everything that happens in here is doom and gloom at least. This isn't the usual thing I'm into, but it's a well put together, attractive little comic.

Zine Contest Winners!

It's over! Over 150 people looked directly at the contest page. More probably saw it just browsing on the website. I got a grand total of 15 entries. You guys are such slackers : )

Also, I've started updating my artist trading card blog again. Not every day, but semi-frequently at least. Let me know if you want to trade.

The results:

1st place: Recieving 36.5 zines is Ryan Sands of Same Hat, Electric Ant, and Prison for Bitches! His favourite zines are Chill Zine and Shotgun Seamstress.

2nd place: Recieving 18.25 zines is Persephone Pomegranate. Her favourite zine is "i knew a motherfucker like you and she said...", available here.

I hate you both for living in the USA and costing me more in shipping.

Everyone else that sent me their address (please note) will get some zines too. Woo, hurray!

Here is a photo of some (over three hundred) of my zines:


Also, I made this a while ago for a zine. it amuses me:

Peach Melba #16

By Pearl
PO Box 74
Brighton
BN1 4ZQ
UK

I'm back! With a zine by one of the (or just the?) most prolific zinesters I know.

Pearl's a prety rad 13 year old girl who's really into making and reading zines. And you should be too! It's pretty inspiring to see that she makes one of these every month, and the format she uses shows that you don't need to make something super long or complicated. I should really learn from that...

This issue is from October, which is obvious because it includes a list of possible Halloween costumes. Halloween is totally my favourite holiday (you get to dress up!!!), and I love everything to do with it. Though, I would be pretty terrified if someone did dress up like Nick Griffin as Pearl suggests here.

There are also lists of apples (so many!), Pearl's favourite things ("wombats", a list of musical genres that I really enjoyed because it's formatted in such a way that "Irish Big Brass Band" seems to be a type of music, and more!

Final day of the contest!

It's the final day of my amazing contest where you can win lots and lots (36.5) zines! I've only gotten tweleve entries, so if you enter your chances of winning are pretty high!

You've got until midnight (any time zone) tonight (monday) to enter! Do it!

Full rules here: http://365zines.blogspot.com/2011/01/contest-time.html

Contest Time!

You may have noticed that I didn't update the site over the weekend. I'm just feeling a bit burnt out at the moment, I've been sick, and I'm going on holiday tomorrow. The site will return soon though, and in the meantime you can enter the amazing contest I'm holding.

A contest! How exciting! To celebrate the aniversary of my blog, the fact that someone just sent me zines that I am specifically not allowed to review, and the (approximately) 365 reviews I've written in the last year I am giving away lots of zines!

How many zines? 36.5 zines!* At least! Maybe more!

All you have to do is email me (tomorrowboy@gmail.com) the answer to the following questions and I will pick one out to be the grand prize winner, and several who will receive runner up prizes.

1. What's your favourite zine? (Include contact info if you know it.)

2. Have you ever gotten/read a zine because you read a review of it on this site? (Let me know which one!)

That's it! Seriously! Send me the answer to those two questions and your address and you've entered the contest.

Final date for submissions: January 24th (two weeks from now!)

Grand Prize: 36.5 zines from the huge pile of zines I've reviewed over the last year. Some good, some bad. You'll get a mixture of zines specially selected just for you.

Runner up prize(s): I have no idea yet, you'll get something good.

Please tweet, blog, and otherwise promote this contest!

Small print: This contest is open to everyone in the world (except maybe my brother) because I'm sick and tired of contests that won't ship to me because I don't live in some specific country. I reserve the right to ship by slow boat though. One entry per person, don't try to game the system! The grand prize winner will be chosen at random, not sure about runner ups, so if you want to send me awesome drawings, or poems about why zines are great please go ahead.

*Yes, I have worked out how I've giving out 0.5 of a zine, trust me.