Monthly Recommendations: July 2013

Here are some titles to add to your summer reading list:

Xerography Debt - Zine World may be dead, but Xerography Debt is still very much alive. This is a great resource for finding new zines to read and for connecting with fellow zine writers. The columns are worth your time as well.

Dream Whip #15 - Bill Brown writes about a bike tour in a way that only Bill Brown can. He made a movie about activists who work along the U.S./Mexico border, and he showed it at various places across the U.S., getting to each location by bike and making the trip with various friends. "LJR's knee was bugging her for a few days. But now it's better. She darts ahead of Mike and me and pretty soon, she's barely visible. Seeing her like that, a little black dot under a huge Kansas sky, makes me feel like a little black dot, too: small and lonely and lost in space."

Zera and the Green Man - Sandra Knauf, editor of Greenwoman Magazine, has finally published her young adult novel, something she's been working on for more than a decade. Zera is a teenager who discovers that she has a very unique connection with plant life and the earth. The trouble is that her Uncle (who became her legal guardian after her parents died) works in the biotechnology industry, creating bizarre combinations of plants and animals and thereby threatening the ecology of the planet and the future of the human species. An entertaining and important read. There is no print version available, but you can purchase a kindle edition on amazon. Other options may soon be available. Visit Sandra's website for updates.

Weekly Recommendation, Week 51: Digestate

Food and eating is central to our lives, so when 55 comic artists are asked to make a comic about it, it's pretty much a guarantee that they'll have something to contribute. Digestate: A Food and Eating Themed Anthology, published by Birdcage Bottom Books, is the result of such a request, and the comics included are as diverse as the comic artists themselves. Many of the comics have to do with the eating habits of the artists including whether they are meat eaters or vegetarians and why. Some of them are quite serious, pointing out the harsh realities of meat production and factory farming or discussing the reasons why an artist chooses to eat the way they do. Also included are comics that are humorous, endearing, vulgar, or gruesome...or a combination thereof. Some of the comics are based in fact, while others are pure fiction. With so many artists contributing, not all of the contributions are going to be winners, although everyone will have their own likes and dislikes, and so certainly there is something here for everybody. I enjoyed reading the majority of the comics in this book, but the real standout for me was Marek Bennett's "Successful Slaughter!", in which Marek recounts an experience he had in Slovakia making something called "slaughter" with a local family and being served more vodka than he could handle in the process. Another highlight for me was reading the mini-bios of all the artists which included their feeding habits (carnivore, guilt-laden omnivore, pretzel enthusiast, eater of tacos, etc.) Overall, this is a very interesting and entertaining book, and one that I will certainly read through again due to the numerous comic gems that are included.

Weekly Recommendations, Week 43: Brainscan #29 / No More Coffee #4

While I’m not typically a big fan of fiction zines, I found this one to be a good one. Ben of No More Coffee, a strictly fiction zine apparently, initiated this project with Alex Wrekk of Brainscan, challenging her to write a fiction issue of her zine and put it out as a split issue with his zine. Anyone who has ever read an issue of Brainscan (and who in the zine community hasn’t, really?) knows that Brainscan is a deeply personal, non-fiction zine, so producing a fiction issue was indeed a challenge. However, Alex performs famously, writing so much in her personal voice that even though the stories are fiction, they are completely believable and relatable. Alex’s half of this zine alone is reason enough to pick this up. But don’t think for a second that Ben does not also excel. His stories are just as intimate and engrossing. I found myself engaged and interested, despite the fact that it was fiction and that I have a general (and frankly unwarranted) aversion to the genre. The first story – Photographs of the Dead – is especially worth reading. In short, get your hands on a copy of this zine. It’s a rare chance to read Alex’s fiction, but it’s also a great fiction zine overall.