Zine Reviews: August '13

Death Is When The Monsters Get You #1

Edited by Kat Williams, Swansea – stephenkingfanzineATgmail.com
I love this zine so much, and not just because it was created by one of my close friends!  DIWTMGY is a Stephen King fanzine, and features a selection of opinion pieces discussing aspects of King’s work, including mental illness, female archetypes, grief, mythology, and the success of the movie adaptations of King’s novels.  I love the layouts – Kat uses photocopied sections from relevant King books as backgrounds, and uses a mixture of different typewritten fonts and handwritten sections.  If you’re a King fan, I can’t recommend this zine enough!  Kat is also looking for people to contribute to issue 2, so if you have something to say, get in touch at the email address above.

Make It Work #1 and #2

Edited by Kirsty Fife, London -http://www.etsy.com/shop/kirstywinters
Make It Work is a compzine dedicated to DIY fashion and style for plus-sized women (“fatshion”), with a focus on body-positivity, self-care, and resisting the mainstream.  Both issues are very densely-packed, which at £1.50 a pop makes this zine great value for money!  #1 includes advice articles on topics including how to shop on the high street, buying and repurposing second-hand clothes, crafting tutorials, advice on DIY event organising, as well as introspective pieces by the authors on life as a fat woman, and the struggles and prejudice faced on a daily basis.  #2 has more great craft tutorials and resources, along with more political articles on radical vanity, the subjectivity and hierarchies of taste, gender play, fat-shaming, and mental health.  I adore this zine series so much, and wish it could be mass-distributed, as everyone deserves to be told that they don’t need to fit into the limited body aesthetics that mainstream media offers us.  Favourite quote, from the introductory page of #1: “Making it work is about more than just clothes – it’s about finding ways to live and love a body that you are brought up to hate. It’s about choosing to survive and fight, to be visible”.

Feeling Alone #2
Human Bean Zines, Surrey – www.etsy.com/shop/humanbeanzines
Feeling Alone #1 was published in July 2012, and detailed the author’s struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder and their stay at a psychiatric hospital.  Feeling Alone #2 takes place exactly a year later, and we read about the author’s progress with their mental health over the 12 months following their hospitalisation.  Some topics covered include counselling, coping with Atos and DWP assessments, mentalisation-based treatment, the benefits of occupational therapy, and taking on more activities in their life, including volunteer work and roller derby.  With mostly hand-written with some sweet hand drawings, it feels incredibly intimate, and the author documents their journey with honesty and clarity.

Ghost Fuck #2
Edited by Lizzy, Bournemouth – http://ghostfuckzine.tumblr.com
This is one of my favourite EVER zines in terms of layout style!  The style is arty and chaotic - lots of typewritten words and phrases cut and pasted all over the place, bits pasted in upside down, lopsided columns of text, striking black crosses and triangles used throughout.  It’s difficult to describe, but it looks amazing, one of my fave zines to look at!  Having said that, there are 2 things that bother me – 1, the zine is just titled “Ghost Fuck”, without an issue number (I had to search through the website archive to find out which issue was which), and 2, there’s no intro or outro outlining what the zine is and what it’s about, which I always think is a useful addition to a zine.  The content is mostly DIY feminism, with pieces on girl-hate, pornography, queer club nights, the Bechdel Test, and riot grrrl.

untitled and Negative Land
Elodie, Newcastle-Upon-Tyne - applejackAThotmail.fr
Elodie's untitled zine is mostly an artzine, but feels very personal – it reminds me a lot of an art journal, with mixed media layouts, handwritten notes, disjointed poetic prose, hand drawings, cut and paste typewritten lines of text, and photographs.  All bound together within a white tracing paper cover, it feels very delicate and intimate, a lovely thing to get lost in for a few minutes.  Negative Land is a photozine created by Elodie in collaboration with 3 other friends, and features colour photographs of different scenes from England and Paris, including beaches, parks, cozy living spaces, woodland, and city streets.  Both are free, so if you want a copy, drop Elodie a line at the email address above.