Super Aids

By Hyena

So a while ago I got an email from someone asking if I'd like a copy of their zine. This wasn't that unusual, what was unusual was that the persona asked me to "write a few bad comments" about their zine, because they "love bad reviews".

That was kind of weird, but after getting their zine I can understand why they expect me to write bad things about this. So let's get that out of the way first: I did not enjoy this zine.

Why? Because, as the cover says, it's full of offensive material like sexism, xenophobia, necrophilia, and lots of other stuff. It's satirical of course, and just because there are characters who are cannibals doesn't mean it's promoting that sort of thing.

I actually just read a pretty long piece about a Japanese animated movie (and the comic it was based on)  that featured (amongst other stuff) a dwarf psychic's violent sexual relationship with a twelve year old school girl. That story is apparently a reaction to the idea that tradition and the past were better and more moral than our current society, and I can definitely see that being true. At the same time I'm already aware of the evil that humans can produce, and I don't really see any need to be reminded of that sort of thing (such as the reproduction of news stories in Super Aids of people doing horrible things). To reuse a Hayao Miyazaki quote from that aforementioned article “If the world were truly filled with such hate and destruction, if that were how history was made, then everyone would surely have been dead by the Edo period.”.

But just because all of that applies to a movie, doesn't mean it applies to this comic. However, while this comic is produced from a very different society and culture, you can see parallels in it's parody/rejection of traditions like family and religion. The author uses characters from The Simpsons acting extremely out of character, and the repeatedly desecrates religion just to offend people who believe in that stuff.

The author even goes so far as to repeatedly insult any of the readers who actually enjoy this comic by questioning their intelligence. So I'm sure there is an audience for this sort of thing (including some who will find it hilarious), it's just not me. The one paragraph Kraken rum review in the back was pretty good though.

Donate your zines to the Zine Pavilion at the ALA conference!

I'm one of the people helping with the Zine Pavilion at the American Library Association conference in Chicago from June 27th to July 2nd.

You should check out the Zine Pavilion Tumblr which has lots of photos from last year's pavilion. That's also where we'll be releasing the schedule of readings and other zine events happening during the conference.

If you are interested in donating some zines to the pavilion please send them to:
Sarah G. Wenzel (ALA Zines)
University of Chicago Library
JRL 363
1100 E 57th St
Chicago, IL
60637
USA

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.

What a Whopper

By Dan Archer

www.archcomix.com

It's interesting to think about your own biases and how the decisions you make don't really make sense. I don't remember the last time I ate at, or was even in, a major fast food chain location. Except Subway, which I've grudgingly eaten at while cycling somewhere or just when I forgot to bring lunch to work. Why? Because it's "healthy"? I have no excuse really, as it's the largest chain restaurant in the world, and while their wikipedia page is mostly controversy free I'm pretty sure that as a huge multi-million (billion?) dollar company, they're probably as bad as any other large capitalist corporation. (Though maybe that's my biases showing...)

This comic deals with some of those controversies that large companies frequently deal with (and which most people never hear of or care about). In this case it's slave-labour (or close to it) that's used to pick the vegetables that are served in these "restaurants". The comic communicates this information effectively, beginning with a (true) story about migrant workers trying to escape from the terrible conditions they're dealing with, and then tackling the way the corporations have dealt with these issues.

The issue at hand is how terrible the (frequently illegal) workers who pick these vegetables are paid. They work in appalling conditions, for money that hasn't increased in 25 years. In the case covered here they fought for a 1 cent increase per bucket of tomatoes they harvested. Bringing the total they earned to 51 cents per 32 pound bucket. How much do you think you could earn hauling those around all day? I'm guessing I could make pretty much fuck all.

While the comic eventually concentrates on the actions of the Burger King company to avoid paying any increase to workers (including fining companies who they worked with who agreed to pay their workers extra), other information is also conveyed to the reader. While the conditions the tomato pickers in this comic deal with are deplorable, I already knew that migrant workers dealt with those issues (and more!). But one small throw away piece of information completely blew my mind. 

While discussing a boycott of certain companies who refused to increase the amount workers earned the comic states that "Taco Bell was blocked from 22 college and high school campuses". Maybe nothing in that sentence seems weird to you, but to me? Oh my fuck! High schools have Taco Bells? What the fuck is wrong with society if high schools have fucking fast food restaurants (presumably with high school students working in them)? Underfunding education while lining corporate pockets. Great job everyone, pat yourself on the back.

So yeah, corporations are horrible, capitalism is awful, humans are frequently terrible, but this comic by Dan Archer was pretty good. Even if it made me upset and angry at least it talked about the good that many people and organizations are doing and provided places for people to find more information about the issues.

So in the spirit of that here's some information about Burger King labour controversies, and the Student/Farmworker Alliance who hope to "eliminate sweatshop conditions and modern-day slavery in the fields". I wish them my best.

Alternative Press Spring Fair, North London, June 1st

 
I  was asked to post about this event on my blog. So here are the details!

Alternative Press Spring Fair
Saturday, June 1st, 11am-5pm
The Albert, 1 Albert Road, London
www.alternativepress.org.uk

There's still time to apply for a table, but the deadline for applications is Friday 17th May at 9am (tomorrow!).

Dear Dear

By Eroyn Franklin

eroynfranklin.com

My first time through this comic I wasn't really sure what was going on. The story cuts back and forth between multiple people disjointedly talking into a video camera and telling about an event that happened one night. Like many eye witnesses to events they misremember things, get real events completely wrong, combine real memories with dreams, and come at things from incredibly bizarre points of view.

After I finished reading through the comic I thought about it for a while and tried to figure out what had happened. When it hit me, I went back and checked some stuff and suddenly everything clicked. The seeming nonsense that one person said actually made sense once you were able to filter it back to reality.

I thought this was a really interesting way of telling a story, one that I've seen before (usually in film), but which can be used really effectively by some creators. My only wish is that this comic was much longer. I feel like we get, at most, half of what was going on here, and that if there were more interviews with more characters we could get a fuller sense of the events.

Of course it could be that the creator didn't want to create a more defined account of what happened, and that their goal was to make the reader think and wonder about all the elements of the story that we can never find out about.

One Thousand Lies

By Laura Terry

www.bravesailor.com

This was a cute little story about a travelling itinerant who returns to LA to visit his former guardian, a bit shot lawyer. There's an immediate disconnect between the lives of these two people. One who is constantly dealing with huge piles of money, and the other who has all of their belongings strapped to their back.

The comic is about telling stories, and features the traveller telling increasingly ridiculous stories about some of the places they've visited on their travels. There's a city where the library is where you go for drug deals while intellectuals hang out in the playground providing answers for people, one where the railway tracks separate the mobile part of the city from the permanent part, and a city that was built to reflect the universe, but is now eerily empty.

The rapport between the two main characters is well represented, and you can tell a lot about the relationship between the characters just from their body language and the way they talk to each other. The dialogue and actions manage to reveal a lot about their interests and how they feel about both their own lives, and the lives of each other. That the friendship even exists despite the vast differences in lifestyles says a lot!

The stories are all fun, and even when they're being "creepy", it's still in a humourous way. The art works pretty well for the story it's telling, and Terry is good at making pages of "talking heads" look visually appealing as the characters banter back and forth. I also enjoyed the use of gray shading to give depth and shadow to the artwork.