Korinna Irwin (Remainder of Zero) and Alex Wrekk (Brainscan and Stolen Sharpie Revolution) put this zine together in only one week from writing and editing the stories to doing the layouts late at night at the IPRC.
Birthdays and Christmas has stories about personal hair dyeing history, Alex's mother's attempt to connect to the DIY world, an obsessive european waiter boy, misplaced kisses, girl jealousy, and sexist bike jock boys.
Korinna's half, Faking Distance, has stories of crazy high school friends, riot grrrls, office temp work, karoake adventures, a letter to her deceased cat, and a story about boys and privilege.
I'd have to say that for the small amount of time Korinna and Alex put this together, the quality of the writing and layout is really great.
Contains more thoughts about marriage, interpretations of life, androgeny, thoughts on feminism, age, stories of travel, punk rock love, and the usual musings and reflections on relationships. A collection of punk filtered ramblings. A literary format telling stories from a girl with too many typewriters. Demonstrates a lot of real life experience and Alex Wrekk draws from old stories to make good points.
An introspective look at Alex Wrekk's July of 2002; including writing on the planning of the Portland Zine Symposium, the IPRC?s high school zine camp, and the actual event of the Zine Symposium. A weekend full of houseguests, communication, connection and late night porch sessions. It also includes volunteering at the Rock ?N? Roll camp for girls where Alex helped teach workshops on zines. This zine also contains reflections on zine community involvement and evolution over the years, thoughts on the guerilla mental health awareness workshop at the Zine Symposium, and an update on Joe & Alex's DIY wedding. It also includes a preview to Brainscan #20, a travel zine. This zine is surprisingly text heavy for Brainscan but still has high contrast cut and paste layout. Includes the very limited Brainscan 18.5.
This zine is about reflection and synthesis of location and it's effect on the human condition. It's full of stories that fit nicely into a venn diagram. There are stories about Alex Wrekk living in Utah, stories about living in Portland, and stories that merge the two; illuminating that Utah always finds her or that she's always managing to find it. Other themes are home and place through stories about personal ghosts, lost friendship, late night adventures, a coffeeshop, heartache, drinking, and the untimely demise of her bicycle, Jamie; exploring the connections between cyclists and the city streets they love. Quarter sized with letter pressed covers and continues the tradition from last issue of being very text heavy with high contrast cut and paste layout.
Brown american apparel with lavendar ink.
A supplemental issue that Alex did with her sister about her sister's upcoming surgery.
"Beautifully handmade with a photo stitched to the front. Well thought out pieces and great layout." -Shawn
"There's a reason why this is a lot of people's favorite zine." -Charisma
"I <3 Brainscan; It's my very favorite zine. Hehe. I am showing my friends and they like it too. I really love #15, the two minizines; so good!" -Nilda
"Walk the plank of love."
"Every broken heart...has a silver lining."
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Take care of your innards!
After another long hiatus, Alex Wrekk is back - this time teamed up with Fall of Autumn conspirator Alan Lastufka to bring us a split zine themed around the seasons. Alan's great writing ability coupled with Alex's layout skills create a beautiful final product that rolls off the tongue and makes you grin and relate to their love and misery. A special treat for any season.