Krissy of Figure 8 muses about death in this issue of Imaginary Life. The idea of living and leaving and what gets left behind. Both real death and metaphorical death are written in quiet and thoughtful way, woven around some nice old and nicely composed photographs. While Figure 8 is punchy and rebellious, Imaginary Life is like taking a hot bubble bath while listening to Ella Fitzgerald.
How can one build a healthy project, organization, or community without excluding people? This well edited zine discusses different ways that people are excluded. It also teaches you how to recognize and understand power and privilege. Inclusive Organizing also talks about what it means to be an ally, solidarity work, the Jemez Principles, and how to develop an action plan. Includes a unqiue piece of tape on the cover from the authors tape collection!
2ND Edition! The follow up to Green Zine #14; Cristy Road now offers up a novel about her years in grade school and high school in Miami - valiantly trying to figure out and defend her gender identity, cultural roots, punk rock nature, and mortality. You know that the artwork alone in here makes this a page turner and the whole package more exciting. Cristy has always existed to remind us of the strength and ability of punk youth - for addressing things like rape, homophobia, and misogyny. This is no exception; giving voice to every frustrated 15 year old girl under fire from her peers for being queer or butch or punk. ISBN 0-9770557-7-9
Listen to Cristy read some selections of her book from the "Thinkin, Stinkin, Rarely Drinkin" Tour.
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If you are unfamiliar with Infiltration, it's the tale of people going to places where you "aren't supposed to go" like tunnels, sewers, the glass ceiling of the mall, etc. What I found fascinating about this zine is the size of the actual subculture - it's a worldwide phenomenon. It's also neat to know that people have various motives for their exploration and have families at home while they are putting themselves in harm's way. The one thing that I really don't understand is that most of the infiltrators presented here don't seem to mind getting caught in the end as it sort of "completes the cycle" or validates their work. Really interesting. #25 is "Military Leftovers" about exploring military installations. *RIP NINJ*
This zine was recommended to me and it turned out to be quite fantastic. Melissa writes stories exploring the darker side of existence; homelessness, drug abuse, extreme poverty, losing friends, and child abuse. The stories don't always have happy endings but that is life and Melissa does a great job of saying "some people live this way and it is their reality!" The stories are really emotional and touching at times and she does a great job of getting in character. I was thoroughly impressed and this is one of the best zines that I've read in recent memory.
You might have gathered by now that there's a certain fascination among certain members of our staff over the CIA. This doozy of a document is straight up reprints from existing CIA documents acquired under Freedom of Information that are very self-incriminating about their tactics of coercive questioning. Jon Elliston's introduction gives fuller depth to these charges and how this is finally come back to haunt the CIA in recent years - through media analysis about these most basic evils of torture.
It's a new issue of Invincilbe Summer from Nicole J.Georges. Stories and drawings from 2004, 2005 and dipping into this new year. More of what you have come to expect from this fine zine: stories of heartache, housemates, general drama and ups and downs with animal friends. The whole things is tied together romantically with the thoughts of past preset and future with whimsical hand drawn images.
Nicole J Georges does it again - her own style of diary comic about a trip to Vermont, tooth decay, a sandwich review, animal portraits, a break up with the woman she was in love with and promised to wed, a pumpkin cheesecake recipe, getting kicked out of her band, and pushed into a metaphorical solo rowboat in an ever-expanding ocean - only to be comforted by her loving doggies. Nicole has a definite talent for expressing line emotion and showing an illustrated perspective on life that many of us do not get to see.
Nicole J. Georges captures her adventures and thoughts in unique, heartfelt illustrations & stories. Five years of dog mothering, chicken raising, coffee-shop crushes, drama, low paying jobs, heartbreaking romance, inspiring friendships, vegan snacks, & more! This exhaustive collection will take the reader on a whirlwind tour through Nicole's personality, wit, and charm! This second edition collects issues #1-8 of her zine and features 38 new, additional pages! Recently featured on the Sister Spit tour! ISBN 978-0-9726967-6-0
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The usual doggies, sheep, and elephants wearing clothes - but this volume, collecting issues #9-14 of Nicole Georges’ comic, focuses around a relationship. It begins, blossoms, and then falls apart - as she sails solo on the ocean, pictorially speaking. The first Invincible Summer character to use a real name goes from hero to villain in these 5 issues. We're also treated to the usual vegan recipes, priceless moments, friendships, humor, fashion, and heart from this rad Portland lady.
Nicole J Georges gives us our monthly doses of cute cows, kissing giraffes, tender birds, crowned owls, bird migrations, tea drinking, and rabbits and foxes wearing clothes in this calendar for 2008! Do you never remember when World Book Day is or one of Nicole's pet's birthdays? Never forget again with this hanging on your wall!
Triggering is the first word I would use to describe this zine, so be aware! This is a compilation zine of personal accounts of sexual assault. There are graphic descriptions that make my stomach turn but I also felt a sense of pride for these people being so strong and willing to share their stories. Interspersed between the stories are poems and lyrics about rape and recovery as well as a reading list. Some of the writers are not native English speakers which adds a sense of sadness to the terrorizing universal-ness of rape and abuse that happens in our world.
From Katie and Stewart comes, "I'm Sorry But I Love You Both, " a collection of drawings from the notebooks of children. They found the notebooks in a pile of trash and plan to make more zines from them as time goes on. The formating is really sharp, with an image of each notebook's cover preceding a series of drawings found in that notebook. This would probably be popular with fans of Found magazine. Highlights include the pages, "Robert lost his shirt," "It's lunch time stae out of my lunch," and "Hammerhead sharks are in most attack!" This zine isn't meant to be ironic, just touching for what it is. We can't wait to see more.
This is a new, book form, edition of a text previously published in pamphlet form. This is a major biographical study, which refutes the standard "American" version of Harriet Tubman's life. At a time when violence against women of color is at the center of world politics, uncovering the censored story of one Amazon points to answers that have nothing to do with government programs, police, or patriarchal politics.
Several documents by these fabulous "Jane" women talking about the group's illegal activities: learning how to perform abortions, teaching themselves and others the skill, and ultimately providing abortions (and support) for thousands of women in the Chicago area. Truly impressive work that was equally risky and still relevant to learn about today.
Same content, with color cover!
They say it's impossible to pick favorite children. I stewed a few hours on the process and decided on a pretty decent and mixed selection of zines I liked - Avow #11, 3.05 Metres: A Ten Foot Rule Primer, Ideas in Pictures #5, Mayorga #44, Murder Can Be Fun #12, OJ Killed Elvis #4, Papercutter #4, Revolutionaries, End of a Perfect Day #8, & Xtra Tuf #5
Don't know what to order? Here's a helpful hint! Sometimes people don't notice some of our special little titles!
Steve Gevurtz has been publishing his very Portland-centric zine journalsong for a while now about trying to deal with the bad things and appreciate the good things in life. #6 is a meditation on the nature of zinewriting. Oh yeah, it's also about wishing you could believe in jesus, conversing with a glass of whiskey, beating up your friend's stupid boyfriend, contextualizing instant rice and beans, burning down Williamsburg, overtipping tiny bartenders, deciding to fall in love with someone right when they decide to fall out of love with you, and hanging out with Warren G. Steve's storytelling just keeps getting better and better. The zine is accompanied by beautiful and cute drawings by Nicole Georges of Invincible Summer fame. We've respected Steve's writing, aesthetics, and ethics for quite some time and felt that it was our time to work together.
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Theresa, Jillian, and Shelley are big fans of quizzing games and here's some quizzes they've written for your enjoyment. You can figure out which one of them you are most similar to, which mid-90s riot grrrl subculture you most resemble, what's your perfect vacation destination?, how cute are you?, are you a know it all?, which back to the future character are you?, what kind of crusher are you?, what's your perfect tea?, are you a slob?, and most importantly - the tool of quizzing for seduction. There's a bonus article about the bible being packaged as a teen magazine. It's extremely entertaining, fun, and social. An excuse to make friends and play games with them, you lonely zinester.
Jumping the Line offers a vivid first-hand account of Left culture in America's heady days of the 20s through the 40s. William Herrick grew up in New York City with pictures of Lenin above his crib. He provides colorful reminiscences of riding the rails with other hobos during the Depression, of organizing Black sharecroppers in the South, of his time on the anarchist collective Sunrise Farm, where his political ideals of communal living and self-sufficiency were tested by the very real demands of agricultural work on a city boy, up through his tumultuous relationship with his employer, Orson Wells.
The bulk of the book focuses on Herrick's involvement during the Spanish Civil War. Like many of his communist comrades, Herrick went to Spain to fight for freedom. His experiences as part of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade shattered his political world forever. Herrick saw in Spain that the Brigades and their Stalinist masters were fighting not for freedom, but against it by executing the freedom fighting anarchists. His accounts of Spain provoked great controversy when the Village Voice ran an interview in 1986. This full account of this wartime in Spain provoked Paul Berman to call him "our American Orwell." Super special low price!
While comparisons to "Craphound" are inevitable, "Junk Pirate" is its own entity. Plumbing a fine line between "art book", "clip art", and "interesting ephemera", Junk Pirate confounds, entertains, and gives you new fodder for your burgeoning need for the perfect image or pile of weird books. Photos that speak a thousand words, yearbook writings, and weird out-dated clip art that baffles.
Hope takes us in into and onto the desolate, hurricane ravaged city streets of New Orleans. This is what a recovering community looks like without the old faces. Neighbors come and neighbors go, roving packs of dogs and riding bikes down empty streets by the putrid odor of the rot. Friends come back or bond closer in a world peppered with nostalgia and well...hope.
We follow along as the city empties. We follow along as the city surives. We follow along as our author navigates the difficulties of New Orleans rebuilding. Going away and coming back; home is never the same and memories lines every curve.
Hope and John team up on this split zine reflecting on hurricane Katrina. Both long-time New Orleans residents, each has to come to terms with loss in their own way. John evacuates, travels, and returns, while Hope stays, applies to school, works, and lives on as best she can. Both Hope and John take their time here, and present a somber account of life after a natural disaster. There is also a special memorial for Helen Hill. Their words embody what it means to be human, each story picking up another piece, and slowly putting their world back together.
I always have a hard time describing Kerbloom without revealing too much. Although it's often considered short, I think it's genius is in it's length...it perfectly replicates the end of an intimate conversation between two people late at night. It's that moment right as the sun's coming up when an entire night of ruminating culminates in one great final thought. It is the last thing you say, before standing up, smiling wistfully, and going inside to sleep through the morning. Kerbloom is intimate and beautiful. All 8 pages are letterpress printed, as well as the cover. This issue is about artnoose's love of the bay area, leaving, and the concept of family.
After issue #67 subtitled, "Why I Stay," comes #68, "...and Why I'm Leaving." artnoose explains as gently and firmly as possible her reasons for moving to Pittsburgh. It's not a flighty decision. In fact it's carefully weighed, and has been a year in the making. She's loved the Bay Area like a significant other, entrenching herself in her home indefinitely. Until it became apparent that in order to pursue her dreams, and complete the projects she imagines, she'll need more space, and more space costs money, and so on. Kerbloom #68 is a sweet zine about opportunity, change, and finding what makes you ultimately happy.