Keith is a fabulous storyteller and has stories to tell! Plenty about being broke beyond broke, getting into brawls, taking care of his friends, getting drunk, male privilege, and having guns pointed at him. This issue is a downer issue of stories and reviews - his dad just passed away and his girlfriend broke up with him. There's humor relief moments too - buying the new Tim Armstrong album (with some embarrassment) and going to see an old ancient punk band for free. Don't get me wrong, Keith has some knowledge and understanding kicking around his brain, probably from just kicking planet Earth for awhile and he seems to have learned a lot from the hardcore community, doing artwork for Submission Hold, HeartattaCk, Against Me!, and more! A fun read.

A sincere and zealous protestation against the overabundance of motorized carriages together with some suggestions towards the elimination of this scourge in the form of an open letter to all motorists being at once manifesto and manifestation of the outlawed Pedestrian Freedom Front. A bleedin' classic!

What a great idea! Instead of bombing folks because we don't understand them (or because we think we can conquer them), let's EAT with them instead! This zine focuses on the many nations that Amerikkka has sought to dominate. For each country there is information about US interventions followed by traditional/popular recipes from said land. A good way to expand your cuisine, try new spices and bond with your community. Please note: not all recipes are vegetarian, but you can substitute your favourite fake meat for those that aren't.

Once a strong Los Angeles kid boxer headed to the Olympics, now in Maximum Security Prison - Joey Torrey was pressured to collaborate with the FBI to "clean up boxing" and paid back with empty promises and a forseeable future in prison - or murdered for being a snitch! Joey discovered zines in prison and decided that this was how he wanted to publish his memoir - and boy does he have stories to tell! He grew up on the streets of Compton where he learned to box. Now he lives in the pen between Sirhan Sirhan and Charles Manson (whom he answers mail for). Told in his own words to the few people that he trusted, his story is finally broadcast.

Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but I really like reading cookbooks and cookzines and this first issue of Ashley Rowe's half-size cookzine is so freakin' cute. Packed with a really nice balance of essays about food and recipes for cooking stuff up, this is a good place to start for folks just learning to cook vegan. Learn how to make a basic white sauce, your own seitan, a basic vegs mac'n'cheese, cornbread and cookies. But, you know, folks who have been vegan for awhile will most definitely benefit from nice variations for standard recipes like the "Cinnamon Buns of Doom." Is it just me or does everything in this zine sound delicious?! Also, Ashley includes a handy restaurant guide for pretty much the whole state of California.

For Ashley Rowe resistance is tasty and no doubt once you try out these little recipes, your resistance will taste good, too. Round 2 includes holiday recipes for gravy and taters, plus stuffing and baked apples. Some of my favorite from this time around include super easy vegan fudge, potatoes au gratin and, oh geez...stuffed shells! Whether you're a brand new baby vegan or an old veteran vegan, you've gotta read this, then totally take her up on the vegan challenge!

An excellent first-time resource, round 3 of this super cute zine includes recipes for any time of the day or night. One of the many strengths of this cookzine is how Ashley works with ingredients that are available to folks without access to a fancy health food store. Some highlights include: tons of baked (and no bake) sweets, two soups, a roots'n'greens saute and a dirty rice recipe designed to feed a whole bunch of folks for all you FNB types. I don't know about you, but I can't wait to go home and try the Gringa Tortilla Soup recipe. With simply adorable food-inspired illustrations in the style of "Soy not Oi!," this handy half-size is sure to please...

Yet another excellent issue from Ashley, round 4 of this super cute zine includes recipes that might be handpicked for the winter and early spring. Some highlights include: a bean salad with avocado vinaigrette, a garlicky tofu spread, shepherd's pie, plus a corn chowda recipe that can be easily doubled or tripled for cold cold nights!

Like other issues, she makes sure to cook with ingredients that are available to folks without access to a fancy health food store. This zine is probably most valuable to new cooks or new vegans or new vegan cooks, but old-timers will appreciate Ashley's insight. Packed with the cute illustrations and endearing asides that we've come to expect from this zine, I bet you'll really like it. I do.

A strangely addictive perzine, with a "Big-Hands"-y feel. Not as misanthropic or over-analytical, but more upbeat and "making punk culture into mythology"-like. It's got that "we dance to anthemic records and moon people" feel to it...because the author does both of those things. Honestly, it had been a while since we got a perzine about traveling and rocking out (other than "Next Stop Adventure" #2) and felt like we just had to have it. You know how it is. Author Dave goes to Dublin and Stratford, (yes, in Europe) but spends most of his time traveling around the south, specifically South Carolina where he makes his home. Posi-core is making a comeback.

Jen Angel lends us her wisdom and experience in a retrospective tell-all about her years behind Clamor Magazine and the successes and mistakes they discovered. It gives us a bearing on how we could handle our own projects and make more informed decisions about things like distribution, funding, communicating, and collaborating with our peers. Other topics include interpersonal dynamics, geography, and standing up against American Apparel.

A brief look at a number of important questions facing heterosexual men who don't want to go along with sexist ideas about how to have sexual relationships. Why should women be the only ones thinking about this?

This 280 page tome collects the entirity of Avow zine issues #11 through 16 and selected entries from the first ten issues as well. Avow is a collection of artwork and stories. Keith owes a few nods graphically to Aaron Cometbus but does a lot of his own ink drawings to develop more on creating his own style. He has done unique artwork for Microcosm, Submission Hold, Against Me!, HeartattaCk zine, and plenty more. His stories cut into the darker side of life growing up in a small coastal fishing town and the mischief that ensues. He reminisces about the days when demo tapes were commonplace and CD-Rs were non-existent, puts a good spin on his tales of figuring out how to obtain his next meal, and learns a lot from society, the hardcore community, and college that he employs into the analysis in his writing. Keith is a great storyteller and does a good job of deeply probing his brain to share these stories. ISBN 0-9726967-4-1

Shawn Granton writes the long-running and consistently awesome Ten Foot Rule zine!

Top Ten Things to Know About This Zine:

1.Shawn is a talented illustrator

2.Shawn used to have an exciting mustache

3.There's a whole lotta bike trips

4.There's a whole lotta biking in general

5.There's a glowing tent that cures seasonal affective disorder

6.There are multiple appearances by "the man"

7.This is my favorite daily comic zine, ever

8.Shawn is not a hippie! No more long hair/mustache!

9."Special cookies" are bad news

10.This zine really is better looking than a blog

"The magazine for kids and their parents", created by a father and daughter team that is stealing many hearts in Portland. You may remember them from "$100 & A T-Shirt" as the wise 9 year old and her stapling dad, who named the zine after a deceased family dog.

Writing together we hear both of their voices echoing loud and clear, sharp with personality. Somewhere between Highlights, Dishwasher, and Mother Jones, we hear about some local neighbors who collect things, baseball curses, a woman who owns a hat shop, guesses as to the early history of their house, the "Black Peppercorns" (very young PDX rockers), and more. Always a treat.

"The magazine for kids and their parents" is created father and daughter team, Ali and Bill Donahue and responsible for the theft of many hearts in Portland. You may remember them from their appearance in "$100 & A T-Shirt" as the wise 9 year old and her stapling dad.

Writing together we hear both of their voices echoing loud and clear, sharp with personality. Somewhere between Highlights, Dishwasher, and Mother Jones. We hear about a 100 mile bicycle trip, the story of a bike mechanic, cycling as freedom, an interview with cat-loving artist Tom Cramer, and more! Always a treat.

Sadly, I announce that Biff #5 is the last Biff ever!!! Allie and her dad started Biff when Allie was 8 years old, but now four years later, Allie states she's ready for something new. She wants more time to work on her writing club, her garden, and to raise her baby chicks. But before it's all said and done, here's one more great issue of Biff, this time focused on religion. There are interviews with a tweenaged atheist, and a trip to a bat mitzvah, visits to 4 different evangelical churches. There are also two different stories that serve as obituaries, one about the reporter Ryszard Kapuscinski, and another for Bill Donahue's uncle, William Joseph Donahue. This issue is eclectic and sweet, and it is truly a shame to see Biff go.

For some strange reason we never carried Big Hands #3 before...but now we do!! #3 is a bunch of Aaron's comics about working overnight in a donut shop. Cresent Donut is a local Bloomington 24 donut shop who's donuts may or may not be vegetarian. Is "Cresent"spelled wrong on purpose or is it a family name? We may never know. Anyway Aaron writes about the drunks and weirdos who frequent his job in the night time, as well as his boss busting him for reading on the clock. It's charming in a non-dismissive way. Like I really seriously think it charms. Also I mean it's about donuts dude. C'mon, they are one of punk subculture's most defining foods. (for better or worse)

Where has this zinester been all my life? Aaron is a little cynical about life... and yet he seems to really appreciate humanity. I'm tired of holier than thou hipsters writing about how stupid people are. Only over confident egotists and family members get a slashing in this zine.

Aaron, like so many of us, is lost in life, traveling because there's no where to stop. Wanting to stop but yet when you do you get so uncomfortable you need to move again. Hoping one day you will find a place, a life that will embrace you.

Aaron leaves Portland and eventually ends up at a family reunion in Mississippi. He hangs out with other family outcasts, contemplating the fact that his life has been even more unfulfilling than his fucked up cousin's.

Great writing, it's both sad and humorous. I want to get past issues...

A new issue of Big Hands, finds our author just as frustrated and perceptive as ever. Back in North Carolina, Aaron flashes back to not-quite-romances gone sour and old teenage routines of free movies and food samples. There's aimless driving in beat-up cars, a single chat line rendezvous gone wrong, and a walk through the night mist with a girl from a party. The stories in this zine are achingly nostalgic and yet still intelligently reflective. Big Hands epitomizes that hopeful stagnation of knowing what we want, and knowing this isn't it.

Big Hands 5.5 is something special and a little different. Aaron, in his first piece of rock criticism, chronicles the history of the band Chumbawamba. From their infamy as the "I get knocked down, but I get up again band," to their more overtly subversive material...but then again, what's more subversive than infiltrating the Billboard top 40 with a song that seems to be from an average joe like you and I? You're wearing your hat backwards, pumping the keg when, Surprise! They're Anarchists! This issue is the usual witty introspection, but with more of a focus. There's a version of this zine with a bootleg Chumbawamba tape. This version doesn't come with a cassette, but there'll be one as soon as Aaron dubs some more. So if you're dying for the tape, wait and buy that version. If you'd rather not spend the extra $4, then get this one.

Big Hands #6 is more of the consistent, thoughtful writing we've come to expect from Aaron. The Moravians were a group of Protestants that settled in what is now Piedmont, North Carolina in the 1700's. Aaron compares his own penchant for self-destructiveness to that of the Morvarians, and postulates that perhaps it's all a matter a geography. We're also treated to Thanksgiving memories, and another boring party, gone to out of obligation, so that it seems Aaron's life is more a matter of tradition than anything else, even if they're traditions he despises.

Radical, direct, and clear, this skinny little pamphlet will stop you right in your well-intentioned tracks. Alex Ziegler clearly puts the biofuel movement into frightening historical perspective, deconstructing the "myth of progress" and revealing it as mere reactionary response to the depletion of resources. Consumption is consumption, whether it be of blood-stained petrol or of palm oil harvested from former rain forests, and the U.S. consumes more than any other nation and leaves millions impoverished or worse. I'll keep my bike, thanks.

Expozine Best English Zine Award Winner 2008! A social history and tactics lesson about the Critical Mass bicycle movement. Initially meant to serve as a lesson for the unaware, this document is a refresher and motivator about the movement. The biggest question - "is Critical Mass a protest or a celebration?" is explored in extensive detail here and in submission pieces by Ted White (early Critical Mass co-founder and director of "We aren't blocking Traffic!" documentary), Ayleen Crotty (co-host of the KBOO bike show), Scott Larkin (Go By Bicycle zine) , and more. There are also extensive reprints from the 1995 Critical Mass zine "Hey! Get Out of Our Way!" that updates the text and ideas. Illustrations (on every page!) by Matt Gauck, Fly, Sparky Taylor, Andy Singer, a clipping from "The Oregonian", and more!

In this zine, a rising journalist and punk from Columbus, OH compiles stories from his early contributions to The Ohio State's "The Lantern" student newspaper, The Columbus Alternative Weekly Paper "The Alive", and New York Press. Stories include activists who conserve by eating roadkill, low-life lovers attending costume parties, a man's quest to visit 1,000 bars in one year, underground designer denim dealing, etc. Always hilarious and gripping, Bret Liebendorfer's writing never fails to be entertaining. Pick it up and look for more!

After serving as editor for Emma Goldman's Mother Earth, Alexander Berkman moved to San Francisco and started his own newspaper. This historical facsimile reprint of the complete 29 issues in their entirety (typos, ads, and all!) features articles, letters, news, and editorials by Berkman and his revolutionarily-minded contemporaries. Topics include the political trial of labor activists Mooney-Billings, a profile of Pancho Villa, the imprisonment of the Magon brothers, the arrests of Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger for birth control agitation, and anti-conscription actions. Complete with the original powerful political artwork and photos, this new edition includes an introduction by Emma Goldman Papers archivist Barry Pateman, who provides a lengthy contextual essay, explaining Berkman's life at the time, the social and political situation, and his ever-torturous relationship with Emma Goldman.