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The Inbetweens II


By Shriveling Press

I'm of the opinion that art zines live and die on their reproduction.

This isn't to say that an art zine has to be printed in colour on glossy paper, but that the presentation matches the intent of the creator. Sometimes grainy black and white photocopies are the best way to see certain types of art because that's how they're supposed to be seen.

"So," you may be wondering, "does the reproduction on The Inbetweens II portray the art in an effective and attractive way?". The answer is unfortunately "no".

The contents of this zine are mostly reproductions of colour paintings and photographs. And while the actual pieces seem, in some cases, pretty nice, it's hard to say for sure because they're printed in a grainy and blurry way with all the vagaries and limitations of an ink jet printer.

Even the black and white pieces suffer because they seem to have been scanned, and then printed, in colour. Instead of true black and white, they end up being made up of endless dirty browns and greys. While this can be used to good effect in some cases, here it seems more an accident of the process, and not a conscious decision.

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by bachan | Thu, 26/04/2012 - 06:11

Gadgie #25


By Marv
PO Box 93
Boston
Lincolnshire
PE21 7YB
England

Ah, Gadgie zine. The perfect reading material for people that love page after page of tiny text with no paragraph breaks.

I'm being a little harsh, as some of the content here is quite good, but turning the page and seeing two solid columns of tiny text with no breaks is kind of daunting to start reading. I think the reading experience would definitely be improved by Marv starting to use the return key a bit more frequently.

Gadgie is a punk music zine, and like many zines in that sub-genre it includes numerous reviews of cds, records, and shows, interviews with people in the punk scene, rants, and general news about the punk scene in and around the town where the creator lives (in this case Boston, UK). It's probably far more interesting if you listen to a lot of punk music, and always want to find new bands that you'd never hear on the radio or see on TV, but that's not really me.

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by bachan | Wed, 25/04/2012 - 03:07

Ollyollyoxenfree! #3


Edited by Cheyenne Neckmonster and someone else

I really like games. I run a gaming club, play videogames, have made my own copies of various games, and play Magic the Gathering (yes, I am that big of a nerd, I don't buy the cards at least).

Based on all of this though, you can probably see that I'm more fond of games that involve sitting down, and not too much running around. (While this makes me sound incredibly lazy, I'm not! I've played soccer and ultimate frisbee fairly extensively, just not recently...)

I'm getting off topic. The games in this zine are very much the type I remember playing as a kid at summer camps and friends' houses. There are hide and seek variations, circle games, games were you have to jump on people's shadows, games about music, and more.

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by bachan | Fri, 20/04/2012 - 01:16

Billy the Dunce


By Jason Week
www.duncepress.com

I really love it when a comic or zine I don't have high expectations for is really awesome. And Billy the Dunce is one such comic! (I wasn't going for a fake out with that opening line.)

This comic features an all to brief look at the world that Week has created. Billy is a not so bright guy who ended up at an incredibly prestigious school after he aced an IQ test entirely by luck. He's stuck hanging out with a few super geniuses, a magic user, a baby succubus, and a surprisingly friendly zombie.

In the few brief strips in here the characters that appear seem to be fairly one-dimensional (the idiot, the genius, the stuck up guy), but I think it's important to note that there isn't very much space to explore each of the characters.

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by bachan | Wed, 18/04/2012 - 14:44

Sniffin' Glue #7, 1977


 

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by bachan | Wed, 18/04/2012 - 00:42

Black Sea Sickness


By FJ XA (I think)

This is one of those zines that I thought looked really cool on first impression, but the more time I spent with it, the less I actually enjoyed it.

The cover seems really neat, using harsh blacks, with zipatone style shading (which I love!). The same style is continued inside, and at times it reminded me of art by Nikki Stu and Warwick Johnson Cadwell. (Both of whom I've utterly lost track of since moving back to Candada, dang.)

But while the art looks fine for all those huge solid blacks, any time it goes into more delicate linework a major problem arises. It's really fucking pixely and ugly. And not awesome pixel art, but just that the lines are incredibly jagged. I think the art work must have been scanned in at too low a resolution, as I can't really imagine the author wanting their work to look like this.

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by bachan | Tue, 17/04/2012 - 14:49

Financially Hard Times #10


By Tom Casson
tomcassonillustration.blogspot.com

This issue of the Financially Hard Times tells of the far flung future of 2022. The world has avoided total economic collapse by allowing Facebook to run everything, TV no longer exists because everyone just watches YouTube, and the only shops left are Subways (which sell alcohol!), Tescos (a supermarket chain), and Apple.

Each page features an illustration of the world of the future. There are Hollywood style signs promoting Facebook, corporate logos on everything, and general urban decay as every shop closes down.

The best joke is on the final page. It says that gravestones have been replaced with giant iPads which show your Facebook timeline: "Passers by can view past status' and browse through pictures of happier days". Terrifying, because it seems so possible.

by bachan | Mon, 16/04/2012 - 14:44

Clientele Zine (New York NY) 1983

download

by Sterk | Mon, 16/04/2012 - 00:45

Nihilistic Vices #1, 1979

IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS SWEET F.A.
THEN WE GOT UP AND PRODUCED
NIHILISTIC VICES

So, 'Not Just A Fanzine' eh? Well I am inclined to agree. It has the feel of a Toxic Graffitti or some such - though not quite as dense as TG. Contributors for issue 1 include Jonny Cretin, Grolly Green, Tarka the Otter, Dibblewacky and Dormouse - I wish I had their real names. Anyway, NV is a great non-fanzine featuring: short pieces on Nuclear Power, drugs (socially acceptable and otherwise), ethical dressing with Punky Plimmies, the Tories coming to power in So, Maggie Snatcher's in, and The Nihilistic Vices' Guide to Street Credibility; The Great Rock 'N' Roll Bore cartoon; controversial singles in the shape of The Clash - Cost Of Living EP, The Damned - Love Song, XRay Spex - Inflammable Material, Chas & Dave - Gertcha, and ATV - The Force is Blind; 7"s - The Mekons, The Pack, Crisis, Bauhaus, Spizz Energi, UK Decay/Pneumania, Gloria Mundi, and The Wall; LPs - UK Subs, Punishment of Luxury, Joy Division, Gary Numan, Tubeway Army, and The Fall; poetry; interesting collage; live review of Slaughter & the Dogs; and a review of Patrik Fitzgerald's, Poems.

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by bachan | Thu, 12/04/2012 - 19:40