Mallory Gevaert, Author at ALARM

Zine Scene: Scam

Erick Lyle: Scam (Microcosm, 7/1/10)

Erick Lyle, a.k.a. “Iggy Scam,” has made a living out of living for free (and teaching others how to do it too). Since 1991, when he distributed the first issue of Scam in any way that he could — appropriately enough using stolen postage stamps and mail scams — Lyle has shown punks the possibilities of squatting, stealing, and resisting the restrictions of capitalist, corporatist America. The first four issues of Scam are now available in a hefty, polished paperback volume from Microcosm, ready for a new generation of punks to carry on the fight.

Based on his experiences of living in a shared “punk house” in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and later squatting with girlfriend Ivy in Miami, Lyle has collected a lot of knowledge and stories about dumpster diving, spray painting, shoplifting, and avoiding cops. Scam is incredibly dense and referential; most of it is handwritten in various stages of legibility, and it seems to be directed almost exclusively at the early ’90s Floridian reader. But its stories of free and (not so) easy living will be compelling for anyone who has ever thought of rejecting society’s rules and dropping out of the system.

Like any zine, there are letters to the editor — or more often, reprinted court summons — as well as book and music reviews, comics, and short stories. Accounts of scams done well and scams gone awry are balanced with a good amount of practical advice. By now, most of the scams are outdated; this was 1991, when UPC barcodes were just coming into their own, and many stores didn’t bother with entryway scanners.

Zine Scene: Zinester’s Guide to NYC

Ayun Halliday: Zinester’s Guide to NYC: The Last Wholly Analog Guide to NYC (Microcosm, 11/1/10)

The Zinester’s Guide to NYC claims to be “the last wholly analog guide to NYC,” but more importantly, it’s a wonderful corrective to the Fodor’s and Frommer’s of the world. Chock-full of secret spots, advice, and things to see and do and eat, Zinester’s Guide is truly like having a best friend (or several dozen of them with competing viewpoints) show you around their native boroughs. Edited by Ayun Halliday (of East Village Inky fame) and created with comics, suggestions, and submissions from more than 50 other zine writers, Zinester’s Guide is an amazing amalgam of personal stories, rants and raves, and more.

Deeply familiar with where to go (and, more importantly, where not to), these natives know the city like no one else, as evidenced by a description of Art Bar in Greenwich Village: “This place is stellar. It’s not a scene bar. The wait staff is helpful and attentive. The back room, complete with fireplace, feels like someone’s basement. The Last Supper painting, featuring Jim Morrison as Jesus, is intriguing. – Heath Row.” This book truly seems like it would help the novitiate find places and things to do that they never would otherwise.

Zine Scene: Susie Cagle’s Nine Gallons

Susie Cagle: Nine Gallons #1 & 2 (Microcosm)

We all want to make a difference in the world. Susie Cagle, the graphic journalist of Nine Gallons, rightly addresses the complexity and contradictory nature of this desire — and the joys of fulfilling it. Even when we help others, our motives will be questioned. We’ll wonder if we’re doing enough and then if we’re doing too much. Through her work with volunteer-based organization Food Not Bombs, Cagle’s encounters with other workers and the homeless of San Francisco (who are really just “camping”) show the difficulties of changing the world and articulating to yourself what that means.

In both issues of Nine Gallons (the first is available on Cagle’s website, the second from Microcosm Publishing), the author faces opposition from her friends, who don’t see the value of her work, and from the homeless, who are suspicious of her motives.

Food Not Bombs, the group that Cagle works for, scavenges ingredients from dumpsters and then makes them into soup to give to homeless people. The opening page of the second issue underscores how Food Not Bombs is seen in the community (one man assumes they’re anarchists, another insists that they shouldn’t serve vegan only, and a woman is interested until she hears that the food is scavenged from the trash). Already, we see that an organization that is ostensibly selfless and helpful to the community is subject to scrutiny from that same community — all because its motives and selflessness seem suspect.

Zine Scene: Gingerbread Girl

Paul Tobin & Colleen Coover: Gingerbread Girl (Top Shelf Comix, 7/7/11)

Annah Billips is one strange girl. A self-described tease, she flirts and dates, has boyfriends and girlfriends, and apparently can’t fall in love for one very strange reason: her mad-scientist father removed her Penfield homunculus when she was nine years old, and it became a clone named Ginger who ran away with Annah’s ability to feel strong emotion. Or did it?

Gingerbread Girl, the new graphic novel by husband-and-wife team Paul Tobin and Colleen Coover, boasts a bizarre storyline that runs the strong risk of alienating some. Self-consciously odd and full of narrative daring, the comic has its own charms, though, and an adventurous reader can’t help but be drawn into its central mystery. Does Annah really have a twin named Ginger walking around, or is she actually crazy and deeply scarred from her parents’ divorce years before?

Gingerbread Girl doesn’t give any answers, but it does take a fascinating journey through Annah’s psyche, as seen by lovers, bystanders, pigeons, bulldogs, a neuroscientist, and a magician.

Tobin chooses to tell Annah’s story via a fluid stream of narrators, each of whom speaks directly to the reader and then passes the story amongst the other narrators. How each speaker chooses to define Annah, or judge her sanity, gives us a little insight into the narrator. As the reader follows Annah on a date with her girlfriend, Chili, Tobin wisely leaves Chili’s perspective for last.

Zine Scene: Shut Up and Love the Rain

Robnoxious: Shut Up and Love the Rain (Microcosm Publishing, 2010)

Sexuality, especially non-normative sexuality, can be a confusing topic. Thankfully, there’s Robnoxious to provide us with a guide to “Queer Anarchist Happiness Thru Good Living” through his eye-opening and creative zine, Shut Up and Love the Rain. California-based Robnoxious, or Rob, has been writing about these and other topics for years, but his new zine is an especially impressive effort of clarity and understanding.

In Shut Up and Love the Rain, Rob describes his early sexual experiences through comics, attempts to explain his queerness in a few essays, and even provides a list of books for further reading. His explicitness in relating his experiences — a bully grinding on him, experimenting with masturbation, and more — are humorous and insightful. Whether wondering if masturbation is the reason “Jesus got busted” or showing his speculative side in a comic about two robots that explore sexual pleasure through mechanized attachments, he writes about sexuality honestly and openly.

The centerpiece of the zine is a wonderful story/interview with Rob’s father, Rachel, and her recent process of coming out as transgendered. Even with a highly supportive group surrounding her, Rachel encountered plenty of difficulties in the process of transitioning, and Rob treats this clearly personal story with honesty and forthrightness. He gives tips for making the transition as healthy and positive as possible, and his father inspires through her success. As Rachel says of transitioning, “It gets easier. As time goes on, it’s getting easier and easier. I go to work, and I don’t even think about being female, I’m just me, and I’m there.”

Zine Scene: Chester 5000

Jess Fink: Chester 5000 (Top Shelf, 6/7/11, $14.95)

Adorable, charming, Victorian, romantic, endorsed by Alan Moore — these are not the words that generally are used to describe a pornographic comic book. However, Jess Fink’s silent-movie-style erotic graphic novel is all of those, and it even features a robot, in a sci-fi twist.

Chester begins with the marriage of a young man and woman, and their disparity in bedroom tactics is immediately apparent. Unfortunately, the young wife is completely insatiable in the bedroom, and the husband is a bit of a prude, so her husband constructs a sex-bot, Chester, to perform his duties while he tends to work. The romantic and charming Chester does a better job than expected, however; the wife soon falls in love with him and sneaks off to have sex with the robot each day after her husband leaves.

Of course, they are caught, and the husband sells Chester to another woman. Chester and the wife pine for each other, and in one great scene, Chester and the husband fight for her love with mechanical attachments and a large hammer, respectively. Eventually, the husband learns the error of his ways, as well as his love for the woman who bought his robot, and, well, more sex ensues.

Zine Scene: The Homeland Directive

Robert Venditti: The Homeland Directive (Top Shelf, 6/7/11, $14.95)

The Homeland Directive, the new graphic novel by The Surrogates author Robert Venditti, addresses some of the difficulties of the modern war on terror in the guise of a suspenseful and artistic graphic novel. Beautiful, innovative art, some brilliant moments, and trenchant comments by the main characters elevate the story above the average artistic-political commentary, like that of a decent episode of 24. However, Venditti’s ideas are occasionally confused and problematic. Overall, he succeeds wonderfully in creating a splashy and surprising conspiracy thriller, but he loses some points in the presentation of a muddled political message in its final act.

Dr. Laura Regan works as a microbiologist for the CDC and believes that she, along with the US government, is making the world safer for everyone. Soon, she is framed for the murder of her colleague, Ari, nearly assassinated by a man posing as a FBI official, and finds herself in the middle of a vast conspiracy that includes high-ranking members of various government agencies. Her band of rescuers (Pollack from the FBI, Gene from the Secret Service, and Wychek from the Bureau of Consumer Advocacy), who have discovered the truth about the conspiracy, provide some humor and variety in what otherwise would be a classic chase story adapted for the age of terrorism.

Jeffery Brown: Incredible Change-Bots Two

Zine Scene: Incredible Change-Bots Two

Jeffrey Brown: Incredible Change-Bots Two (Top Shelf, 4/12/11)

Even for someone like myself, who has the very briefest experience with Saturday-morning cartoons like Transformers, Jeffrey Brown’s Incredible Change-Bots Two is a highly enjoyable send-up of the genre and a silly little slice of nostalgia. Something about recasting transforming robots as incompetent, bickering armies, or featuring a robot with a gun for an arm as having an existential crisis, works perfectly as both an absurd tribute and satire of shows that were, even in their heyday, thinly disguised means of selling toys.

The graphic novel continues the story of Incredible Change-Bots, in which the Fantasticons and Awesomebots destroyed their own planet through war and then traveled to Earth, which they also destroyed. The sequel continues in the same endearingly nonsensical vein. The leader of the Fantasticons, Shootertron, was left behind when the rest of the Change-Bots left Earth and tries to regain his memory with the help of farmers and the ridiculously ineffectual US government that wants to use him as a weapon.

Zine Scene: The Color of Night

Madison Smartt Bell: The Color of Night (Vintage, 4/15/11)

The term “revelry” has fallen out into disuse. When you hear it, you think of the Marquis de Sade or Dorian Gray, of a debauched immersion of oneself in the darker yet still pleasurable parts of life, but rarely of something immediate to your own life.

In Madison Smartt Bell’s new novel, The Color of Night, we are made to feel just how current the word still is. When we consider the American public’s obsession with fear, violence, anarchy, and the excessive attention that the news media gives to all of these topics, it’s unsurprising that Bell’s story of revelry rings as true and cuts as deep as it does.

The Color of Night tells the story of Mae, a blackjack dealer in Nevada who develops a strong and immediate obsession with the events of 9/11. She tapes the images of the chaos and blood from news programs (already repeated ad nauseum by the media itself) and, between working at a dead-end job and wandering the desert at night, revels in the endless replaying of so much suffering — for, as Mae tells us, it’s only natural to try and pass your own suffering onto someone else.

Zine Scene: Night Animals

Brecht Evens: Night Animals (Top Shelf, March 2011, $7.95)

Equal parts Edward Gorey and Where the Wild Things Are — surreal and yet completely honest — the newest work by Belgian graphic novelist Brecht Evens makes one hell of an impression without saying anything at all.

Night Animals, described on its title page as “a diptych about what rushes through the bushes,” charms with two very different wordless stories. In the first, a man waits to meet a blind date and is compelled to search for her through the sewers and underground, encountering a vast array of monsters that live there on his way. The second follows a young girl as she undergoes puberty (all in one day) and is later kidnapped by similar monsters for a wild party in the woods that soon turns sinister.

The first story, “Blind Date,” playfully recasts the uncertainty of waiting for an unknown woman into an epic quest involving sewer diving, spelunking, and fending off various beasts. Ultimately light and funny, it contrasts sharply with the second story’s comparative darkness. In “Bad Friends,” a young girl gets her first period during the school day, and while feeling ashamed later at home, is carried off by monsters. A bacchanal ensues in the forest, celebrating her new-found womanhood, but the monsters’ dark intentions leave the reader with a final sense of dread.

It seems fitting to use the word “phantasmagoric” for Evens’ sprawling, intricate visuals, considering his debt to the many artists that the label has also been applied to, and his obvious debt to most of them. His pen drawings obviously recall Gorey, as mentioned, or Tim Burton’s doodles, and even some more creative children’s books (although a celebration of a young woman’s first period would likely not be found in most of those).

Zine Scene: Faesthetic

Faesthetic is changing the way zines are marketed and redefining that for which they stand. Much more than a high-quality art showcase, Faesthetic has grown into a taste-maker for the 21st Century art scene.

This glossy, invitation-only art zine began as a magazine showcase for established talent and up-and-coming artists, but it has since expanded into the areas of gallery shows, T-shirt design, and poster art, and it has even lent its name and style to a New York Fashion Week event. Exclusive, high-brow, and part of a growing media empire characterized by artistic partnerships — is this the future of zine culture?

Created in 2001 by Dustin A. Hostetler, Faesthetic has only produced 12 issues so far, but its involvement in cultural events and its highly active blog lend it influence beyond a few dozen pages of actual printed product. Hostetler intends to continue producing one issue per year and to add an Internet-based supplement in the near future. However, the focus of Faesthetic remains squarely on its glossy, high-quality print issues.

Originally, Hostetler’s idea was to create a tangible product in response to the boom in PDF zines during the past few years. The fact that Faesthetic is a polished, collectible art book is obviously important to his aesthetic. “I wanted something I could tuck away in a box, put it in my attic, and that my grandchildren could find some day,” he explains.

Zine Scene: Lynd Ward

Before Daniel Clowes and Adrian Tomine, before Frank Miller and Alan Moore, and even before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, there was Lynd Ward — America’s first, real graphic novelist. The terms “visionary” or “pioneer” could be applied to Ward, but the truth is that he was making graphic novels way before it was cool, and probably before it was even thought possible to create such a thing. Between 1929 and 1937, he dared to tell dramatic adult stories with just a series of woodcut images and his own vision.

Born in 1905 in Chicago, Ward lived through some of the most tumultuous moments of the 20th Century, most of which found a way into his dynamic, wordless picture books, now widely regarded as the origins of the modern graphic novel. His stories included sociopolitical commentary on the inter-war atmosphere of dread — the sinking American economy, the meteoric rise of European fascism, and the effect of swift industrialization on the self-hood of the worker — as well as more thoughtful matters, such as the whether or not the soul could survive in the modern age, or the price of artistic ambition and greed.