Welcome to the 5th group of inductees into the Musea ZINE HALL OF FAME.
With so many zines (& so little time) how does one choose the best? Our 2 part criteria is this:
1. The zine must be published for at least 3 years.
2. The zine must be of the highest quality. (and it doesn't' hurt any if the zinester is prolific and he sells his zine at a reasonable price)
And though we have a ways to go before we've added all the best zines, I think you all will agree that the following are long over due for the honor. WE SALUTE THEM ALL! - Art S Revolutionary/editor
CONCAVE UP: An Illustrated Dream Anthology. Cartoonist Jesse Reklaw takes contributors dreams and turns them into works of comic book art. The dreams are fascinating surrealism in themselves (including some celebrity dreams like Pamela Anderson Lee and Carl Jung - both from issue #6) and his artwork is first rate. At the back of each issue is a collection of 4 panel cartoon dreams called "Slow Wave;" plus in every issue a color cover painting by the artist. A nice package throughout!
INFILTRATION: The Zine About Going Places You're Not Supposed to Go. Zinester Ninjalicious loves to spy and this zine, with photos and diagrams of every trip, is a record of his snooping. In #7 Kevin K enters an abandoned missile silo; in #8 Ninjalicious investigates the Toronto City Hall, and in #9 Murray Battle travels the catacombs of Paris. We say this is - "the very best zine in covert traveling"!
THRIFT SCORE: The Zine About Thrifting. Al Hoff, girl reporter loves to thrift (a verb some feel she introduced into the language though she denies it in issue #12) and her zine is full of finds like a story on Aluminum Christmas Trees (#12), the insanity of used jeans prices - the Japanese fad for them is pushing the prices to tulip bubble levels! - (#13), and a story on the Grand Canyon of Plates, Replacements Ltd. in North Carolina (#13), plus much, much more. Great fun, well done!
DISHWASHER: One Guy... Fifty States...Lots of Dishes...Plenty of Time... Pete has a quest: he wants to wash dishes (as a professional dishwasher) in each of the 50 states; and this perzine is a journal of that adventure. What makes it such a great perzine is that his real life is more informative, more intriguing, and a better travelogue than most novels! All this plus dish washing news, letters to Pete, etc. in each issue. So armchair travelers join Pete as he gets himself into even more hot water. We will.
HAVE YOU SEEN THE DOG LATELY? : It's clever, it's funny, it's snide and childish; then all of a sudden there's an essay popping up in the middle somewhere that's down right sublime! HYSTDL is mostly for laughs with sister editors, Jenny Makofsky, and Serena Makofsky, plus Megan Tucker; talking about trips to Mexico, classic TV, and - I've got to mention my favorite - "The Beats", a cartoon strip about Bart & Beaulah, that dressed-in-black, beret wearing, coffee couple that are always pondering the deeper meanings of life. Very Great Stuff!
BEER FRAME: The Journal Of Inconspicuous Consumption. Zinester Paul Lucas is ever on the lookout for the unusual product - Hubba Bubba Soda (tastes like bubble gum) - or the wacky ad campaign - Parkay margarine changes their slogan from "The Flavor Says,'Butter'' to "Now Real Butter Taste!". And what fun for the reader when he examines the nuances of it all. If you, like me, have seen too many thousands of hours of ads; it's time for a refresher course in reality. And for that Beer Frame does Fine!
TEMP SLAVE: Big corporations know that if you're a temp, (temporary worker) they can avoid paying a lot of benefits. So everywhere you look nowadays temps are slaving away at full time jobs for part time wages and benefits. This zine by Keffo is an anthology of stories and rants by those workers: exotic peep show dancers organize an union in Las Vegas, a teacher's 3-month vacation as a temp stone remover, and "Tips for Suitpukes" #13 - Do not snap your fingers at me! - are some examples from issue #12. In a world that's become slanted in favor of big business at every turn, this zine stand up for the working man and women. It's compelling reading for real people. We salute!
COMETBUS: With 44 issues to date you know this perzine by Aaron is popular. Why? Like the best of perzines, it becomes addictive reading that's harder than a forbidden diary to put down. Example from the opening of issue 44: "When I was thirteen I learned about guilt. Jesse had to teach me. I had no natural instinct for it at all ..." His writing is sometimes wistful, sometimes philosophical, sometimes downright rude; but always smart and compelling - one of the best!
Here are some samples of the work of our new HALL OF FAMERS:
INFILTRATION: We zigzag for a while then follow some ancient stone stairs down to another level. The real catacombs are not as neat as the tourist version. No artful crosses made from rows of skulls here. Bones are strewn about. Then Emmanuel shows me the side galleries. Bones piled three or four feet high - in tunnels that go ... well, forever into darkness. There's a discarded pair of latex gloves at the entrance. Emmanuel is quiet. This is where the crazies come, he tells me. I'm afraid to ask. Seems some types get off on throwing themselves onto the piles. Surfing the mosh pit of humanity. Now I really am glad I didn't ask. (Murray Battle, Paris Underground #9)
THRIFTSTORE: A Chicago area Goodwill exec says, "We want to be 'trendy'. The strongest growth area (growth area - sob!) for us is vintage clothing, with youths seeking an identity." They plan to open a Goodwill vintage boutique in 2000 ... Ouch! You've been targeted! If I want to buy what other people THINK I should buy, that's called retail . The beauty of thrifting is pulling from huge amorphous piles the stuff I want. The increased streamlining and niche marketing of thrifts puts those decisions in other people's hands. If I am a youth seeking an identity, why should I trust Goodwill sorters any more than Urban Outfitters or the teen section at Sears? (Al Hoff, State of the Thrift Union: A Big Giant Rant, #13)
DISHWASHER: Eight in the morning? He waited until one - thirty a.m. to tell me we were to work at eight? Did he really expect us to work a couple more hours that night, sleep for a couple hours, then come back? Fat chance. Walking out right then would have been too good for him and not nearly satisfying enough for me, so I continued what I had started. I stashed the dishes in a frenzy. Because I knew I'd never see a paycheck from the officer-owner, I made sure to do an efficient job. After I filled all the nooks under the counters in the dish cave, I started trucking dirty dishware all over the kitchen. I hid it wherever possible - under more counters, on shelves, and as a very last resort, in the ovens. After I hid everything, I rinsed out the sinks, drained the dish machine, and wiped down the counters. The dish cave sparkled when, right on cue, Bernard stumbled in from his hour-long visit to the bathroom. He wasn't the least bit fazed that we were suddenly "done."
The officer-owner took a quick look in the dish cave. "well done," he said. "you guys'll be back at eight o'clock, right?" "Oh Yea," we both replied. (Pete, Louisiana, #15)
HYSTDL: When I got back from Paris, I had an extra pair of underwear in my suitcase. It belonged to Megan, my best friend, who had gotten us the Paris apartment we'd stayed in for free ... I stuffed the underwear to the back of my nightstand drawer, so as not to accidentally wear it before I had the chance to send it back to Megan, who was still in Europe ... The morning came when I was without options. I had worn the sagging Gloria Vanderbilts, the bloodstained Jockey for Hers, my bathing suit, an ex-boyfriend's pinstriped boxer shorts that required a safety pin to hold them up, the Jennifer Moore's with the ripped crotch. I threw on Megan's underwear. ... The next day after doing the dreaded laundry, I pulled out Megan's underwear from the miles of soapy - smelling rags in need of organization with the intent of sending it back, along with a small explanatory note of apology. I imagined her opening the envelope, in Paris, maybe while eating camembert or standing at the Metro. I closed my eyes to see her better. I was surrounded by stained glass, smelled crepes burning, saw Matisse paper cutouts dancing the Can-Can, and the underwear was on me again.
I think I loved Meg's underwear all the more for knowing I was doing something terribly wrong. I continued to wear them, and I continued to put off writing her. I was terrified to tell her. Perhaps my adventure in hygiene would too dangerously test our friendship ... (The Underlying Truth, Winter '98/99)
BEER FRAME: Longtime Beer Frame readers Eve and David Celsi have been renovating a house in Oregon and recently had to rip up some floorboards in the course of their work. Amidst the assorted junk and detritus they found underneath the flooring was a wrapper from an old pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Interestingly, it looks almost exactly like a wrapper from a new pack of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum, with one crucial exception: There's a little slogan printed beneath the Juicy Fruit logo. It reads, "The gum with the fascinating flavor."
What's truly fascinating, of course, is not the flavor itself, but rather the way the Wrigley folks once considered synthetic flavoring to be so favorably perceived in the public mind that they used it as a marketing tool, something that would never happen nowadays, when the only reason we know about a given product being artificially flavored is because those killjoys at the Food and Drug Administration require manufacturers to tell us so... Hanrath (Wrigley corporate archivist) didn't have any documents indicating why the slogan was first used or eventually abandoned, but it doesn't seem too hard to figure out. The period when the slogan was employed was a time marked by rapid technological advances and a sense that science could do no wrong. One can almost imagine a 1950s Juicy Fruit consumer admiring the slogan on the wrapper and thinking, "Those wacky scientists - first they invent the atom bomb, now they expand the boundaries of flavor for us! What'll they think of next?" (Paul Lukas, #8)
TEMP SLAVE: Various rumors (mostly started by myself) pointed to the demise of this zine. I'd be lying if I said W was totally confident that this issue would ever see the light of day. But, TS! makes me so damn happy. How happy you ask? So happy that I want to run naked through a field of daisies. my arms windmilling in opposite directions and my beer belly bounding to and fro like there's no tomorrow. It's not totally about my happiness though, it may have even more to do with your sadness. You see, this zine irritates so many people, whether they be temp agency owners or other zinesters. Even if this zine pissed off only one person in the whole wide world, that may just be enough motivation for me to keep it going into eternity. (Keffo, #12)
COMETBUS: The good thing about having friends who work at cafes is I can tell them to turn the fucking music down. Hey Casey, turn that shit down. I've got some serious thinking to do. See that booth in the corner? Bring me coffee every fifteen minutes and a forty of King Cobra every hour on the hour.
"I'll bet you've been waiting years to say that", she says. "I've been waiting years for everything." "Then one more day," she smiled, "Won't kill you." (Aaron, #44)
For a complete list of all the Musea Zine Hall of Famers, see our website or send $1 and a SASE to Musea.
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