Hot Tea, Cold Water #3

Here's another book that my wife picked up at the recent Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE).

Title: Hot Tea, Cold Water
Issue: 3
Date: 2011
Publisher:Leann Leake (leannleake@gmail.com)
Editor: Leann Leake
Contributors: Rachel Dukes, Laura-Marie, Kimball, Leann Leake, Jerel Dye, Colin Tedford, Thirteenthstory, Hooroo Jackson, Katie Jacobson, Laurel Leake, Luther Leake, Periwinkle, Gregery miller, Dan Mazur, Rio Aubry Taylor, cherry Ogatawa, Len White, Boo Pop, Gynn Silva, Owen Marston, Masoud Shadravan, Kimberly Hritzko, Amanda Rose Thomas, Line O, John Petrolino, Kevin Leigh

Bunch of disclaimers to start with. First of all, in the interest of full disclosure, my wife is one of the contributors to this issue (and her page is pretty awesome!). Also, this is a zine, which falls somewhat outside of the scope of what I usually review here (I love zines, I just tend to not categorize them with comics). This particular zine has a lot of comic content, so I figured that the line is blurry enough that I'd go ahead and review it along with the rest of the haul from MICE.

So this is the alphabet issue, and we've got 26 contributors each with a letter to reflect on. Beyond that, the guidelines were wide open. We open with a pretty nice fanart of Disney's Ariel by Rachel Dukes. There's an essay about the decision to have children (under b for "babies" by Laura-Marie. Editor Leann Leake contributes a set of short comic strips about here dog (under d).

Colin Tedford's contribution is a small collection of his humorous interpretations of traditional folk gospel lyrics. Katie Jacobson's prose story about conjoined twins on their first date is vivid and disturbing. Laurel Leake's wordless take on juggling is a visual treat.

There was fantasy poetry by Len White (q for "quiver") and political poetry by Boo Pop (r for "revolution"). There's a pretty amusing comic strip by Masoud Shadravan about his work as a usability designer and developer. There's a tribute to Vincent Price by Kimberly Hritzko and a collage piece on society's perception of weight with an accompanying essay by Amanda Rose Thomas.

Kevin Leigh finished the book with a simple but powerful comic strip on zombies (what else?!).

This zine has an extremely eclectic mix of topics and concepts, and there is some excellent art, stories, poetry, and reflections between the covers. Any time you have such a mix, readers will find that there is some material they like better than others, but I just found that there was a lot here to like.

Rating: 8/10