Things Not To Do Part 3

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: Things Not To Do
Issue: 3
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: June, 2020
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

From the pack of cat-related minicomics I bought from the artist at the Flywheel Zine Fair. 

Collection of things not to do with your cat. Most are whimsical, one is a bit practical, and a few are clearly there just because they make for fun drawings. This is the third issue of the series, and apparently the only all-cat edition. Charming and fun.

Rating:6/10

Cats As Food (Not Really)

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: Cats As Food (Not Really)
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: April, 2018
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

I picked up a whole pack of cat-themed zines from Anne Thalheimer at the Flywheel Zine Fest this year. This one was inspired by a crew of second-graders in a class on comics that the artist was teaching. The sketches feature the avo-cat-o, the purrito, and everyone's favorite palindrome, the tacocat!

I also like how the cat on the front cover is looking a bit nervous at the title.

Good, silly fun.

Rating: 6.5/10

Valentines From the Cat

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: Valentines From the Cat
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: May, 2017
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer
 

Another Anne Thalheimer that delivers exactly what it promises. A few of the sketches with accompanying greetings could have been feline conversation heats. As you might imagine, this is less about romantic love and more about the love for petting and catfood. Anne's cats are always super-cute!

Rating: 6.5/10

Little Cat's Big Adventure

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: Little Cat's Big Adventure
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: May, 2020
Writer:Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

A cat goes on a quest to find the sword Excalibur! Along the way, there are birds, turtles, and a final test of worthiness. This was a fun and cute minicomic. The quest turns out to be not exactly epic, but it is definitely adorable. Will there be more adventures of this once-and-future cat?

Rating 6.5/10

The Life of a Salamander

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke Ma USA.

Title: The Life of a Salamander
Publisher: Adi E. Areaotsiaer
Writer: Adi E. Areaotsiaer
Artist: Adi E. Areaotsiaer

A salamander really loves their life, until they end up as a permanent guest in someone's terrarium. There are plots of revenge and some very subjective perceptions of time, and a bit of commentary on the general unfairness of life. We are definitely all this salamander sometimes.

Rating: 7/10

Nostalgia Whiplash #1

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke Ma USA.

Title: Nostalgia Whiplash
Issue: 1
Date: February 2018
Publisher: Olivia M
Writer: Olivia M
Artist: Olivia M

Mini zine about internet culture in 2005-2007. I always enjoy a bit of geeky history combined with autobiography, and this was a really fascinating look at the teen girl subculture that grew up around early free webhosting sites like Geocities and Matmice. It also has some self-reflection from the author's experiences exploring these sites while part of a fundamentalist Christian household.

The zine is primarily a prose essay, and examples of website graphics from the era it is looking back on.

Although I was aware of some areas adjacent to the cultures described here through my own experiences on Livejournal, most of this was new to me, and it made for a really interesting rabbit hole of a very specific bit of subculture that is mostly scrubbed from the web at this point. I'm glad someone is remembering and recording this.

Rating: 7.5/10

Monsters in Sweaters

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: Monsters in Sweaters
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Writer:Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

With there being so little truth in advertising these days, I am always thrilled to find something, like the Combined Gas Law, or the film Snakes of a Plane, that delivers exactly what it promises.

Monsters in Sweaters promises you monsters! In sweaters! And that is exactly what you get!

The monsters include a vampire, a werewolf, a skeleton, and some sort of wormlike thing with eyestalks. Sweaters include turtlenecks, and even a sweatervest!

Amusing micro-mini zine with seven very cute pieces of artwork, wordless except for the title because, really, what more needs to be said.

Rating 8/10

Sketch Series 02: Punko Turt

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Sketch Series
Issue: 02: Punko Turt

Another from a batch of uncredited micro-mini comics I picked up at Flywheel Zine Fest. This book uses only three illustrations to introduce Punko Turt, a combination of pumpkin and turtle, that bears a slight resemblance to Pokemon's Bulbasaur. Punko Turt uses its pumpkin vine to catch small ghosts. A single line of caption explains Punko Turt's ongoing battle against evil.

This was very cute, and the one line of text hit with unexpected gravitas.

Rating: 6/10

Many Moths

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Many Moths

Uncredited minicomic/zine that is exactly what the title promises: A collection of drawings of different moth species, one per page, from an overhead view, to best show the patterns of their wings This is simple, straightforward, and lovely. Educational too.

Rating: 7/10

Getting Into Gaming: Peaceful Games

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Getting Into Gaming: Peaceful Games
Date: August, 2023
Writer: Silver Kahn
Artist: Silver Kahn

Video game zine designed as an introduction for non-gamers. This was one of two in the series, this one covering a selection of nonviolent games (and mostly nonviolent ones such as Minecraft). I loved the tone of this because as someone who is into most areas of geekery, but has barely minimal knowledge of video games, I felt like this was right on my level. It's going to come off as probably too basic for a lot of potential readers, but it was a perfect fit for me. As an added bonus, it did feature one of the few games that I have played extensively: Monument Valley, which I enjoyed as much as the author of this zine did.

Your mileage may vary in terms of whether this is telling you anything new, but it is well written with a clear heartfelt love of gaming and a desire to spread the word in a positive way.

Rating: 7.5/10

Choose Your Own Adventure: Tobacco Hornworm

From last Spring's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Choose Your Own Adventure: Tobacco Hornworm
Writer: ESmorc
Artist: ESmorc

What's better than an educational micro-minicomic about insect life cycles? An insect life cycle minicomic in (abbreviated) Choose Your Own Adventure format! And I do mean abbreviated. This book involves one choice, with one very good outcome and one very bad one. The back cover contains additional useful hornworm facts including what they metamorphose into...

SPOILER WARNING...
...

...

...

...

...

...

...

Sphinx moths!

You'll also learn some size comparisons, as well as the important skill of distinguishing a tobacco hornworm from a tomato hornworm.

This was quick, but so very quirky and amusing. Plus I learned things.

Rating: 8/10

You Know You're A Rural Queer When...

First review of 2025! Not a comic. Prose zine that I got last Spring at the Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: You Know You're A Rural Queer When...
Date: 2019
Writer: Olivia M.
Artist: Olivia M.

Short essay in micro-zine form that lays out the challenges facing those in the queer community who live in rural areas. There are a lot of isolating factors that are detailed here, not all of them completely obvious, and there are also some issues with misguided our outright counterproductive attempts at allyship that the author has experienced. There is also a good reminder of the role (and limitations) of online supports.

This was a lot of important insights in a small amount of words.

Rating: 8/10

Stravaig #1

Bought at the Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Stravaig
Issue: 14
Publisher: Emma Percy
Date: January 2020
Writer: Emma Percy
Artist: Emma Percy

These got out of order in my TBR stack. I reviewed #14 of this series here. This first issue starts out as a very personal journal chronicling the author's move to a different state for the first time in her life. It's a good account of expanding horizons and settling in to a new place.

Along the way, we get a winter soup recipe, a bit of tarot, and a protective spell, along with some discussion of Catholic, Pagan, and Unitarian ritual and tradition, which was of some interest to me, as someone who has had experiences with the Catholic and Unitarian churches, as well as a bit of Pagan tradition. This first issue also explains the meaning of the zine's title.

Rating: 8/10

Stravaig #14

Bought at the Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Stravaig
Issue: 14
Publisher: Emma Percy
Date: March 2021
Writer: Emma Percy
Artist: Emma Percy

Nature/gardening oriented personal zine, opening with an essay on the beginning of Spring and mental health. There's a practical bit on preventing and treating tick bites, and a brief profile of the Catholic martyr Thomas Percy.

A second short essay on gender fluidity and some cute sketches from a nature walk finish up the issue. This was a nicely put-together traditional zine with collage-style layout and a succinct writing style that evokes the images of the season.

Rating: 8/10

Magic Item Mini #1

Bought at the Flywheel Zine Fest a few weeks ago in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Magic Item Mini
Issue: 1
Publisher: Alec Adams Art
Writer: Alec Adams
Artist: Alec Adams

Micro-mini zine collecting six magic items for use with fantasy roleplaying games. These aren't given specific stat blocks, but there's enough information with each one, along with the very nice illustrations, for a gm to adapt these items to their game without much difficulty. They range from the combat-practical Owl's Shield and Weaver's Bow to the useful warding item, the Ghost Bane Lantern. On the more ridiculous side is the Staff if Immediate Livestock, and yes, it does pretty much exactly what it sounds like it does.

As with several of the other small gaming zines I picked up recently, this gives a good amount of value for its size/cost, and I expect I'll use an item or two from this in a game at some point.

Rating: 7/10

Lady Bugs

Well, it's been 10 months since we moved back to the US, and I finally made it to a convention: The Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA was a really fun event, and I'll be posting items from my haul in the coming weeks, starting with this.

Title: Lady Bugs

This is an uncredited mini-zine, worless except for the title. It features illustrations of insects with mask-like human faces, either as their faces, abdomens, or wings.

The drawings are lovely, with a tiny bit of an uncanny valley vibe going on.

Seriously quirky fun.

Rating: 6.5/10