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

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

Anatomical Botanical

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

Title: Anatomical Botanical

Uncredited minicomic/zine featuring artwork of common wildflowers and other plants growing among and within human bones. The pen/ink art and simple labeling ("Hip primrose") make for a quirky and slightly creepy vibe.

Rating: 6.5/10

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

One-Page Dungeon: Quest for the Weird Stone

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

Title: One-Page Dungeon: Quest for the Weird Stone
Publisher: Alec Adams Art
Writer: Alec Adams
Artist: Alec Adams

Another rpg adventure in zine form, this time, more of a micro-zine.This is a quick dungeon crawl with a couple of unique magic items and a monster/npc adversary. The descriptions are simple, but the GM can easily add the necessary details to work this with any D&D style rules set, and it's easy to adjust the challenge level as well.

This is a linear dungeon with interesting challenges, but no real plot and not much given in terms of backstory. Still, it definitely delivers value for its size/cost, and a group with get a fun side quest out of this at the least. Since the "Weird Stone" has vaguely-described healing properties, this would be a good quest to remove a curse placed on a PC or NPC. It's easily adaptable to just about any D&D setting.

Rating: 7/10

Just Another Goblin Cave

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

Title: Just Another Goblin Cave
Publisher: YCBN Games
Writer: Eon Fontes-May
Artist: Eon Fontes-May
Cover: Dan Dawson

Not a comic. This is a rpg adventure in zine form. The basic idea is that the PCs are sent on a mission to a gnomish forge only to find it completely taken over by hostile goblins. This low-level adventure is designed to be run with OSR-style systems, but it's pretty workable with any D&D type set of rules. I ran it with 5E for my middle school gaming club and it worked fine. It's nonstop action, essentially one running battle from start to finish, so the roleplaying elements are a bit limited, but there is some good backstory and potential to expand on what's here, and it's adaptable fairly easily to most fantasy settings.

This provided some good entertainment for such a small, inexpensive product.

Rating: 7.5/10

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

Chainbreaker #1

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics

Title: Chainbreaker
Issue: 1
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Writer: Shelley Lynn Jackson, Merry Death, John Gerken
Artist: Shelley Lynn Jackson, Merry Death

Not a comic. This is a zine, and in some sense a love-letter to the bicycle, covering bicycle history, culture, and repair. The author works at a bicycle repair shop in New Orleans, and volunteers at the Plan B, the New Orleans Community Bike Project.

The zine starts out with the historical impact of the bicycle, including short biographies of bike pioneers Marshall "Major" Taylor and Gyda Stephenson. The impact of the bicycle on womens fashion and feminism are discussed.

Other features in the zine include essays on bike maintenance and ideas about self-reliance and repair, plus a well-written guide to changing a flat tire.

A guest essay by John Gerken goes into more detail on the Plan B community project in New Orleans.

As someone who's spent a lot of time riding bikes, including commuting to work by bike, this was a great way of taking a further step into bicycle culture while also providing some great ideas and background.

The real highlight of this zine, though, is the shear joy and enthusiasm for the bicycle that shines through on every page.

Rating: 8.5/10

Hot Tea, Cold Water #2

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Hot Tea, Cold Water
Issue: 2
Date: April, 2011
Publisher:Leann Leake (leannleake@gmail.com)
Editor: Leann Leake
Contributors: Amanda Faith, Hooroo Jackson, Leann Leake, Tazim Damji, Christy Patrick, Irene R., Jennifer Christensen, Joe Decie, John Petrolino, Laurel Leake, Rob Wolf, Seth Feralin

Half-sized zine with some comic content. I reviewed the third issue about eight years ago. Review here. I recently reviewed the first issue here.

The theme of this issue is transportation. There is a lot of great material on all kinds of variations of the theme. Irene M. gives advice for road-tripping vegans, Leann Leake shares her adventures in penpalling and postal swaps, and Seth Feralin reminisces on family car trips to National Parks.

There is comics content from Hooroo Jackson, Leann Leake, and Joe Decie. Rob Wolf's comic story of a day exploring San Fransisco with a friend visiting from the East Coast was particularly fun. There was also a fun mix of prose poem with illustrations by Tazim Damji.

John Petrolino and Amanda Faith contributed poems, and the issue ended with a nice selection of reviews of zines and books.

Like the first issue I found a lot here that spoke to me, and the variety of voices and styles was great. I thought that it did a better job than the first issue of staying on the theme, and the better focus improved on what had already been a good zine.

Rating: 8/10

Hot Tea, Cold Water #1

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Hot Tea, Cold Water
Issue: 1
Date: 2009
Publisher:Leann Leake (leannleake@gmail.com)
Editor: Leann Leake
Contributors:Ygril Blop, Dad (the editor's Dad), Amanda Faith, KC Green, Erin Griffin, Hooroo Jackson, Leann Leake, Andrew Lorenzi, Melissa, Rob Nussbaumer

I reviewed the third issue in this series (which my wife contributed to) eight years ago. That review is here. Finally found issues 1 and 2 in the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Hot Tea, Cold Water is a zine, although it does feature come comics content alongside essays and prose poems. Each issue features a variety of contributors, and each issue is based around a theme. The theme of this issue was jobs and joblessness.

I was expecting something unrelentingly anticapitalist, but there was actually quite a variety of viewpoints and approaches to the theme, covering a wide range of experiences with jobs, job searches, employment, and unemployment.

I was also pleased to find several different voices from the education field, which ended up being my favorite pieces. School speech therapist Amanda Faith's collection of journal entries on her work was heartfelt and powerful, and elementary music teacher Melissa's prose poems did a wonderful job of capturing the rhythm of the school year.

There was a fun selection of wordless comics by Erin Griffin, featuring a running theme of pigs and work.KC Green's two page comic about finding his favorite job was good lighthearted fun. Editor Leann Leake also contributed a journal comic about a summer job in food service. And Andrew Lorenzi had a good one-page comic capturing the stress of the job search out of college with the looming pressure of student loans and other financial woes.

Hooroo Jackson's essay on insects was rambly, and a bit of a stretch to fit the theme, but it had a couple of wonderfully outrageous lines. And Ygril Blop's "The Beast" was the anticapitalist rant that I had expected the whole zine to be (and a really good, intense rant at that).

Sprinkled in between the essays and comics were some serious bits of job search advice from the editor's Dad, along with a nice selection of book, movie, and zine reviews, all on-theme.

It's been about ten years since this was published, but it all still felt very timely in today's economy, and I particularly appreciated the teaching experiences that were represented.

Rating: 7.5/10

Watch The Skies V. 8.10

From the random stack of unread comics (though not actually a comic).

Title: Watch The Skies
Issue: V. 8.10
Publisher:Camp Hill/Harrisburg Scifi & Fantasy Reading Group
Writer: Eric Hardenbrook
Cover: Eric Hardenbrook

This is a zine/newsletter from a science fiction club. There's no official date, but based on release dates mentioned in the articles, this appears to have been published in 2008 or 2009.

The contents include news from print and media SF, a couple of features on authors (Karen Traviss and David Louis Edeleman), a page of space science news, a short essay giving an overview of steampunk, and an essay discussing how to introduce science fiction to those unfamiliar with the genre.

Eric Hardenbrook is the only credited writer in the zine. There were two articles on Karen Traviss' work, and they felt a bit redundant in their content. Otherwise, I enjoyed this as a snapshot of some of the things going on in SF fandom about 10 years ago.

Rating: 5.5/10

Tree Rats! Or, The Crepuscular Hobbyhorse

Given to us by the author over the summer.

Title: Tree Rats! Or, The Crepuscular Hobbyhorse
Date: 2015
Publisher: Drowned Town Press
Writer: E.J. BarnesCover: E.J. Barnes

Not a comic. This is a zine-format chapbook containing a single prose short story.

The story is a dark comedy and family drama, beginning with a scene that will be familiar to many: Family members trying to persuade and elderly relative to move into an assisted living facility. In this case, the narrator's uncle has gotten himself into the habit of shooting at squirrels with his b.b. gun out his bathroom window while dealing with his digestive issues.

When the narrator calls on an old friend to drive him from the East Coast to the Midwest to help with the resulting family drama, things quickly escalate into an over-the-top mess involving sex toys, a standard-shift truck, fireworks, stochastic music, an ill-tempered Italian greyhound, and militarized cops.

This had a lot of fun geeky elements, enough realistic details of how some family members can grow old ungracefully to give it an emotional punch, and plenty of laughs as it hits one bizarre plot twist after another.

Rating: 8.5/10

The World Builder

A freebie I picked up at last year's Readercon convention in Quincy MA.

Title: The World Builder
Publisher: Brett James
Date: 2015
Writer: Brett James

Not a comic. This is a prose short story in quarter-sized zine format.

World Builder Barun makes deals to build a city of wonders on a desert planet while his mother sends him urgent messages of an impending deadline. This was a well-written science fiction story, with a good details, especially on future architecture and construction. It has something of a twist ending, which didn't come entirely unexpectedly, as there were hints throughout the story that all was not exactly as it appeared. Still, the ending was well-executed, and the author kept up the nice level of detail that made the story engaging.

This worked well as an introduction to the writing of author Brett James.

Rating: 6.5/10