Icelandic Hot Dog 101

From this year's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Icelandic Hot Dog 101
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: March, 2026
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Everything you need to know about hot dogs in Iceland, courtesy of the author's recent travels. This hit several topics I love: Travel, food in general, and hot dogs, particularly regional hot dog variations! There's even a bit of Icelandic language in here to help you order one with everything (fried and raw onions, apple ketchup, sweet brown mustard, and remoulade). Fun bit of regional food lore in micro-minicomic form!

Rating: 7.5/10 

Still Rage Monsters

From this year's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Still Rage Monsters
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: March, 2024
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

This is a sequel to the artist's Rage Monsters minicomic (me review is here), and it is more of the same. More monsters, and more rage. Monsters in this book are cranky, seriously upset, and irked, which actually seems on the mild side when one considers everything there is for these monsters to be angry about. This was a fun bit of venting.

Rating: 6.5/10 

Rage Monsters

From this year's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Rage Monsters
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: March, 2021
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Color minicomic depicting various creatures who are not particularly happy. I would go so far as to call them miffed. Or as the creature on the cover says, pretty freakin furious, y'all. It's not made clear what these creatures are angry about, but imaginative readers will probably have some ideas. I loved the cute monsters and the use of color in this book.

Rating: 6.5/10

Tall Creatures

From this year's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Tall Creatures
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: January, 2021
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

A tall, thin zine about tall creatures. Includes the requisite giraffe, a sheep who's cheating a bit, and a bit of lyrics from a song I remember from summer camp. Very cute and a clever use of the format.

Rating: 6.5/10

Space Pants

From this year's Flywheel Zine Fest in Holyoke MA USA.

Title: Space Pants
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: April, 2026
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Sometimes you just find the perfect piece of apparel and need to make a zine about it. And sometimes, the perfect piece of apparel is shiny reflective pants. They end up being just the thing for the artist's trip to Iceland. Fun and cute zine about a very small bit of joy.

Rating: 7/10

Cats Who Legit Can't Deal With Y'All

From the 2025 Flywheel Zine Fest.

Title: Cats Who Legit Can't Deal With Y'All
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Date: April, 2025
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Micro-sized minicomic, six interior pages plus covers. Anne loves truth in advertising. This is six pages of cartoon cats saying "No" in no uncertain terms. The lettering in this one is half the fun. Good work with a very simple idea.

Rating: 6/10

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

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

Booty #21

From the Random Stack of Unread Comics.

Title: Booty
Issue: #21
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Distributor: Trees & Hills, Microcosm Publishing
Writer:Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Anne Thalheimer's autobiographical minicomic. This issue covers April 2007 to June 2008, including three different jobs, some interesting side hustles and a "bizarre boy year". Plus a move to a now house, some discussion of motherhood, plenty of Radiohead lyrics, and an excellent overview of the basics of roller derby. The book ends with a "100 random facts" page that was impressive, although I definitely needed the reading glasses for it.

Anne's work is always heartfelt and introspective, and quirky enough to keep it fun.

Rating: 7/10

Big Bad Best of Booty

This was one of several crowdfunding (Indiegogo in this case) purchases I made over the last school year and had shipped to a US address, to be waiting for me when I headed home for the summer visit.

Title: Big Bad Best of Booty
Date: June, 2015
Publisher: Anne Thalheimer
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

I'm a fan of Anne Thalheimer's autobiographical comic/zine, Booty, since discovering it at some of the Boston-area zine and indy comic events. I've reviewed individual issues here and here.

This is a "best-of" collection, featuring individual pages from past issues of the Booty zine.

Anne writes and draws about her jobs, her crafting and creativity, her travels, and gives some insight into life with ptsd. You also get Anne's experiences as a roller derby referee, plus guest appearances by her cats. Not to mention a range of geeky topics from the biology of squids to the game Apples to Apples to participation in a soup-swap (complete with sweet potato soup recipe).

The format of this results in some repetition, but this adds to the conversational tone. Reading this is like catching up with an old friend who you haven't spoken to in a while. It helps matters that this friend is so full of nerdy awesomeness.

Rating: 8/10

O P Q: Adventures In Substitute Teaching

Here is one that I got at MeCAF.

Title: O P Q: Adventures In Substitute Teaching
Publisher: Anne Thalheimer
Date: 2012
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Autobiographical minicomic about the artist's experiences as a substitute teacher, covering for pretty much all grades and subjects.

I loved the facial expressions in this. Thalheimer has some great visual reactions to all of the situations she gets into, whether it be bait-and-switch assignments at school, adorable preschoolers, obnoxious middle-schoolers, or having to teach gym class.

As a teacher myself, I could appreciate a lot of the situations described in this comic. I also learned some things about public school subbing that were new to me.

There were some great anecdotes, especially toward the end, and I would have love to see even more details of the day-to-day interactions with the students.

Rating: 7/10

Kittyboys!

Title: Kittyboys!
Publisher: Anne Thalheimer
Date: 2012
Writer: Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Biographical minicomic of the artist's two Siamese cats. This is their origin story as well as a profile of their interactions with the artist. Anne Thalheimer's illustrations of the cats are adorable, nicely capturing their personalities.

Very cute minicomic that cat-lovers will easily relate to.

Rating: 7.5/10

Booty #26

Picked this up from Trees & Hills at MICE this past fall. Read it on the Red Line train into Arisia tonight.

Title: Booty
Issue: #26
Publisher: My Monster Hat
Distributor: Trees & Hills, Microcosm Publishing
Writer:Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Anne Thalheimer can always be counted on for some really fun geeky autobiographical comics, a subgenre which is a personal favorite of mine.

The latest issue of her Booty series focuses on the loss of her 9-5 job, and her subsequent decision to devote her time to her monster hat making business, and to substitute teaching, tutoring, and a summer teaching opportunity at Yale to help with the bills.

There is a lot of emotion poured into these pages, and a lot of humor and fun as well. The scene featuring the Internal Monster Council of Doubt was particularly good.

This was a welcome addition to an excellent series.

Rating: 8/10

Trees And Hills Anthology #10: Woods

Another comic I picked up at the Spring Zine Thing last Sunday in Somerville. I am currently going through a bunch of comics from recent shows (Spring Zine Thing, South Attleboro Collectibles Show, and Anime Boston). More show finds ahead too, and I'll be at four more shows in the coming weeks (Boston Comic Con, South Coast Comic And Toy Show, Rochester NH Free Comic Book Day Festival, and Maine Comic Arts Festival).

Title: Trees And Hills Anthology #10: Woods
Date: 2012
Publisher: Trees And Hills
Writer: Colin Tedford, Marlene O'Connor, Rio Aubrey Taylor, Bill Tulp, Sarah Margaret Frye, Elizabeth Neronski, Colleen Frakes, Matt Levin, Liam Gyori, Madsahara, Carl Mefferd, Glynnis Fawkes, Jay Goldspinner, Marek Bennett, Mike Lynch, Daniel Barlow, Randall Drew, Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Colin Tedford, Marlene O'Connor, Rio Aubrey Taylor, Bill Tulp, Sarah Margaret Frye, Elizabeth Neronski, Colleen Frakes, Matt Levin, Liam Gyori, Madsahara, Carl Mefferd, Glynnis Fawkes, Jay Goldspinner, Marek Bennett, Mike Lynch, Daniel Barlow, Randall Drew, Anne Thalheimer
Editor: Colin Tedford, Daniel Barlow
Cover: Colin Tedford

Hefty 68-page digest-sized minicomic that features seventeen stories around the theme of "woods".

This is a nice mix of autobiographical and environmentalist stories, almost all of them set in Trees & Hills' home territory of western New England. Everything here is good. Some standouts include Marlene O'Connor's story of about a young man's escape into the woods from an abusive home and his meeting with the Native American spirit Nukumi, Bill Tulp's history of the Green Man, and Marek Bennett's account of a hike gone wrong and told in an incredible linear series of tiny drawings.

Nice variety of art styles and lots of good stories and images.

Rating: 8/10

Booty #24

This was a Free Comic Book Day find, although it's not a freebie.I picked it up at the Trees & Hills table.

Title: Booty
Issue: #24
Publisher: Anne Thalheimer
Distributor: Trees & Hills, Microcosm Publishing
Writer:Anne Thalheimer
Artist: Anne Thalheimer

Booty is Anne Thalheimer's autobiographical minicomic series, and it's can always be counted on to be geeky and fun. Anne is a roller derby referee (!), and this issue has a good section on the mechanics of roller derby from an officiating standpoint, complete with a detailed set of diagrams. Also covered are road trips, life drawing at a Dr. Sketchy event, Halloween costumes, the ongoing battle against bad moods, and a detailed diagram of the contents of Anne's gear bag.

Anne's style loads every page with doodles, notes, and little fragments of thoughts. It's engaging and fun.

Rating: 7.5/10