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 

Little Comis

From the unread comics box.

Title: Little Comis
Writer: KC Green
Artist: KC Green

Minicomic collection of comic strips, mostly in 3-panel or 4-panel format, mostly on pretty nihilistic themes with a scattering of video game and tech references. Some cleverly done, if still rather bleak, takes intermixed with some that I just didn't get. This might have just been me not being the target audience.

Rating: 4/10

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

The House Femme Twink and Emo Fix a Dryer

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

Title: The House Femme Twink and Emo Fix a Dryer
Date: January, 2026
Writer: Nola QC
Artist: Nola QC

I bought this one entirely for the title. It delivers exactly what it promises. The dryer gets fixed. Raw sex appeal is involved. Takeout dinner is consumed. Cute slice of life with the characters drawn in furry style.

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

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

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

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

The Witch Boy: Halloween ComicFest

I got this at Most Excellent Comics and Games in Enfield CT USA last Free Comic Book Day. It's a Halloween freebie from several years back, that the store had on their table of free books.

Title: The Witch Boy: Halloween ComicFest
Publisher: Scholastic / Graphix
Date: 2017
Writer: Molly Knox Ostertag
Artist: Molly Knox Ostertag

Full color preview mini containing an excerpt from Molly Knox Ostertag's graphic novel, The Witch Boy. The scene here is a fairly standard bit with the main character getting bullied and finally getting pushed to the point where he responds with his magical powers. It does a nice job of introducing the basic rules of the world: On the "magical side of town", boys are shapeshifters and girls are witches. Aster is a boy who hasn't been able to figure out the shapeshifting bit, but has some skill at witchery.

The artwork is lovely, and the overall trans theme of the story is appreciated. This preview doesn't reveal much, but there are enough hints at the overall storyline to hook the reader, which makes it a reasonably effective marketing piece.

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

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

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