A cup of coffee, please

A blog about fanzines and reviews of it's like.

[zine-review]

Witch Hunt - Fredrik Ämting

Witch Hunt, ok. I didn’t notice any hunt in it, except for some major breakdowns. Let me phrase it like this: Two witches, competing each other. And that’s pretty much it. There are too much characters introduced in this, I think it’d suited nicely with just a few. A fanzine less than 50 pages should not have more than 5-6 characters introduced. Anyway, it’s a cool story with some funny jokes. There were a lot of times fanservice and pantyshots could’ve hit our faces, but didn’t. I like that.

This is the second character to be introduced and there’s many more to come. Anyway, Hugo is just fucking awesome. He really is. He’s a sadist dick and wish hell upon everyone. Just my kind of type ;)

That house is not at all suspicious or anything… There’s two stories in this fanzine and the first one ends oddly. Not gonna say more than that, but it kind of made me go: Oh, okey? Tammy is the one witch that competes with the lead character (the dark haired one that I forgot to take a picture of) and this is how the second story starts off:

Sneaky squid, how ever did he even end up in the bathroom?

Tammy and her sidekick, Luca and her sidekick both gets a letter saying that  the other one’s waiting for them on a certain spot and are they floating? They seem to live on the other ends of the town, which makes sense to this page when read. Here’s the 5th character…

Yeah, the third witch is a witchoraptor. Ah yeah. That’s bloody awesome though, and I would want to know more WHY this witch is out to get the other two’s. Nowhere does that say or anything, we can only hope for a second fanzine with these characters. Maybe then we’ll get to know. It does however say on the cover that they fight for no apparent reason and they’ve don’t know/forgotten why but become friends in the end. Overall it’s a cute story but it does struggle with the story and the pacing. Sometimes it’s slow and sometimes too much happens at the same time. My biggest pet peeve is that there’s too much characters being introduced and it’s difficult to make sure they each get their 5 seconds of spotlight, but Fredrik does his best. To be his very first fanzine, it looks neat and tidy and it’s great job making it. I would highly recommend getting this as it is funny (HUGO for crying out loud and that Witchoraptor). Going to look forward to see what he’s gonna do next. //C out FInd more of his stuff here: fremting.tumblr.com Pimienta.deviantart.com

[zine-review]

The Scientist and the Nameless - Amei Zhao

The cover is bright yellow/orange, however my camera didn't want to capture just that. It begins with Nameless telling us his point of view, the dialogue is singing, constant and beautiful. It's like reading poetry, translated into a comic. It's kind of a semi-romantic story, without love. Or maybe love between friends. It's an unspoken friendship between the two of them and I like how it's not "BAM, IN YOUR FACE BOY LOVE". It's subtle, clean and recognizable. The Scientist is searching for a way home, nameless for something else (it's kind of a spoiler, and we don't want that. ;) )

I enjoy how the layout design is, it sometimes breaks the rules but it's all nicely done. Just that one exception, you know? The atmosphere is light, eerie and mystical. Like the morning sun over a field of dew.

best line. Like I said, it's like the morning sun, it's all explained why in the booklet. It gets a bit much sometimes but the author makes a good use of colours to enlighten and darken it sometimes when needed. There is some drama, action and whatnots in it, makes the story intriguing, wanting you to know more about the characters. It also follows a certain pace too, and it goes nicely along with the story and the colouring. It seems as if everything's being thought of and I enjoy how the story takes us to one place to another. There were more stuff I wanted to show you, but I believe there would be major spoilers so I tried to only take pictures of what the author has already shown online. To sum it up: Poetry in sequential art. //C out You can see more of their thing at these places: http://ameizhao.com http://nameless.ameizhao.com http://seventypercentethanol.tumblr.com/

[zine-review]

BIGLAND- Bigland Studios

Looks promising, doesn't it? It's read from right

It says no1, but I don't believe they've actually did a second one. Which is kind of sad. It's got some great characters:

I'm blown away. So, anyway. Plotwise it's not that much a story, it's just 4 idiots on a trip somewhere. The majesty, Dick Tator becomes best friends with Badass, which hurts Kickass' feelings. He still wants to be best friends with Badass which takes us to the story.

Are those islands two giant dicks...? I believe they are. Somehow I'm not even the slightest surprised. It was just too amazing not to show.

I want to be her. Someday... Someday. So they meet up with Dick on a bar, as he's wearing a disguise:

Best disguise. EVER.

So they figure it out after Kickass cuts "Duck"'s second fake braid and... Hell breaks loose. So what we get here are some incredible pixel art as in a 8bit game from the early 90's.

The pages turns sidewise for a moment, as to give a bit more action for the moment.

It works incredibly well and it's suited for the story and characters. They do however break the 180° rule (don't go from right to left or left to right without a reason, characters need to stay on their spot so to speak). But it kinds of give a messy situation which I believe it would be in a fight. But this is the one exception that breaks the rules.

The fight ended and the booklet ends with a "And they'd be bro's for life" and a "No, hold on, this is strange!"

Also. There's some qwopping at the "end"/"beginning" of the book. You can find BigLand studios at these locations: http://doraya.se/ http://bergzerk.tumblr.com/ http://misterdomon.tumblr.com /http://www.kumochan.org/ //C out

[zine-review]

Oblivion High 2 - Johanna Koljonen and Nina von Rüdiger

Right, Volume 2. On the same theme again, Nix goes to High School, Masota (I misspelled it on the last review) is still lost and I get a feeling that I should know what Kalevala is. From what I've come to understand it's the Finnish religion and it's a long tale. And kind of messy? (I'm going to google this later.)

Vol 2 starts off with a nice and lovely landscape. This is the BEST picture in the whole book (according to me, I'm a huge fan of landscapes in books). A girl runs off from a non-wanted marriage and she accidentally dives into a lake/sea when she trips.

Ouch?

She meets up with the Nix, and holy shit you can do that under water? She's his playmate now and they have fun while his brother watch. Naked. It's just as creepy as it sounds. There's a lot of backstory in this one, and for once they put the pieces together rather nicely. It's a bit too much, but needed for the story. THOUGH STILL NO ONE SEARCHES FOR MASOTA. Really? Soon Mi and Nin are grounded because of the Gothic Lolita photoshoot and some older brother has to walk them to and from the school but they sneak out one night with Soon Mi's younger brother Keiko. As Nix is playing for an audience with the band he's in, everyone goes into trance. Apparently they go so widely into trance that no one notice that they steps on glass.

Hard Core. And no one mentions this even thought it happens several times. I would've wanted to see more of their reactions to this, something in the background but it's just as if it slips them by.

So Keiko (yes, he's supposed to be a korean with a japanese girls' name) brought iron with him and managed to stab someone somewhere (What IS that???) and the trance looses is effect. AND NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING ABOUT THIS. It's like a big lipped alligator moment.

The authors got this better than the first book, it follows one line (even though it does go its own ways sometimes. They have a class meeting for a class president, but it doesn't really... make any sense? The mean girls from Vol 1 is calling Soon Mi and Nin "the yellow" and slut and it's all the way from there. They have some kind of a power meet up, checking who's got the power. Turns out it's not Soon Mi and Nin. Also, I have never ever in my whole life seen so many naked dudes.

Look at it. There are a lot of these. 

a        lot Sorry, I zoned out because of butts. Is it weird to say that I look forward to the rest of the volumes? //C out

[zine-review]

Oblivion High - Johanna Koljonen and Nina Von Rüdiger

I know that Oblivion High isn't a fanzine, however I got asked to review it.

The Nix goes to High School, to summarise this book. There's a second volume and I'm going to review it later. Nix, as his name is in the manga as well, takes over a Japanese exchange student Masotao's place. However... I am finding myself in a deep trouble of actually finish reading this. The plot line disappears and it seems as if the authors of the book(s) wanted so much but didn't have the time to collect all the pieces and put it together in a good way. Let me tell you some of the things happening in the book: "Gothica"Lolita photoshoot (seriously? "Gothica?"), fights, snogging and much more. If they could elaborate some things instead of stuffing it with random things, I think it'd be much more read worthy (it still is, in its own bizarre way, it's like having the movie "The Room" on DVD).

But one of my biggest pet peeves in this book, are all the sound effects in Japanese. Some of them doesn't even mean a thing. They're just there for the show, and trust me, it looks bad. Ah, yes. I mentioned Masotao, didn't I? The Japanese exchange student. But where did he go? Is that him?

This is what I'm talking about. Apparently, Nix is wanted and these fellas is going to get him. I think. This is happening at the end of the book, we've NEVER seen these characters before and I believe they must be Ciel Phantomhive, The Headless horseman and Maleficent. I will continue to believe this.

All the cool kids wear scarves and have their hands in their pockets.

I'm having severe troubles of knowing who's who here. Overall. We never get a true presentation of the characters, it's like jumping into a conversation without knowing what's been said. On the note of characters... There are alot introduced in this book, and none are important for the story. Or so is seems in this volume. And, OH YEAH. The Nix apparently lost his memory, but we don't get to know this from the Nix itself, but from an anon email in the book. Oblivion High doesn't answer its own questions, but rather asks more than it gives. Why does the Nix go to High School, why isn't anyone looking for Masotao and what is Nix' goal? Hopefully we'll get to know this in the second volume. //C out

[zine-review]

Synk - Bo Ashi

The cover's got some nice 80's vibe to it, and characters that looks really interesting. I saw this fanzine on Tumblr, and I got really lucky when I found Bo Ashi at SIS14 (Stockholm International Comic festival of sequential arts).

He's got a great sense of how to use the negative space and even though there are no speachbubbles, you get it. The writer suffers from writers block, and he feels as he's not as talented as his nemesis/idol and he burns up all of the work he's done so far. He goes to bed, hoping ( I think) for a better day. I'll leave you with the rest. I am usually not a fan of spechless comics, but this cought my eye of its intense and wonderful character portraits. The artstyle is what I feel to be rather unique and one of a kind. www.boashi.com You can order his comic there, and if you'd like to, http://boashi.tumblr.com/ He's on tumblr as well.

[zine-review]

Fanzine Reviews

Yes! This newly created blog will be reviews with pictures of awesome fanzines, mangas and whatnot. I chose the name Fanzine Reviews, mainly because there isn't one on the internet! I haven't seen one at least. It will contain a short/medium short review of books, zines and you named it, from different con's I go to. I will, or at least try, to link to the artists blogs because that's where credit's due. Well, ENJOY!