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I get really bad zines to review sometimes. And even though I do reviews for the notoriously meanest publications in the review world, something often stops me from completely letting loose and trashing them. In order to more effectively criticize other people’s hard work, I’ve decided to try to figure out my, before now, unexamined reviewing philosophy.
Some would say that you should only print positive reviews and, at worst, appreciate the effort that’s gone into any publication. It’s all part of a community you should be supporting and blah, blah, blah. To me that seems like fraud. And boring-to-read fraud at that. The least compelling reason to be nice for me is "Who am I to stomp on someone else’s writing?" I just think of all the people wasting money, stamps, and time because I didn’t warn the properly or give an ambiguous review when a rant is merited. As a reviewer my responsibility should be to my reader first, at least after I’m sure I’m being factual with my criticism.
But there are certain things that mitigate bad publications. The first reason is obviously the who’s-writing-the-zine question. god knows I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for my teen-age writings. But then again, I didn’t publish them either. Teen-agers might not get exactly a free pass, but I’ll be a lot nicer to them than someone who’s had another ten years and still can’t form an interesting sentence. As The Clash once said, "If you’ve been trying for years / we’ve already heard your song."
In addition, I definitely give a break to anyone writing about intense personal drama. This I have more qualms about because there is a genre aspect to the this-is-my-horrible-life personal zine. But in the end I find it too hard to judge these zines as "too derivative" or "unoriginal" because that’s not really the point. I truly don’t believe that many of these zines are actually trying to be innovative or even necessarily well-written. But they serve as resources, vents, examples, sources of support, and pen-pal ads that, honestly, serve a much better function than, for example, a more well-written music zine does.
I try not to use the reviewer cop out solution which you learn after about five minutes on the job. If you write something scathing, you’ll likely have to defend it point by point and spend much, much longer reading the zine to make sure every fact in your review is correct. I resent spending so much time on a review when the author obviously spent so little time in the production. I try to be pretty scrupulous about actually reading the zines I get for review but when the boredom gets past a certain level, I’ll wing the rest.
Then there’s the left thing. When I get crappy political zines to review, I still find myself wanting to pull my punches because of my no-airing-dirty-laundry political education. While I didn’t grow up red diaper, it still feels like betrayal to criticize lefty, non-sectarian publications in a space that is not specifically "left". This is one of the harder ones for me because it’s partially subconscious. I have to figure out why I’m holding back before I can override that part of my brain. Lucky for readers who like the negative, my patience with much of the left press has worn out. In fact, I think I’ll get around to writing that "Why is the anarchist press so bad?" article I’ve been threatening to complete for about a year now.
There’s plenty of zines I have a less hard time criticizing. Music zines, pretentious zines, hardcore fanzines, "objectively written" political zines, I’m-so-oppressed-as-a-white-man-which-is-why-no-one-will-publish-my-books zines? No problem.
But all this questioning came to the forefront for me with the two zines listed below. I kept feeling the need to be nicer and more supportive while reading them. And then I asked myself why. Disorderly Conduct is pretty much unreadable and wrong, whereas boyfunk is just very 1993 and written by someone old enough to know better. Then I realized the other hard part: my reviews are only supposed to be 75 words long.
boyfunk #1 $2/trades/free to prisoners
8.5 x 11 - copied-22pgs
"100% Queer" zine for queer men. Includes the boyfunk manifesto, poetry, and interesting reflections at a funeral, but mostly consists of calls for revolutionary queers to fight back against mainstream society, and mainstream gays, who would kill or ignore deviants and dissidents. Of note to MRR readers is the "Fuck Punk Rock (Or an Open Letter to Punkers)" article. Except for the clever line "You adhere to an atrocious personal aesthetic in order to demonstrate your individuality" and his warning to punks to "Stop letting (. . .) MRR (. . .) or whatever run your fuckin’ life!" (which I basically agree with because, let’s be honest, that would just be sad) this bit of boilerplate rebellion is what made me realize that the "angry queer" zine is its own genre at this point that needs an obligatory "punk is not revolutionary!" article that can be delivered either with a "wow!" or a page full of bitterness. The editor also shows that he hasn’t completely purged his sectarian left background with the sentence, "The punk rock lifestyle is a reactionary response to the ills of capitalist society." Not a bad zine, but one that needs to develop more of its own voice. (GZ)
Disorderly Conduct #6 $3
5.5x 8.5 – copied - About 100pgs, numbering them is counter-revolutionary
Green insurrectionary anarchist journal from Eugene. The more I read anarcho-anti-civilization zines the more they just depress me. Here are some quotes: "(what unites us is) our hatred of all domesticating and dominating powers and our desire to be wild human-animals once again.", "We believe anarchy to be our natural condition." "Domestication creates a totalitarian relation with plants and animals, and eventually other humans." Sorry folks, there is no natural state to return to (how many thousands of years later?). I just don’t think nature works like that. There is a certain ideology these folks believe in, and try to convince other of, that they try to justify by proclaiming its purity and naturalness, but I’m not buying. I guess I’m just predisposed to be skeptical of revolutionaries organizing under those banners. Oh yeah, this zine is really thick, there’s lots of stuff including prisoner support info and news on the most recent bash and trashes throughout the world. (GZ)
Some would say that you should only print positive reviews and, at worst, appreciate the effort that’s gone into any publication. It’s all part of a community you should be supporting and blah, blah, blah. To me that seems like fraud. And boring-to-read fraud at that. The least compelling reason to be nice for me is "Who am I to stomp on someone else’s writing?" I just think of all the people wasting money, stamps, and time because I didn’t warn the properly or give an ambiguous review when a rant is merited. As a reviewer my responsibility should be to my reader first, at least after I’m sure I’m being factual with my criticism.
But there are certain things that mitigate bad publications. The first reason is obviously the who’s-writing-the-zine question. god knows I wouldn’t want to be held responsible for my teen-age writings. But then again, I didn’t publish them either. Teen-agers might not get exactly a free pass, but I’ll be a lot nicer to them than someone who’s had another ten years and still can’t form an interesting sentence. As The Clash once said, "If you’ve been trying for years / we’ve already heard your song."
In addition, I definitely give a break to anyone writing about intense personal drama. This I have more qualms about because there is a genre aspect to the this-is-my-horrible-life personal zine. But in the end I find it too hard to judge these zines as "too derivative" or "unoriginal" because that’s not really the point. I truly don’t believe that many of these zines are actually trying to be innovative or even necessarily well-written. But they serve as resources, vents, examples, sources of support, and pen-pal ads that, honestly, serve a much better function than, for example, a more well-written music zine does.
I try not to use the reviewer cop out solution which you learn after about five minutes on the job. If you write something scathing, you’ll likely have to defend it point by point and spend much, much longer reading the zine to make sure every fact in your review is correct. I resent spending so much time on a review when the author obviously spent so little time in the production. I try to be pretty scrupulous about actually reading the zines I get for review but when the boredom gets past a certain level, I’ll wing the rest.
Then there’s the left thing. When I get crappy political zines to review, I still find myself wanting to pull my punches because of my no-airing-dirty-laundry political education. While I didn’t grow up red diaper, it still feels like betrayal to criticize lefty, non-sectarian publications in a space that is not specifically "left". This is one of the harder ones for me because it’s partially subconscious. I have to figure out why I’m holding back before I can override that part of my brain. Lucky for readers who like the negative, my patience with much of the left press has worn out. In fact, I think I’ll get around to writing that "Why is the anarchist press so bad?" article I’ve been threatening to complete for about a year now.
There’s plenty of zines I have a less hard time criticizing. Music zines, pretentious zines, hardcore fanzines, "objectively written" political zines, I’m-so-oppressed-as-a-white-man-which-is-why-no-one-will-publish-my-books zines? No problem.
But all this questioning came to the forefront for me with the two zines listed below. I kept feeling the need to be nicer and more supportive while reading them. And then I asked myself why. Disorderly Conduct is pretty much unreadable and wrong, whereas boyfunk is just very 1993 and written by someone old enough to know better. Then I realized the other hard part: my reviews are only supposed to be 75 words long.
boyfunk #1 $2/trades/free to prisoners
8.5 x 11 - copied-22pgs
"100% Queer" zine for queer men. Includes the boyfunk manifesto, poetry, and interesting reflections at a funeral, but mostly consists of calls for revolutionary queers to fight back against mainstream society, and mainstream gays, who would kill or ignore deviants and dissidents. Of note to MRR readers is the "Fuck Punk Rock (Or an Open Letter to Punkers)" article. Except for the clever line "You adhere to an atrocious personal aesthetic in order to demonstrate your individuality" and his warning to punks to "Stop letting (. . .) MRR (. . .) or whatever run your fuckin’ life!" (which I basically agree with because, let’s be honest, that would just be sad) this bit of boilerplate rebellion is what made me realize that the "angry queer" zine is its own genre at this point that needs an obligatory "punk is not revolutionary!" article that can be delivered either with a "wow!" or a page full of bitterness. The editor also shows that he hasn’t completely purged his sectarian left background with the sentence, "The punk rock lifestyle is a reactionary response to the ills of capitalist society." Not a bad zine, but one that needs to develop more of its own voice. (GZ)
Disorderly Conduct #6 $3
5.5x 8.5 – copied - About 100pgs, numbering them is counter-revolutionary
Green insurrectionary anarchist journal from Eugene. The more I read anarcho-anti-civilization zines the more they just depress me. Here are some quotes: "(what unites us is) our hatred of all domesticating and dominating powers and our desire to be wild human-animals once again.", "We believe anarchy to be our natural condition." "Domestication creates a totalitarian relation with plants and animals, and eventually other humans." Sorry folks, there is no natural state to return to (how many thousands of years later?). I just don’t think nature works like that. There is a certain ideology these folks believe in, and try to convince other of, that they try to justify by proclaiming its purity and naturalness, but I’m not buying. I guess I’m just predisposed to be skeptical of revolutionaries organizing under those banners. Oh yeah, this zine is really thick, there’s lots of stuff including prisoner support info and news on the most recent bash and trashes throughout the world. (GZ)
