Category: top ten

Jessica Campbell’s My Sincerest Apologies is at #5 this week.

1. Hypo: The Melancholic Young Lincoln by Noah Van Sciver (Fantagraphics) $24.99 – The debut graphic novel from Noah Van Sciver follows the twentysomething Abraham Lincoln as he loses everything, long before becoming our most beloved president.

2. King Cat #73 by John Pocellino $3.00 – Porcellino goes cuckoo for cuckoo birds, plus cats at the movies, plus a South Beloit Top 36, plus a recurring spermophile theme.

3. Juxtapoz #141 Oct 12 $5.99

4. Neil Hamburger Comics Digest by Gregg Turkington $6.00

5. My Sincerest Apologies by Jessica Campbell (Oily Comics) $1.00 – You’ll be truly sorry if you miss this lil’ gem!

6. OK Cupid Messages I Have Not Responded To by Delphine Beidient $4.00 – Oh-kay OK Cupid…these unresponded messages are like forensic evidence to reverse engineer Bedient’s dating profile. There’s a lot here, and it’s all pretty much different angles on goofy and polite. I hope this gets followed up by a zine of things Bedient has written on the OKC – I think therein may lay the meat of the matter. -EF

7. No Better Than Apples #8 $3.00 – Health, pinecones, rock camp, singularity, and self-knowledge.

8. I Swallowed the Key to My Heart #2 by Liz Prince $6.00 – How do you outfox the fox? This Liz Prince series is all about players gettin’ played, Boston style.

9. Bitch #56 $5.95

10. Laphams Quarterly vol 5 #4 Fall 12 $15.00

Nobrow #7 is at #3 this week.

1. OK Cupid Messages I Have Not Responded To by Delphine Bedient $4.00

2. Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek the Next Generation, Seasons #6 and #7 by Joshua Chapman $2.00

3. Nobrow #7 (NoBrow Press) $24.00 – “Is this our ‘Brave New World’? Have we yet to enter into it? Or are we on the brink of discovering a world entirely separate from ours: alien, parallel, internal? Inspired by the eponymous dystopian novel written by Aldous Huxley in 1931, Nobrow 7 asks 15 internationally renowned cartoonists, each contributing 4 page visual narratives, and 30 star illustrators to interpret the theme ‘Brave New World’. 45 Creative visionaries take on the theme to produce cutting edge comics and illustration in this fantastic large format anthology that has taken the illustration and comics world by storm.

4. Gangsta Rap Posse #2 by Benjamin Marra (American Tradition Comics) $2.00

5. King City Cat Master Comix by Brandon Graham $19.99

6. Womanimalistic #2 Coochie Party by Caroline Paquita (Pegacorn Press) $3.00 – Vaginal dreamsicles dancing on the labial plane. Paquita makes you wild for the cooch style- as if you weren’t already- this new comic/zine/suitetreat has itself seriously plugged into the feminist power grid. -EF

7. Baffler #20 – Contributors include Thomas Frank, Jed Perl, Steve Almond, Chris Lehmann, Jim Newell, Eugenia Williamson, Heather Havrilesky, Kim Phillips-Fein, Emma Garman, Chris Bray, Matt Hinton, Will Boisvert, Seth Colter Walls, Tod Mesirow, David D’Arcy, and The Homeless Economist, who has a timely suggestion: “Green Gallows for the Wall Street Bankers.

8. S #9 Baltic Comics Magazine $10.00

9. Even the Giants by Jesse Jacobs (Adhouse) $9.95

10. Fuck Yeah I Can Be Sentmental: Foster James’ Little Book of I Love Yous by Patrick Gill $1.00 – A love letter to the love letter.

1. By This You Shall Know Him by Jesse Jacobs (Koyama Press) $15.00 – So outrageously good I just can’t hardly stand it. -EF (I agree. -LM)

2. Fix Your Clothes by Raleigh Briggs (Microcosm Publishing) $5.00 – Briggs’ latest zine is a practical guide to mending and maintaining fabric, covering the basics of sewing, patching, darning, buttons and zippers, hemming and waterproofing. Like “How to Make Soap Without Burning Your Face Off” and “Make Your Place” the writing is clear, concise, scrappy and handy. -EF

3. How to Be a Good Zine Citizen by Carrie and Liz $1.00 – Where’s your Emily Post? Upstanding citi-zines My Aim Is True’s Carrie and Caboose’s Liz Mason sit down and try to teach you kids some manners with their self-publisher’s ettiquette guide. Please? Thank you.

4. Tales of Woodsman Pete With Full Particulars by Lille Carré (Top Shelf) $7.00

5. Juxtapoz #140 Sep 12 $5.99

6. Paper Sep 12 $4.00

7. Bust Aug/Sep 12 $5.99

8. Publick Occurances #13 by Danny Martin $2.00

9. Sex Gender Identity Orientation and Discrimination by Dan Copulsky $.25

10. Fuck Yeah I Can Be Sentmental: Foster James Little Book of I Love Yous by Patrick Gill $1.00 – A love letter to the love letter.

Congrats to this week’s winners!

1. Emotions Are Hard/Crushes: A Not Helpful Guide by Georgi $.50

2. Dig Deep #2 by Heather $1.00

3. Counter Attack #3 by Alisa Harris $3.00

4. Hypnotic Induction Technique by Grant Reynolds $4.00 – Jeezus, Reynolds… This Technique is a patty melt full of bloody hair and a side of mucus fries. Split down the middle, H.I.T. begins with a medley of shorter pieces so viciously viscously combined it’s hard to tell where the pizza puff ends and the rectum begins, and frankly, why would you want to? Progressively wrapping itself around itself, the wormy mass and thready entrails put their cord through a narrative meat grinder. The resultant chuck and splatter is the perfect segway to “Peeled and Deveined” a prying terrorchase lit by nightmare flashlight. These are under-the-skin stories, the kind that keep you coming back to map the terrain of each page while your subconscious slides under the quicksand surface. Get in a suggestible state and sew this onto your mind.  -EF

5. Crap Hound #6 by Sean Tejaratchi (Show & Tell Press) $13.00 – This is the fourth-fucking-edition of Crap Hound #6: Death Phones and Scissors and all the bonus material has it busting the staple barrier, so you get all 100 pages previously ever released plus a 16-page addendum. You say addendum, I say amazing. Seriously, if you have eyes you should be looking at this. -EF

6.   Hark a Vagrant by Kate Beaton (D&Q) $19.95
7. Office Girl by Joe Meno (Akashic) $15.95 – Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1999?

8. Lucky Peach #4 Sum 12 American Food Issue $12.00

9. Cheer the Eff Up #3 by Jonas #3 $1.00

10. Every Thug Is a Lady Adventures Without Gender by Julia Eff $4.00

Is it me or is it hilarious the reoccuring “eff” theme of the last two on this list? Dismissed as coincidence! -LM

Still shot of entries from the 2012 Chicago Zine Fest Olympics “Make a Zine Cover” Competition from opening night. And guess what? Dates have been announced for the next Chicago Zine Fest, which will be March 8th and 9th 2013. For more info, see chicagozinefest.org.

1. DemonTears by Bernie McGovern (Hic and Hoc) $6.00 – Thanks to everybody that came out for the event with minicomics superstars Bernie McGovern, Lauren Barnett and Neil Fitzpatrick.

2. Handbook vol 6 #3 2012 by Darren Ankenbauer $6.00 – Steve Cruz, Keith Haring, reader dick, curated mens, elevator porn – a real handfull. -EF

3. Juxtapoz #140 Sep 12 $5.99

4. Uppercase #14 A Magazine For the Creative and Curious $18.00

5. Hypnotic Induction Technique by Grant Reynolds $4.00 – Jeezus, Reynolds… This Technique is a patty melt full of bloody hair and a side of mucus fries. Split down the middle, H.I.T. begins with a medley of shorter pieces so viciously viscously combined it’s hard to tell where the pizza puff ends and the rectum begins, and frankly, why would you want to? Progressively wrapping itself around itself, the wormy mass and thready entrails put their cord through a narrative meat grinder. The resultant chuck and splatter is the perfect segway to “Peeled and Deveined” a prying terrorchase lit by nightmare flashlight. These are under-the-skin stories, the kind that keep you coming back to map the terrain of each page while your subconscious slides under the quicksand surface. Get in a suggestible state and sew this onto your mind.  -EF

6. Two Cats Magazine #1 Win 12 by Paisley (“Pais) and Boo Radley $15.00 – The first magazine by cats for cats. (Recommended reading. -LM)

7. Sex Gender Identity Orientation and Discrimination by Dan Copulsky $.25

8. Taking the Lane vol 7 BikeSex $4.00 – Bikesexuals speak out.

9. Everythingness by Neil Fitzpatrick (Hic and Hoc Press) $5.00

10. Colors #84  $8.95

Big bucks, no whammies. This is how we roll. Roll Big or Go Home is at #10 this week.

1. My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf (Abrams ComicArts) – Don’t miss Derf here on Thursday (Aug 9th) at 7pm, where he’ll take about this graphic novel he did about his experiences knowing Jeffrey Dahmer in high school!

2. The Baffler #20 $10.00 –  In this summer issue, decomposing cities that tremble with vibrancy, art museums where cash-and-carry aesthetics is the rule, journalists on the endless education of the president, and imperial foundations and their pet broadcasters on public radio. Where else can you learn why Ira Glass’s This American Life is so damn annoying, or take in the lame, postideological pantomiming of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, or admire the performance art of Harvard fraud Adam Wheeler and laugh at the Ivy mothership’s efforts to smite the pretender down?

3. Sweetmeats #1 by Edie Fake $2.00 – This is the story I did for Max Morris’ awesome anthology Vacuum Horror last winter, reprinted as a little mini so I have something to offer when folks wanna trade zines. -EF

4. Lucky Peach #4 Sum 12 The American Food Issue – The McSweeney’s food rag rampages on with the American Food Issue. Less cranky then issue 3, this round has a sprawling Tex-Mex choose your own adventure, plenty of odes to diners and, unsurprisingly, the movie Diner, Cambodian American doughnut culture, Harold McGee being typically delightful and loads of recipes looking that scrummy kinda yummy you know tastes fine. -EF

5. Real Life: A Magical Guide to Getting Off the Internet by Maranda Elizabeth and Dave Cave $3.00

6. Womanimalistic #1 by Caroline Paquita $5.00 – “Amazing Amazing Amazing. Recipes for Fire Cider and Krotchbucha. Ridiculously funny comics about Vajazzling, punker health fiascos (such as the ol’ “Hash Brown Cure”) and urban hiving. Gorgeously patterned comics about love and loss and coming down with a case of The Going Crazies. I’ve been reading the Carson McCullers comic that opens this book over and over and over again – it keeps bringing me close to tears. Highest honors. Lovingly risographed in blue.” -EF

7. Night Riders by Matt Furie (McSweeney’s) $15.95 – Where’s Matt Furie been lately? Apparently he’s been squirreled up drawing a truly stunning and mind-bending wordless children’s book for McSweeney’s, and I couldn’t be more excited about the fruits of his labors. Night Riders is truly awesome – cool animal-monsters staying up all night on a journey through a glowing nocturnal world, rendered in some ultralush colored pencil jewel hues. I love the chillpill laffs of Boy’s Club aplenty – however this is a different trip altogether: magic and riches with perfect delivery. A great kid’s book, and a great graphic novel to boot. -EF

8. Elephant Ear #1 by Jeremy Tinder $8.00 – Jeremy Tinder launched this beast at CAKE a few months ago: deluxe stories of slipping, surreal illness and alone time. Paced a little like a Murakami story, I’d say- the richness of a character staring into space, the practicality of the mothman stealing batteries, the resignation to finding a tooth in your eyesocket. -EF

9. Dig Deep #4 by Heather $1.00 – Local-based perzine by a rad librarian.

10. Roll Big or Go Home by Rio Safari $2.00 – Cute lil love letter to fantasy, D&D and punk nerdery. Rad title, too. -EF

This most recent issue of Remedy (#9, featuring the them of escape) is at #10 this week.

1. Office Girl by Joe Meno (Akashic) $15.95 – Umbrellas of Cherbourg 1999?

2. Lucky Peach #4 Sum 12 The American Food Issue – The McSweeney’s food rag rampages on with the American Food Issue. Less cranky then issue 3, this round has a sprawling Tex-Mex choose your own adventure, plenty of odes to diners and, unsurprisingly, the movie Diner, Cambodian American doughnut culture, Harold McGee being typically delightful and loads of recipes looking that scrummy kinda yummy you know tastes fine. -EF

3. The Baffler #20 $10.00 –  In this summer issue, decomposing cities that tremble with vibrancy, art museums where cash-and-carry aesthetics is the rule, journalists on the endless education of the president, and imperial foundations and their pet broadcasters on public radio. Where else can you learn why Ira Glass’s This American Life is so damn annoying, or take in the lame, postideological pantomiming of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, or admire the performance art of Harvard fraud Adam Wheeler and laugh at the Ivy mothership’s efforts to smite the pretender down?

4. The Believer #91 $12.00

5. Lose #3 by Michael DeForge (Koyama Press) $5.00 – Lose has the same doomsday “joy” of early Dan Clowes or Chris Ware: pathetic characters trapped in a endless plummet of unaware-over-self-awareness that cuts straight to the heart of a modern crisis of meaning. Perhaps an interesting distinction here is that while D.C. and C.W. were dishing out their snarkiest and perhaps crassest work as absurd technology and media alienation was revving up, DeForge’s fined-tuned portraits of apocalyptic failure are being produced in sync with a deep cultural wallow in the bitter joke of “first world problems”. Whatever the case, his self-absorbed characters attempting (and failing) to toddle through their collapsed and bombed out trash cities unscathed is consistently scary and resonating. With each issue, his rotwater post-apocalypse hauntscape looks more and more like the 4 month pasta salad leftovers back of my fridge, but somehow it keeps you hungry for more. -EF

6. Boys Club #1 by Matt Furie (Buenaventura Press) $6.00 – A collection of Matt Furie’s mini-comics featuring teenage monsters Andy, Brett, Landwolf and Pepe: drinkin;, stinkin; and never thinkin’.

7. Acme Novelty Library by Chris Ware (Pantheon) $27.50

8. Even the Giants by Jesse Jacobs (Adhouse) $9.95 – Jesse Jacobs bursts onto the comic scene with his first published work EVEN THE GIANTS. The work beautifully captures the isolation of the Great White North while also giving the artist a sequential canvas to explore and experiment. This book will be printed in three Pantone spot colors. Jesse’s work has been nominated for the Doug Wright award and has won the Gene Day award.

9. Nurse Nurse by Kate Skelly (Sparkplug) $15.00 – Description from the back of the book: “It is a comic book about the future. It is a prediction about television. It is a cautionary tale about butterflies. It is science fiction for all kinds of people. It collects all seven issues of the mini-comic series and the never-before-seen eighth issue. Please have an adventure….Love is real. NURSE NURSE this.”

10. Remedy Quarterly #9 Escape $9.50 – From the Remedy website describing this issue of this popular food zine: Issue 9 will leave you ready to make you’re own great escape—hopefully to your kitchen. Inside we’ve got a Q&A with Bonnie Slotnick of Bonnie Slotnick Cookbooks in New York City (one of my personal favorite escapes), we’ll take you the countryside of Italy where you’ll learn to enjoy the sound of silence in Italy, and get adventurous at a Louisiana crab boil complete with a trip to the bayou. Plus recipes, tips & tidbits, and more!