Comic artist Jason Martin's Covers has long been one of our favorites and we're so thrilled about this long-awaited second issue. These "covers album"-style comic adaptations of his favorite stories about musicians are just a joy.
In this issue: Sonic Youth's trailer of stolen gear, Keanu Reeves' ice skating rink 30th birthday party with Thurston Moore and Mike Watt, Alex Zhang Hungtai of Dirty Beaches' getting banned from the U.S., Juliana Hatfield's sold guitar, Jim O'Rourke's stuffed animals of protection, and Neil Young's brief imagined life as a salmon.
36 pages, half-letter size.
In this, the "pre-pandemic naivete" issue, we get comics about parenting, reading while walking, and explaining second-wave ska to children. Gorgeously printed.
40 pages, quarter-size, risograph printed.
In the "obligatory coronavirus" issue, we get comics about the pandemic. Life as a high school art teacher, worries, hobbies, boredom, so many questions.
40 pages, quarter-size, risograph printed.
Ed Kemp's ever-charming Pencil of the Week zine series relies on an unwaveringly simple-yet-perfect premise: pencil reviews, each hand-written using the pencil being reviewed. This issue is a wonderful entry point, given that it is lovingly designed and introduced by Ali Serra of Ernest Theodore fame, coming in a ridiculously handsome slip case.
20 pages, half-letter size, green staples to match the foil stamping on General's yellow pencils.
A love letter to movie theater concession stands, Happy Meal toys, the meats of Memory Lane, the Girl Scout cookies of 1981. Cul-De-Sac #9 is all about the joys and pains, hilarity and heartache of loving food.
44 pages, half-letter size.
A levitation act. From Max Ernst's 1934 collage classic, A Week of Kindness or The Seven Deadly Elements.
Offset print, chipboard covers. 5" x 7.5", 50 pages.
In this issue of our favorite photography journal: so many wonderful photography series, one right after the other. This time, with several brief introductions from the photographers—a Cuban homeland diary, an abandoned Dead Sea-adjacent water park, the diverse narratives of Muslim women across Canada, a Medellín neighborhood, a tiny Rust Belt community, so much more.
With work from: Michelle Asci, Vivie Behrens, Frances Bukovsky, Frijke Coumans, John Darwell, Atefeh Farajolahzadeh, Jamil Fatti, Johnny Galvan, Kirra Kimbrell, Sebastián Castaño, Ospina Sergio Leyva Seiglie, Dana Stirling, Shelli Weiler, and Alia Youssef. Introductory essay by Andy Pham.
76 pages, full color. 6.5" x 8". First pressing of only 100. Buy Incandescent as a pack to save money and support the photo journal.
A pandemic short story about a lonely science teacher adopting stray animals, having distanced hook-ups, drinking beers in the park, watching planets align. As always with Tomas Moniz, it's a pleasure to read and finds a sweet, unexpected depth.
32 pages, half-letter size.
Rachel Lee-Carman's zines are, to me, the perfect manifestation of the potential inherent in zines. What can zines do that a mass-published book can't? Well, they can (like in this issue of The Thread) have pages you take out and fold to create mini zines within the larger zine. They can have a sheet of velum paper for you to write on and send to her to be part of a different zine. They can be full of sketchbook drawings and scrapbook photos, can break up stories in odd in interesting ways, have detailed (almost circular) instructions for making twine out of stinging nettles in the middle of the some really heartfelt writing. They can be wilder and freer and full of a raw life that gets edited out of 99% of books.
This issue of The Thread is an anniversary, of sorts. The 17th issue of a zine series Rachel Lee-Carman started 17 years ago when she was 17. It has meditations on keeping a journal, romantic friendships, the beauty and danger of rivers over the course of a lifetime, an imagined art show, three years of grieving a parent in a personal and atypical way, Pagan customs, food and poem pairings with Anis Mojgani, so much more.
40 pages, half-letter size.
The third full-length from Pittsburgh songwriter Sara Renberg, Butch Spring is an album about being humbled by a mid-30s identity crisis, and the confusion and joy that results. These are songs about gender, queerness, and relationships that are both playful and analytical, full of both depth and absurdity.
The follow-up to her critically-adored 2018 release Night Sands, Butch Spring continues her reign of lyrically clever, emotionally resonant, scrappy indie rock songs that have earned her regular comparisons to Frankie Cosmos, Silver Jews, and The Mountain Goats. But the album also pushes her sound into new territory, with drop-tuned guitars, woodwinds, and surprise horn sections.
Released on Antiquated Future Records. First printing on white cassettes with denim text and J-card art by Zoe Wodarz. Listen on Bandcamp.