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It's held in Toronto at the Gladstone Hotel, and there are a few hundred zines represented there. It's pretty kewl. I made some notes on my experiences there and, like everything else I write, I've categorized it and listed it in point form. So here goes. Amanda Crawford: The artist of some spectacularly cruel and cynical comics. She's a great thinker. I'd like to see the rest of her catalogue. Right now I've only got "Comics that first appeared in Upfront." I'll try to order the rest when I have some ca$h. Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery: I'm just going to paste in a review I wrote for FRED magazine that never got published before the thing folded. "This is one of the best superhero comics I've ever read. At first glance, I thought the minute details of the B&W artwork might be a bit difficult to get into, but the illustration style sucked me in fast. While waiting for the fourth issue of The Amazing Challengers to arrive, I checked my mailbox two or three times a day. The first three issues composed a fascinating trilogy in which an eccentric millionaire (Alexandre Maxim) assembled a team of four heroes with relatively average super-powers and diverse personalities (a highschool girl with super strength, a punk rocker with telepathy, a robot designer with electronic know-how and a robotic arm, and a history professor who can raise the dead). In the initial trilogy, Maxim set the team on a mission to defeat his super-genius father who had been plotting world domination schemes from the basement of the local retirement home. After Maxim Sr. was apprehended in the third issue and the trilogy was sealed up, the storyline could have gone in a variety of directions, and I think creator Evan Munday made the right decision about what to do next. He's given the Amazing Challengers some time to rest between battles. Issue #4 focuses on what they do when they're not saving the world, and the issue does a great job of developing personal relationships between members of the super-team. Not since The Defenders have I seen a comic with such an interesting ensemble cast. I think The Amazing Challengers should top every comic lover's wish list. But be warned -- these superheroes are not your average, everyday comic book characters -- they live and fight in Waterloo, Ontario! The Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery is available at Strange Adventures, Backstreet Records, and Reid's Newsstand." Carousel: I talked to Mark Laliberte, a former Qwerty contributor, who is the visual arts editor for Carousel. Carousel is published at the University of Guelph, and it's visually amazing. I don't know why I haven't submitted anything to this mag yet. It's beautiful. Chinatown: Wow. A great place for noodles and for bootleg movies @ $5 each. I spent all of my free time in Toronto's big and small Chinatowns. I'd love to live there, but I don't want to pollute it with my white skin and English words. It was raining all weekend, but when I was in Chinatown it got so bright, shining through the gaps in the clouds, that I got a bit of a sunburn in that short sunny hour. Dan Naccarato: Dan was a Qwerty editor a few years back, and he's a contributor to The N-Com. He's a good guy, and he let me stay at his place when I was in Toronto. he showed me around the Danforth area and we went to Chinatown Big and Chinatown Small. We worked the table together at Canzine, etc. It was a great time. David Widgington: Editor of Cumulus Press and criminal mastermind of EXPOZINE. I didn't get a chance to talk to him much this year, but he says that his projects are on the grow, which is great, because he's a great guy with some really nice-looking books. I picked up a copy of Kaie Kellough's "lettricity," and it's beautiful inside and out. Plus, any editor who publishes amazing upcoming writers like Kat Wrobel is a hero of sorts. Emily Shultz: The Broken Pencil editor with the skills to pay the bills. She's kind and cool, and authoritative without being obnoxious. She even picked up my drink tab on the Broken Pencil account. In my mind, the best editor of any magazine ever. Her book of short fiction, Black Coffee Night, is damned good: stories about young people from a dark and realistic angle. I hate coffee and I still love these stories. Future GG-winner in the works here, pals. Evan Munday: I've worked with Evan on a few projects so far. He's provided illustrations for N-Com #9 and #10, and we did a 4-page comic together called "Future Vision," where a hobo discovers a set of glasses that allow him to see 5 seconds into the future. We went out after Canzine and had some good Vietnamese food. Evan's a great guy and a great comic artist. He's also the creator of The Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery, which I've already mentioned. Ghost Robot: This is a sketch comedy CD. I thought, "Yeah right, this thing is going to suck shit." But I'm listening to it right now and it's damned good so far. The comedy is well-written and well-acted. Okay, I'm quite impressed. I'm real impressed. IN fact, I'm a fucking fan. I admit it. This CD rules and if you haven't heard it yet, you're nobody. But you can become somebody. www.ghoro.com (note: you cannot order a CD or contact anybody from this website, due to programmer incompetence) The Gladstone: They're supposedly renovating, but the place looks more condemned than ever. There's scaffolding around the whole place, most of the rooms are unheated, and there are some places where the floors are caving in. Oh yes, some of the windows are covered with boards, and on Sunday one of the boards blew in and there was a eight square foot gap in the wall through which renovation dust and cold air flooded the room. A perfect locale for Canzine. Hegemon: This is a silly, fun, short-spoken zine. Pixelized spokespersons discuss political issues, using clipped speech and not hitting the reader over the head with that vulgar beast OPINION. There's no contact information in this mag, or I'd send in an email saying "Hello, thank you for the magazine." James Spyker and Kim Kutner: "365 reasons not to be bored" is the best calendar ever. Each day on the calendar provides you with a lifestyle suggestion for that day. I've got the 2004 calendar up on my wall, and today's suggestion is "taunt the dead." So yeah, fuck you Christopher Reeve! Some super-man you turned out to be! I hope they buried you in a lead-lined coffin. Wow, that's way more mean-spirited than I wanted it to be. But shit, I've got to follow the rules of the calendar. Jason Kieffer: There's this mag called Downtown Toronto, which is all about the homeless situation there. The weird thing is that it's a comic book, a very grainy, beautiful, post-structural comic book that any sensitive person would fall in love with. So just check that out at www.jasonkieffercomics.com. Jeff Chapman: Jeff is the best absurdist writer I've ever met in my life. YIP is the greatest absurd zine of all time. Read it right now. www.yip.org. Don't even bother finishing this issue, because Jeff's stuff is so fucking awesome that everything else is garbage in comparison. We were supposed to get together the night before Canzine, but he's been in the hospital. Get better, Jeff. What did the world read before YIP? Garbage like Swift and Chaucer, and all that other dark ages shiznit. Jim Monroe: He seemed ambivalent toward me until he found out that I was friends with Jeff Chapman. After that, he was pretty nice to me, and traded his latest Novel Amusements DVD for 3 copies of The N-Com. I pointed out the art done by eidetic, who is somewhat of a fan of his. Laos Egri: I don't know if this is a real person. There's this guy with these electronic/cut and paste zines. He's got electronic screenshots, which are then cut-and-pasted over one another. I don't know a fucking thing about this guy. I don't know what to say. I'll shut up now. Lorenz Peter: I never know what to say about Lorenz. He's been around on the zine scene for at least a decade, and his comics are some of the most warped stuff I've ever seen. A woman pissing into an open grave, a couple fucking on a hotdog stand while dogs fellate each other on the sidewalk. And it's art. It's fucking awesome art. I just wish I had the bankroll to shell out for a couple of his originals. Or even his $25 book. Damn, the pov is a villain. Any, Lorenz's a genius. Nuff said. Marc Ngui: I like this guy a lot. He has a pencil-line moustache now, which I appreciate. I didn't get much of a chance to talk to him, but he assured me that he still wanted to illustrate "Brecken Walks the Kiten" someday soon. Apparently he saw some seven-year-old girls abduct and assault a mummy in the hidden chambers of Canzine. No Frequency Media: This is weird stuff. A collective that publishes zines, VCDs, and floppy disks of ASCII and ANSI art. Interests include post-Marxist philosophy, home movies, surveillance footage, and some a video of some dude finishing Kung Fu in 4 minutes, without getting hit once. Noodles: Man cannot live on bread alone, but he can live on noodles. The Shore Magazine: The first-ever winner of the "Best Press Kit EVER" award. A flyer describing the magazine's philosophy, a postcard, and four business cards. Dan picked up a copy of this mag, but due to my shortage of funds, I could not do the same. Dan's copy looked really good. I wish I could have mustered the courage to steal his. The press kit was nice too. Stephen Chow: I bought "From Beijing with Love." I was going to buy his "Chinese Odyssey" movies too, but I'd already spent $100 on DVDs. Taddle Creek: This is a beautiful Toronto fiction mag illustrated by the amazing Ian Phillips of Derek McCormack books fame. They also have beautiful retro covers featuring pictures of people from the 60s and 70s. It's got this great pulpy atmosphere, and I think to myself, "This is how magazines should look!" I asked if I could submit something, but they only take subs from Toronto writers. FUCKERS! Make an exception for me, goddammit! Tomson Highway: He wasn't at Canzine, but he was on my flight from Montreal to Toronto (that's right, I have to pass through Montreal in order to get from Fredericton to Toronto). I didn't talk to him on tha plane, since I wasn't sure if it was really him, but on the shuttle bus to Kipling station I said "Hey are you Tomson Highway?" And, quietly, he said, "Yes I am." We sat together on the bus and he told me about how he's been spending the winters in France. "I spend 12 months of the year speaking French," he told me. "My apologies for speaking to you in English," I said. He forgave me. I wanted to ask him why in "Dry Lips Ougtha Move to Kapuskasing" Big Joey stands by and allows Dickie Bird Hawked to rape Patsy/Nanabush with a crucifix, but I didn't think it would make for good small talk. Instead, I told him about the Fredericton Playhouse and I gave him a copy of N-Com #10. I wonder if he'll read it. Top 10 Canzine Acquisitions: 1) Ghost Robot Comedy CD 2) comics that first appeared in Upfront 3) Downtown Toronto #1-3 4) Amazing Challengers of Unknown Mystery #5 5) Broken Pencil #26 6) Hegemon 7) LETTRICITY 8) 356 reasons not to be bored for the year 2005 9) Shore Magazine Press Kit 10) Bush VS Everyone (note: at the time of writing this, I have not read all of these publications, and these ratings only reflect my initial reflections, with the serious exception of Ghost Robot, which slays ass.) Vegetarian food: YUM! Unlike Fredericton, Toronto has vegetarian restaurants. Can I please move to Toronto now? Virus Comics: "Bush vs Everyone" and "Gee Marie." The illustrator's got an interesting look to his comics, and the humour is pretty hot. Bush vs Everyone sounds like a dumb idea, but it manages to be funny despite the cringe-worthy premise. Gee Marie would be depressing if it wasn't so absurd. fin. NOTE: NOVEMBER IS WORLD ASCII MONTH! PREPARE 2 CELEBRATE! _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ \"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._ _.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/ " " " " " " " """"" " " " " " " " _/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_ To Breathe by Heckat _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ \"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._ _.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/ " " " " " " " """"" " " " " " " " To Breathe: Middle English from BREATH The apparatus of it. The clean, mythic logic of it ruptured by modern science: the x-ray. A revelation of the absurdity of flesh. Bulbous organ, the ferris wheel of respiration flooded by photonic radiation. Your x-ray, the exposure of etymology's luminous organ (lungen from LIGHT). Pockets of light, your lungs. The photograph that tells us it is too late: cancer has blackened your blooming dahlias. Breathing, a process whereby we move toward darkness. The impulsive whim of disease is discovered in tea leaves, an electron smudge. The road to grief: passionfruit swallowed whole, yellow splendor unrevealed. Now, we know. You breathe toward the darkness, lungs heavy under the baroque armour of your ribcage. Everything is a mess. The splayed image of lungs: butterfly pinned under light. _/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_ Art Drawer Vampire by Tapmo _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ \"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._ _.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/ " " " " " " " """"" " " " " " " " "art drawer vampire" (from the Book of Girls) A cautious old friend whispers, "All those girls have art drawers." But the next day I find you gardening - you wear your preferences like camoflage. Then you Sesame Street me, away in your art drawer. That's what you call it, Sesame Streeting: You woke me from my age. Tight, hopeless, dumb. As you are closing the white drawer, I look up at you, stunned, a weak child in doll shoes, growing too young to open the door - the younger you get, the more I hate you. .-. .-. / \ .-. .-. / \ / \ / \ .-. _ .-. / \ / \ `-------\-------/-----\-----/---\---/-\---/---\-----/-----\-------/-------' \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / `-' `-' The Neo-Comintern Magazine / Online Magazine is seeking submissions. Unpublished stories and articles of an unusual, experimental, or anti-capitalist nature are wanted. Contributors are encouraged to submit works incorporating any or all of the following: Musings, Delvings into Philosophy, Flights of Fancy, Freefall Selections, and Tales of General Mirth. The more creative and astray from the norm, the better. For examples of typical Neo-Comintern writing, see our website at . Submissions of 25-4000 words are wanted; the average article length is approximately 200-1000 words. Send submissions via email attachment to , or through ICQ to #29981964. Contributors will receive copies of the most recent print issue of The Neo-Comintern; works of any length and type will be considered for publication in The Neo-Comintern Online Magazine and/or The Neo-Comintern Magazine. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .--/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\--. `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' ___________________________________________________ | THE COMINTERN IS AVAILABLE ON THE FOLLOWING BBSES | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | TWILIGHT ZONE (905) 432-7667 | | BRING ON THE NIGHT (306) 373-4218 | | CLUB PARADISE (306) 978-2542 | | THE GATEWAY THROUGH TIME (306) 373-9778 | |___________________________________________________| | Website at: http://www.neo-comintern.com | | Questions? Comments? Submissions? | | Email BMC at bmc@neo-comintern.com | |___________________________________________________| | The Current Text Scene : http://www.textscene.com | |___________________________________________________| .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .--/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\--. `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' copyright 2004 by #283-10/24/04 the neo-comintern ISSN 1710-5749 All content is property of The Neo-Comintern. You may redistribute this document, although no fee can be charged and the content must not be altered or modified in any way. Unauthorized use of any part of this document is prohibited. All rights reserved. Made in Canada. By Canadians. And a couple Others.