Labels: Microcosm
Review by: Guy Baumann
Cometbus #47 vs Burn Collector 12
When is a zine not a zine? These 2 issues both come in a professional format. Flash covers and proper binding. No cut & paste here.
Al “Burn Collector” Burian and Aaron Cometbus are both long standing members of the zine community but these are the first 2 issues I have seen by either of them. Both are personal zines retelling autobiographical or seeminly autobiographical stories from their lives in and around the punk scene.
Cometbus tells the story of a young Aaron Cometbus growing up in Berkley at the age of 18. Stories about his friends and family tied together by his ongoing relationship with Lanky. While interesting I didn’t feel hooked by the stories – took me a number of days to read this despite its small size. One of the problems was the design, the font a handwritten upper case one combined with hardly any leading(typographic term for the vertical space between lines of text) made this very uncomfortable to read. But despite my complaints this is $2 of anyones money well spent. I look forward to reading some more, with hopefully better typography.
The design of Burn Collector however makes reading a dream. A lovely simple blue cover and a square format make this stand out and the typography is excellent. Again autobiographical stories, telling tales of his slacker life spent couch surfing along with hilarious tales of his time at university. The opening line is worth the admission price alone “It didn’t seem like a very good idea to pay attention in college” , as I am starting Uni in a month perhaps I should take heed of this advice.
Anyway two classy volumes from two of the elder statesmen of the zine world. Both are excellent reads however the winner of this Tekken Tag team match must be Burn Collector.
Both zines are available via stickfigure though I hope to get some in when I eventually get round to restarting my zine distro.
www.stickfiguredistro.com / www.metrophage.co.uk