Zine Scene: A Quick, New Round-Up Here is a quick selection of three different zines I've encountered in the last few weeks. One is brand new and the others go back a bit, but they each deserve mention.


Amish Otaku # 1
Edited by Dan Allen

Amish Otaku, as the name implies, is a review zine out of Central Pennsylvania. Laid out as a news periodical, it is packed wall-to-wall with columns, reviews, and op-eds on more recent video games, manga, and genre books. Allen has thus far secured some distribution and needs advertisers to off-set the printing costs. The website is here.


Omnibus of Fun # 12
Clownhead Productions, 2004
Edited and written by ("Creepy") Mike Ruspantini

My eye was drawn to this zine during several consecutive visits to Tower Records (R.I.P.). Omnibus of Fun is chock-full-o stories, interviews and a very impressive digest of other zines and comics. "Creepy Mike's Copious Cavalcade of Comics and Zany Zines" shows that he knows the underground better than I ever will, providing numerous points of departure for other "weird" publications. The design leaves something to be desired, but this is contentious knowledge at its finest, folks. I am unsure as to whether this is still published, but pick it up if you see it.




Kitchen Sink 14 (Volume 4, Issue 2)
A Publishing Project of Neighbor Lady Community Arts Project
Stefanie Kalem, Editor in Chief

Kitchen Sink is an incredibly professional zine of original fiction, opinion, and pop cultural criticism. It is somewhere uncomfortably between high brow publications like The Paris Review and accessible humor magazines like Mad. Graphic design is top-notch (this issue contains some input and content from Image Comics and a few practicing artists) but the writing is a tad too anecdotal for my tastes. Really excellent stuff on the whole, if you are in the mood for irreverence.  ¶ 2:29 PM