Xerography Debt #30 - Jan 2012
64 pages, digest size, $4.00, Davida Gypsy Breier, PO Box 11064, Baltimore MD 11064, USA ["please address mail to Davida, the Post Office is returning things sent to Xerography Debt"]
+ davida[at]leekinginc.com + www.leekinginc.com
Davida writes in her Introduction about how back in 1999 she started up this review zine, and back then it was called Xerox Debt, but no surprise there was some threats made about that so she changed it to Xerography Debt. She also writes about travelling around the country to zine-selling bookstores and being amazed by how many she never saw before, and she edits a zine review zine! Lots of zine makers don't really care about getting their stuff reviewed, or could it be that they just send their zine to other zine review publications?
Other columns this issue: Joe Biel writes about the death of the blog (everybody uses Facebook and Twitter now. Dale Speirs wrote something funny in a recent Opuntia about this, that Twitter is for people who find it too difficult to read a paragraph, much less scroll down to read a blog. Or maybe Twitter is the new haiku? I still haven't joined up on Twitter. Am I missing out on something?).
There's a column by Al Burian writing about his expatriate life in Germany. He's getting a head-start on winter by growing his seasonal Charles Manson beard.
Jeff Somers's column really hit me in the guts, since I suspect I was one of those assholes who didn't bother to let him know my change of address and he got his zine returned to sender. Jeff, if I'm one of those douchebags, please accept my apology! My mail was supposed to be redirected but too late I found out it didn't cover my 'Stratu' name.
Then Gianni Simone writes up some reviews of such quality reading as Robin Bougie's Cinema Sewer collection, and another great-sounding book, a collection of Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford's zine Sleazoid Express.
Then there's the reviews, each grouped under an individual reviewer. It was funny to read in the recent Zine World #30.5, reviewer P5! wrote (of XD) that he "[couldn't] understand why the reviewers seem to feel the need to include photos of themselves". Well, that's the way it's set up. Like a template. Plus you don't have to use an actual photo of yourself. For example D. Blake Werts uses a line drawing of himself playing with a dog, and in Matt Fagan's pic, you can barely even see him - he's got a blanket pulled up over half his face. I'm sure the reason is not that so people will recognise big-headed XD reviewers in the street and ask for their autograph because they are so famous. Haw!
And let me ask you ZW reviewers something: why do most of you have obscure, unreal names like P5!, and 'e.war', and 'artnoose', eh? (I'll admit that I think the pseudonym 'e.war' is pretty fucking cool though.)
Can I end this review without mentioning what an AWESOME cover Bojan made for this issue? No, I can't.
To be sure, one thing XD has over ZW are its covers.