Foggybottom Press

title: Black Hole Brains

creator: LadyDorian

date: 2011-present

pages: 14

web: ladydorian.deviantart.com

——
This is a zine that I wasn’t sure I wanted to write on; I wasn’t sure I could. See, I’ve known LadyDorian since college. When we were both taking the same freshman Intro to Lit class. Before we even knew what zines were but unknowingly ran one together (the university’s literary magazine) and organized open mike nights at the student bar. When we lived off a Wendy’s chicken nuggets diet and the literary magazine office was our safe space (the combination to which I might even still remember in muscle memory). —So I feel like our writing and personal histories together prevent me from writing a proper review. Because when I read her zines, I must look at them with a different set of eyes than when I read a stranger’s. And so the following summation may or may not be entirely biased.

Black Hole Brains a comic perzine inspired by actual shenanigans and real people in LadyDorian’s life, but churned through the vortex of her imagination. Crude humor and unpredictable content abound within dynamic one-page comics. With each page usually standing on its own as a story, they show how remarkably adept she is at simultaneously capturing both the story and the punchline within one quarter-page illustration.

Unlike the typical self-reflection of personal zines, BHB focuses more on the comedic side of situations LD has found herself in along with her interpretation on things like movie endings and imaginary trivia. It’s fun and random and visually exciting. You never really know what will pop up in her comics—butt cakes, dueling walnuts, projectile genitalia?

p.s. Every issue is printed in an array of colors. So there’s that added bonus of never knowing what color zine you’ll get until it arrives in the mail!

p.p.s. BHB started as a one-sheet mini-zine when she agreed to try zine making with me.

sipping:  cranberry peach
nibbling:  ice cream sandwich