From deep within the folds of his Sanctum Artistica,wrapped in the clingfilm of artistic righteousness,the Great One has dained communicate with us lowly comic geeks. Hear now the Word. The Word of Paul Anthea Turner Brown.
“ARE FRIENDS ELECTRIC ?”
Jimi Gherkin’s ELECTRIC BABY Zineby Jimi Gherkin28 A5 pages,Screenprinted Card Cover
available from jimigherkin@yahoo.co.uk, or contact jimigherkincomicsandzines.wordpress.com
Some of you may have recalled previous postings regarding Mr Gherkin on CBO (One not too long ago). For the uninitiated, Jimi is the man behind the recent and quite wonderful Alternative Zine and Book Fair in Euston (previously reviewed by yours truly on CBO ), and evengelical promoter of an encouraging new wave of young zinemakers out there ; a fellow following in the footsteps of our very own Uberzinezonefuhrer Terry Hooper (if you want the history lesson, find the SilverBulletComics interview via the link here on the site).
Anyway, following his enjoyable first stripzine, Jimi Gherkin’s Comics, Mr G has changed tack for this second foray, giving us a personal manifesto of thoughts, ideas and opinions stamped with the Gherkin Code of Zinedom ! Or should I say screenprinted ? This is a great peice of zine terrorism going on here, firstly making our brains explode and our eyes bleed with the Dayglo Orange screenprinted cover, depicting himself repeatedly, Warhol-style, in what looks suspiciously like a Carlos the Jackal of Zinedom portrait, then continually assaulting us over the interior Dayglo Yello pages with endless POSITIVITY Dammit !! all wonderfully hand-written in frighteningly friendly letters !! There’s almost something terrifying about just how feel-good Mr Gherkin’s enthusiasm and love of life is within this small package, whether extolling the virtues of Small-Press versus Mainstream, the sickeningly encouraging Optimism in Action, and the almost so- lovely- it’s- unbearable sentiment of A History of You. He even tells us how he did his screenprint cover, thus attempting to convert us into his Revolutionary Army of Positive Zinedom, the Communist !!! He even has time to extoll the virtues of other zinesters in 3 pages of reviews, including this very reviewers work !! (which, I hate to admit, was simply far too kind !).
What I really like about Mr Gherkin’s work so far isn’t the artwork: Don’t get me wrong, it’s not awful, indeed, it’s surprising how much it’s improved between the stuff in his first zine and this one. Nor is it his stories or subject matter, which is at turns, cheerful, amusing, thoughtful, and even on a couple of occasions, quite lovely. More than anything, it’s the whole attitude that is expressed within every bit of Jimi’s stuff. The true heart of what zinemaking is all about is here, the old punk ethic that anyone can do it, so go and do it, you don’t have to be a genius. Mr Gherkin has endless enthusiasm, encouragement, optimism and positivity, and that’s refreshing, paticularly when all too often, a lot of zine stuff still plays with the nihilistic, one-note cliched juvenile imagery of misery and death, and badly-drawn self-indulgence.One senses Jimi would like to change the world for the better. Buy his zine and you may feel the same after reading it.
Paul ” Mr Brightside” Brown
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