Spurzine

"I don't usually read zines by men, not because I'm biased, although I am, but because most of my zine reading is for the Zine Collection at Barnard, which is comprised mostly of zines by women, with a few by people of other genders writing about femme identity. The author of Travesty is a cisgendered male who likes to wear women's clothes.

The physical presentation of the zine, which has a flowery cloth cover and total boy handwriting inside, at least for the Preface and Deface (love that!) is a nice representation of the author's self-perception/representation. (Since the author identifies the work as semi-anonymous, I'm not naming him here, in case you're wondering.)

The bulk of the content is word processed and accompanied by retro clip art, and the whole thing I think is relief printed in some fashion, i.e. not ink or laser jet, but I'm kind of ignorant about that sort of thing.

Again, as someone who consumes chick zines almost exclusively, I was pleasantly surprised to find the author so self-reflective and honest. It's not that I don't think men can be self-reflective and honest, it just seems to me that they are more likely to reveal themselves in layers, like a chess game, or in a more joking, distancing manner than Mr. Travesty does. I knew the author a little from a zine discussion list and Facebook, but really had no idea at the depths of his inner life. Or that he had a Marilyn Manson thing going on!"

http://lowereastsidelibrarian.info/reviews/spurzine/travesty… (meer)