Loserdom #24

This is the first new issue in a few years, Anto says, because she had another baby and that can throw the wrench into your DIY punk zine publishing plan like nothing else. She includes some general life updates, live music reports and zine reviews. She writes about abortion rights and going on the naked bike ride in Cork, Ireland, interviews animator Alan Holly, and punk singer Clodagh Murphy Burnchurch. A packed and very political issue.

Back in the Friedman days of Factsheet 5, there was a categorization of “Utne” for zines that contained everything from reviews of live music, diatribes about being vegetarian for over half of your life, a confessional letter to the reader admitting to how you’ve butted up against your values by buying a car, newspaper reviews in their coverage of racism in the Middle East, memories of roadkill that evolves into a movie review, being hopeful and encouraging about ballot initiatives around abortion rights and gay marriage, and zine reviews galore. Normally, Anto’s brother Eugene contributes some comics but he’s a recent father. Overall, this structure and range of substance makes the zine feel of the 90s. It’s hard to pin down and describe, without a particular theme or even three. My biggest takeaway is recalling how I used to hold myself to these impossible standards and lack of seeming contradictions, how I let my values be forever pushed further and further into a lonelier bubble. And now, I can have my values and know when to push back with room to breathe and knowing who I am and what I believe in, accepting it as part of my full character rather than my weakest moments or seeming contradictions. -Joe