Review — ‘Zinezilla: Megalazine’ Is Bright, Bold, Beautiful, Diverse Illustration And Comics Work

After the Zinezilla illustration and zine fair comes The Zinezilla Megalazine, a perfect example of how great zines can be!

 

Well, the third Zinezilla illustration and zine fair has come and gone, and to all those who enjoyed the goings-on in Bristol earlier in March, I hope you all had a great time (here’s what we had to say about it). Zinezilla is one of many collectives putting on zine shows and comics fairs and always deserve your support – because some of the talent they showcase there is incredible and it’s highly likely you’ll find your next favourite thing there.

But Zinezilla isn’t just a free zine and illustration fair organised by creators Marcy Fraser and Mereida Fajardo, it’s publishing the new zine anthology, Zinezilla: Megalazine. Partly as a way to assist with the costs of putting together a free event and partly to showcase some of the artists appearing at the Zinezilla fairs.

Now, zines come in many different forms and across many different fields. It’s pretty much the case that, if you’re into something, there’s someone taking the time and effort to put out a zine about it. But when we’re talking comics and illustration zines, there’s so many out there that are simply packed full of talent – something I learnt many years ago when I started doing this sort of comics coverage online and through the comic shop I worked at. When I branched out into small press and micropublishing, my whole view on comics shifted and I realised that not only was some incredible work being produced this way, it was also a part of the comics scene that was far more in tune with the things I wanted to read and to look at.

Through zines and micropublishing I’ve encountered so many great artists and great comics, including some of my all-time favourites. Honestly, if you’re in any way thinking about spreading your comics wings, there’s no better way to do it than venturing forth into the world of things like Zinezilla.

Now, Zinezilla isn’t all comics art, we have 40 pages featuring the work of 12 different artists, five comic pieces alongside another 10 illustration pieces. But it’s still such a vibrant and just overall well put together thing that I wanted to talk about it here with you. Everyone in Zinezilla is doing something different, something fresh, something interesting and I really hope you go and hit up all the links I’m going to add at the bottom of this and take a look at their works, follow them on socials, and buy their stuff!

Basically, the whole concept of Zinezilla is one of artists having fun and doing just what they want – and doing it very, very well indeed.

You want an idea of the fun to be had – here’s Zinezilla co-founder Marcy Fraser with Meet Meg, the intro page sort of tying the theme of the Megalazine together, something of a trip down into the depths with Gordon the Godzilla flapping his flippers into “the diggidy depths of the ocean, past the Mariana Trench we go, through the cloud of Hydrogen Sulphide, and into a pre-historic oceanic ecosystem untouched by the joy of zines! It is here we meet the Meg and teach her the way of the zine, inspiring her to make her way to the surface and take part in her first ever zine fair, Zinezilla 3: Megalazine, where she shall be our guest of honour. Along the way, Meg has discovered all sorts of strange and wonderful zinester, and she presents for you here her findings.”

 

That’s just the sort of fun and visually inventive thing you’ll find all the way through Zinezilla: Megalazine. I’m not going to show you everything in here, just a good representative sample, but you should trust me when I say that there’s so much visual delight to be had here.

Another great bit of illustration, one of two complementary pieces, is Gumball Inferno I by Roman Macrea, full of fabulous ideas and so much detail in a fluid style that just delights the eye…

Monsters by the Pool by Benny Douet is another double piece, only half of which I’m showing you here, but I just love what they’re doing here with colour and the whole ridiculousness of the piece…

Perhaps the biggest ‘name’ in here – and I know he’ll hate reading that – is Wocco, otherwise known as the wonderful and insanely talented Warwick Johnson-Cadwell. He’s here with just two pages of illustrations, Sharkland, giving us a variety of not-oft seen shark species…

 

 

Now, as for the comics on show – four to talk about, and all very good in their own particular ways..

MEGALOMANIA by Paul Ashley Brown is the first of the comics entries in Megalazine, a four-pager that begins with a clarion call of ‘I don’t care for your megalomania and goes on to dissect the world of today and all the grand schemes and ever-bigger plans of the super-rich and governments. Brown then goes on to contrast that megalomania with the way of life for most of us, with change a slow thing, ‘built through the hearts and minds of people over time.’ It’s a lovely, poetic piece that works really well in the four pages it has, offering us a hopeful way forward despite everything going on around us that we cannot control.

Gas Station Maggie by Mareida Fajardo is a beautifully bright thing, a silly thing too, as we see that Gas Station Maggie is a shark, sucked up by oil drilling and deposited in a desert gas station which is, as Maggie says, “S’alright, as haunts go. There’s always something to do.” And those somethings to do are great – playing the slots, milkshakes slurped on the toilet, misadventures with the air pumps, that sort of thing.

Of course, there’s downsides to life in the desert at the gas station, trucks running over her for a start. And there’s an increasing sense of solitude and sadness that creeps in, made heartrending with the final lines of, “So I’ll guess I”ll stay and hope the ocean comes back for me.” So what started as something weird and silly turns into something rather lovely and inventive and, again, strangely poetic in its way, where you can read quite a lot into the vivid illustration.

 

The Big Rain by Marcy Fraser is the sort of thing some of you might think of when I say zine comics, light and scratchy artwork packed into two pages. If that puts you off, well shame on you, as The Big Rain is just two pages of an imaginary Jason Statham movie that’s way better than many of his latest efforts (as an aside, The Meg2 was bloody awful, don’t you think?)

The Stath is convinced there’s a planetary threat coming our way – The BIG RAIN – massive rain drops falling across the planet, something that’s already destroyed Korea and now threatens Britain. Only he can save us… but how?

Yes, it’s scratchy and rough, but that’s a deliberate choice here, with Fraser still telling a flowing tale laced with all the ridiculousness she can muster.

 

And if The Big Rain isn’t to your liking, then the joy of something like Megalazine is that the next thing is always completely different, in this case it’s the lush colours and beautiful imagery of Leo Ioviero’s Memories of Migration, another four-page comic that’s another poetic piece. This time it’s of migration of sharks and the friends they meet along the way, a calling perhaps to look after the ocean in all its richness.

 

 

Finally for the comics and for the Megalazine, Past Life by Robin HB Pencil, another lovely piece, just two pages of duotone work that look absolutely delightful. It’s a short tale of memory and seaborne adventures, the meeting of an ageing ship’s captain and a battered old shark, coming off the worse for their meeting. And it ends simply and beautifully with an alt-take on the tale that switches things about nicely.

 

And there you go. Like I said, I haven’t the room to share everyone’s work with you, but you should trust me when I say that the whole zine is packed with quality work, some great little comics and some impressive illustrations. But above all else, the joy of exploring something like Megalazine is that there’s such a diversity of work in here. Don’t like something? Fair enough, perhaps the next piece will be something you absolutely love.

And that’s why things like this, be they illustration or comics, are so vital and important, not to mention a great little read and something that gets the names of some impressive talents more exposure.

ZINEZILLA: MEGALAZINE – edited by Mereida Fajardo and Marcy Fraser

Featuring work by Archie Tapin, Benny Douet, Eirinn Henley, Leo Ioviero, Marcy Fraser, Matilda Robertson, Paul Ashley Brown, Suelyn Lee, Robin HB Pencil, Roman Macrae, Wocco (Warwick Johnson-Cadwell), Marcy Fraser, and Mereida Fajardo.

You can find out more info on Zinezilla here – https://www.instagram.com/zinezilla_bristol/

You can order the Megalazine anthology from here – https://zinezilla.bigcartel.com/

As for those involved…

Archie Taplin – @raggedy.arch / raggedyarch.com
Benny Douet – @stormy.soup / bennydouet.com
Eirinn Henley – @eirinnsart / eirinnhenley2.wixsite.com/portfolio
Leo Ioviero – @iov.leo / leoioviero.wixsite.com/illustration
Marcy Fraser – @marcyfraserillustration / marcyfraser9.wixsite.com/illustration
Matilda Robertson – @matilda_robo
Mereida Fajardo – @m.ereida / mereida.co.uk
Paul Ashley Brown – paulashleybrownart.com
Suelyn Lee – @suelyn.jpeg / suelynillustration.com
Robin HB Pencil – @hbpenciil / robinhbpencil.com
Roman Macrae – @romans_drawings / romanmacrae.com
Wocco (WJC) – @wocco / @warwickjc