Wholly Shit
Review Zine, Stéphane, whollyshitzine.wordpress.com, $3.00
Rough looking zines usually signal one of two things: that the contents were just as rushed as the outside appearance, or the author simply doesn’t give a shit because it was a damn fun zine to make. The latter is definitely the case for the volume 1 of Wholly Shit.
Wholly Shit is a zine that consists of reviews of different churches that caught author Stéphane’s attention. Each review consists of the author luring their friends to the services of churches of varying infamy on Sunday morning to help deconstruct and critique the service. The protagonist is very upfront about having little to no opinion on the religious practices observed, but instead comes purely with the journalistic angle of an observer to experience each sect in their natural environment. I was relieved that this zine wasn’t full of cheap shots or blatant mocking of different sub-religions, but instead the author took a critical, somewhat unbiased perspective to evaluate what a regular service for each church entails. The only time Stéphane (or the guest reviewer Jessica) turn hostile is when a church is obviously manipulating, lying and brainwashing the crowd through theatrics and high budget production.
My favourite aspect of the reviews was that while following a consistent template, new characters were gradually introduced in a natural way, providing an odd and sincere insight into the authors and his friends lives catalyzing the reviews into stories about critical but hilarious punx. As a cynical asshole, few things have made me laugh like I’m watching season three of Roseanne, and this zine is one of them. (Andrew Melanson)