Polternice
Zine, Ken McLean (ed.), various contributors, www.adventuresome.ca
I read the title as “Polterniece” at first and wondered if it was going to be a zine about someone tormented by the spirit of their unborn niece. Nope, it’s about ghosts, most of whom are cute, candy-filled and, as the title actually says, nice.
This is a compilation zine featuring several comics, some drawings, a short story about a haunted clock, and a few poems. Most of the entries are about literal ghosts but some veer into figurative territory, covering topics like coping with the lingering energy from a former relationship or the author who contemplates her teenage ambitions. Some of the submissions looked as though they were created in colour and didn’t translate well to the greyscale format of this zine, making it hard to decipher the accompanying text.
My favourite entry was a comic by the zine’s curator in which a ghost is on a basketball team with regular living teammates. In the last panel, the ghost easily scores a critical goal by levitating up to the basket, and the illustrated sound effect is not “swish” or even, “dunk” but, “put.” I thought this tiny, silly joke was hilarious. (Mary Green)