Kubba Zine is charming in that knock-kneed, ramshackle, aww-shucks, snugglepuss kinda way. However, part of its charm also makes it largely illegible, which is a crying shame because the parts I could actually read were pretty ace. Using a combination of hand-etched prose, cut-and-paste and more trad-focused fonts, founder Jessica Kubba has created a zine that details various snippets of a life spent in transit, or seemingly in transit. Jessica talks about a massive road trip she took that landed her in Boston, New York City, Washington DC and Minnesota, and includes a sexy motel signage centrefold. The stories aren’t that remarkable but they work because she’s not trying to be exclusionary in her vapid tales of excess on America’s interstates. You can practically sniff the banality of lame-o weekends spent abroad and Jessica paints a picture with realism and humour. The best part is a cool comic called “Finding an Apartment: a graphic adventure”. It’s about Jessica finding an apartment in Milwaukee, graphically speaking of course. Her quickie doodles of potential roommates are a hoot, and do NOT make me yearn for indoor living. (Cameron Gordon)
Zine, $?, 44 pages, 44 pages, Jessica Kubba, 2705 Great Forest Drive, West Bend, WI, 53090-0107, [email protected], www.geocities.com/bike_terrorist/start.html