Little Shorts

With its loose spelling/grammar, mostly scribbled content and casual assembly, Little Shorts is palpably handmade. The cover is a family photo doctored with a pen and the centre spread is a busy, free-associative illustration-cum-text-jumble built around the word “intimidation”. Much of the distinctly DIY aesthetic is deflated, however, when Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones appears on a list of recommended books. In suggesting such mainstream material, Erin Kubes all but neutralises the potential of her medium of choice. On the page facing the booklist (which also features Anaïs Nin) is the somewhat redeeming highlight of the zine: a simple but affecting POV drawing of a trip to the gynaecologist, in which the protagonist lies to her OB/GYN about how well her boyfriend is treating her. (Daniel Marrone)

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