An odd family affair, Randy Robbins’ Narcolepsy Press incorporates work by his kids, Tanner and Tabitha, and the reader occasionally gets the feeling of not being in on the joke, as though scanning inscriptions in a stranger’s middle school yearbook. While Robbins reviews only zines that he deems worthwhile, there isn’t much specificity in terms of what makes them good, aside from his endorsement of similar interests such as “bare-breasted women” and anything Japanese. It also helps if the zine reviewed shares an appreciation of Black Sabbath that is seemingly untempered by irony (or the acknowledgement that post-Sabotage Sabbath is largely dispensable). The Review is supplemented by a puzzlingly adolescent mini-zine, “You’re an Angel, You li’l Devil,” which bills itself as “The Ultimate Devil Girl Magazine.” Apart from Tabitha’s cute, manga-inflected comics (which would be better off in a zine of their own), notable features include a Crazy Town album cover and a photo of Avril Lavigne wearing devil horns. This is all of a piece with the somewhat simplistic anti-Christian sentiment that runs through Narcolepsy Press, as of a 13-year-old who has recently discovered Satanism. The most curious component of this Anaheim hodgepodge is the first issue of Tanner’s “Frank, Joe, & Phil,” an almost absurdly crude but strangely compelling comic zine with an unselfconscious momentum and a corresponding disregard for realism and readership. (Daniel Marrone)
P.O. Box 17131 Anaheim, CA, 92817-7131