One Way Ticket

This palm-sized salvo is a call to arms for anyone who has ever self-published, anyone who has ever put pen to paper or digit to emdash and thrown their life story out into the void. Julian Evans is the brains behind this brawn and he questions the answers with this heady mixture of prose, poetry and good old-fashioned rant. When Julian rants in “Keep Zines Dangerous” early on, he calls out his bedfellows and offers a navel-gazing analysis of the entire DIY movement. In the process, he seriously questions its modes and motives overall. He goes on to discuss clinical tests of pornography, the loneliness of being a bike courier and dumpster diving in downtown Montreal. One Way Ticket is an immensely personal read and while the writing is passionate and at times brutally honest, it also rings true with a high degree of everyday realism that should be accessible to all. Julian doesn’t gloss things over or make any especially heady claims about “the system” or underground art or any of that other predictable material that typically makes fellow zinesters drool. No, Julian instead concentrates on the cogs that drive the day-to-day routines with a keen eye for detail and a true independent spirit that can not be ignored. (Cameron Gordon)

Zine, Julian Evans, 36 pgs., $2 (includes postage), C.P. 55018, Montreal, QC, H3G 2W5, [email protected]