Well I don't know about you kids but for me it's midsemester, which means midsemester essays, which means looking for any excuse to procrastinate. I've been thinking about this particular project for a while as it's actually the kind of zine that I want to read other people's versions of. Basically it's a short list of words, terms and phrases that my closest friends and I use from day to day and where they come from. Most of them are appropriated from popular culture - some of which you'll recognise, some of which you might not.

15 cm x 10 cm, 16 pages

PO Box 392 Newtown NSW 2042

tinypaperhearts.wordpress.com

Limited edition printed collage with some colour, edition of 60.

Featuring Chinese opera masks and the gathered and supposed thoughts of twenty-four somewhat unlikely characters.

A taste...

'Is this the way to the fish market?'

'In the short compass of this morning it has been shown that I am a night owl by nature'

'Pondering minimum bribe level, I realise it is probably a coffee'

'Often I sit dreaming of the sea'

'I sing like a bird'

'I am half-inclined to agree with you'

46 pages, 15 cm x 11 cm

http://www.gracialouise.com

Cool little comic about a girl who had mystery headaches when she was small. The story is told through cute line drawings that follow her journey to recovery. Pictures include: Throwing up from her bed; Unable to catch a ball; She and her mother facing a sea of (scary) grinning doctors offering conflicting diagnoses; Her being showered in various pills and bottles; Finally being told the real diagnosis by a gleeful-looking doctor. Essential pocket reading.

32 pages, 10.5 cm x 7 cm

alexeclark.blogspot.com lexxielizzie@hotmail.com

What time is it? Adventure time.

After I turned twenty-one I realised that I was not like most people my age. In the first few years of uni I was content to party on with my new group of friends - since we were all Creative Writing nerds,most of us had never experienced the novelty of having friends. I was more than happy getting drunk at fancy dress parties, or any other excuse to get trashy. My expectations of what a 'good time' involved was relatively low...

May 2009

20 pages, 11 cm x 15 cm

maddy.phelan@gmail.com

...I don't remember most of winter, probably because I spent up to four hours a day pulling up weeds, transplanting flowers for cross-breeding, rearranging furniture, writing letters, and catching rare bugs and fish - all within the blissful world of Animal Crossing [on Nintendo DS]. It was summer in my town, and I was working on my tan. The only clear memory I have of the desolate, adventure-less winter is one night in July or August...

Winter to Summer 2009

16 pages, 11 cm x 15 cm

maddy.phelan@gmail.com

Half of this zine was written whilst bored at work and half of it was written in the several hours that I was locked out of my house on a thursday night. As infuriated as I was then, in retrospect it was a better use of y time than sitting on my bed, eating curly wurlys and watching the final season of Oz.

This is an autobiographical 'mixtape; of things that happened in 2008 and before. Includes mini stories on houses I've lived with and people I've lived with, identity crises and other such non sequiturs.

30 pages, 21 cm x 15 cm

PO Box 392 Newtown NSW 2042

www.tinypaperhearts.com

Although this zine is partly about the vertigo and the nervousness and the nausea, it's also about the transcendence and the joy and that amazing feeling when you think that things cannot get any better, except they do.

This is another personal zine inspired by my decision to quit the call centre that I've previously referenced in the Epitaph for my Heart series. Includes events that propelled this life changing (for the better) decision, my take on the etiquette of resigning from crappy jobs, the aftermath of quitting and the politics of office 'theft'.

28 pages, 21 cm x 15 cm

PO Box 392 Newtown NSW 2042

tinypaperhearts.wordpress.com

Celebrates the uniquely diverse architectural styles of this outer western Sydney suburb. Photographs and drawings lovingly depict historical homes, retro fibro and the much under-rated 1970's Hacienda. Include colour prints and hand colouring. Edition of 150.

24 pages, 21 cm x 15 cm

The Age of Pisces (AD 0 - 2000) began with the death of the archetypal Piscean, Jesus Christ, and ended with the death of another archetypal Piscean, Kurt Cobain, in 1994. The Uranus-Neptune conjunction following his death passed from Pisces into Aquarius in the second half of the 90s, marking a new age of technology that was to transform modern life. This marks the Age of Aquarius (2000 - 4000).

While this seems cut and dry, I detect overlap between the great epochs...

21 cm x 15 cm, 8 pages.

m_zarro@hotmail.com

My aim with each issue of Astrobabble is to stick to an astrological theme of some sort, hoping that the articles and information on each page connect to each other in some way...This issue's theme is Pluto and it's transit through Sagittarius and Capricorn.

How to spot a Sagittarian (Keith Richards)

Old, leathery work horse look; The Sagittarian traits of experience and excess are deeply etched into Keef's face; lean, horsey torso - no middle aged spread on Keef baby; jeans are the Centaur's uniform - a must in any Sagi's wardrobe...

21 cm x 15 cm, 8 pages

m_zarro@hotmail.com