Making Comic Zines (Eddy Atoms)

Making Comic Zines

Eddy Atoms
Silver Sprocket
Nonfiction, YA? Creativity/Graphic Novel/Humor
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION:

Have you ever had a little idea you wanted to share with the world - a poem, a comic strip, a story, a thought - but didn't know how? Does creating a full-blown novel or comic book seem too intimidating? Why not try making your own zine? These short, small-run, self-published magazines are a great way to begin creating. They can be anything from a folded page to a stapled or sewn-together booklet, and you don't need to be a full-fledged artist or writer to get started. All you need is a little time, a little motivation, and a little idea... and some of the basics outlined here.

REVIEW:

In the interest of full disclosure, I once was part of a fanzine; my father was part of a long-running amateur press association (APA), and for many years I had reviews and the odd thoughts as a "coattail zine" in his entries (admittedly to help boost his page count). I'm not even sure if that APA is still around; we lost touch when Dad's dementia worsened to the point where he could no longer continue to publish, and there seemed no real point in me continuing on my own in what was essentially his circle of friends and associates. So when I found this while randomly browsing my library's Hoopla offerings for something that wasn't ridiculously dark and/or part of a larger franchise or multiverse, it tickled a little wisp of nostalgia.
On the plus side, Making Comic Zines brims with can-do, go-for-it energy, emphasizing that one doesn't need to be a Picasso or a Stephen King to create or have something worth saying. If you wait to be someone else to begin, someone smarter or better or more experienced or what-have-you, you'll never do anything. Start where you are. The bar for entry to zines is very low, and Atoms offers tips on keeping things cheap (or free) and accessible, especially useful to those of limited means and/or minors. It's quite encouraging and empowering, and it openly admits that this is just a launchpad; at 40 pages, it doesn't even try to be in depth, but goes over the basics of coming up with an idea, figuring out layout, printing, and distribution.
On the minus side, though, there's a heck of a lot that's glossed over or ignored, making it a bit too simplistic. Yes, parodies and satires of popular franchises are generally considered safe under "fair use," but big companies can and will bankrupt you proving it if they decided to push their claim, and not even minors are safe from that. There's also no mention of where the line between plagiarism or theft and homage lies, which can also get one into trouble. Further, I'm a bit skeptical of advice to distribute home-printed zines to local libraries; ask first, as not all libraries can or will take such donations. (Guerilla distribution of zines might be a safer bet, to be honest, leaving copies where people you think might enjoy them will find them; just be careful what kind of personal information you include in anything you create... and the same warning goes for fandoms in general. Many people are trustworthy, but there are dark corners in even the most benign-seeming groups.) And, of course, there's the ravenous kaiju elephant beast of AI that's not even addressed, a threat that not even zines are safe from. (As a minor unrelated note, in the section on printing, Atoms skips over the fact that many printers these days can collate your copies for you, saving you a step. It's one of several points where a little more practical nuts-and-bolts information could save newcomers a lot of time, tears, and frustration.)
For all that, though, it's a fun little zine with lots of energy and optimism, and it brought back some nice memories.

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A Parade of Horribles (Matt Dinniman)

A Parade of Horribles

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Book 8
Matt Dinniman
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

After the epic chaos of the Faction Wars, the crawlers of Earth have arrived at the tenth floor... those who did not take deals to escape the dungeons early via indentured servitude. For those determined to hold out for better deals after the next floor or two - or those who, like Carl and Donut and their friends, are committed to fighting back against the whole system profiting off Earth's grotesque death throes - the next challenge seems fairly straightforward, almost mundane. It's a seven-heat race where the losing team of each leg is instantly annihilated. Naturally, being the dungeons, there's still plenty of danger: the tracks often have quests and challenges that must be completed before the finish line, and the races are designed to pit each team against each other and break down the camaraderie forged in the Faction Wars. But Carl and Donut are no neophytes to the twisted games they're being forced to play, and every indignity they survive only makes them stronger. It might take divine intervention to stop their quest for vengeance. Unfortunately, the dungeons have no shortage of gods to throw at the crawlers, too... and several of them need no motivation to smash the rebellious crawlers into primordial ooze.
This book includes the eighth installment of "Backstage at the Pineapple Cabaret," an ongoing bonus story set elsewhere in the dungeons.

REVIEW:

Wow... that's all I could think to say after I finished this, the last installment currently in print (as of mid-August 2026). After the sprawling and truly epic events of the previous book, Dinniman shifts gears to refocus on the core crawler crew with the more straightforward tenth floor challenge, which is a bit like the old Hanna-Barbera Wacky Races cartoons as filtered through a cracked fun house mirror in a haunted amusement park populated by nightmares. The majority of crawlers who survived the Wars tapped out, and not a single person could possibly blame them; Carl and the others even encourage as many people as they can to take at least a chance at survival over the near-certain deaths awaiting those staying in the game. This reins in some of the character sprawl, though there are still a few new-to-the-reader faces, not just in the NPC teams. But the show runners and the AI are not about to back off or show anything resembling mercy. If anything, they only grow more sadistic, the defiance of the enduring crawlers an insult that must be punished. The AI itself, which is well and truly beyond the control of the ostensible game runners, does not become a friend or ally, but a potentially far more dangerous entity than even its (former) masters imagined. It has its own agenda, and is ruthlessly using both the crawlers and the trapped aliens - the ones it won't let leave the system, many of them the galactic elites who have been profiting off AI-driven planet-killing death games for generations - in pursuit of that agenda. This adds a new challenge, as it's clear that nobody is going to survive this off-the-rails game unless someone can figure out what the AI is after by piecing together seemingly incompatible clues. New secrets and truths are revealed, turning what people thought they knew about the Primal Engines, the AIs behind them, and the galaxy itself on its ear... and revealing just how badly the races of the galaxy have screwed things up by messing with technology they did not understand.
Of course, there's still plenty of room in all this for the humor (if sometimes gallows humor) and heart that's run through the series, the banter and character moments that keep things from spiraling too dark (and which throw those dark moments into greater contrast). Even as Carl and Donut both show some psychological cracks from what they've had to do, they still cling to their humanity, the thing the dungeons are trying their best to rip away. Their relationship is the lifeline they both cling to when they feel overwhelmed, and the one the reader can come back to when the rest of the dungeons look too violent and bleak.
The whole event ends with the Parade of Horribles, a truncated eleventh floor co-opted by the AI and designed to destroy whoever survives the races. It might be the best chance for the crawlers to strike back - or the end of everything they've tried to do and everyone still alive, even the people they thought they were saving. Things wrap up with a truly game-changing finale... and a cliffhanger that I'll have to cling to until the next book drops.
As for the bonus story, this is another shorter installment, but also a pivotal one, reacting to the events that have shaken up the rest of the dungeons. The plight of the wakened NPCs is tied even more closely to that of the crawlers at this point.
It's almost hard to believe that I only picked up the first book at the end of February and binged eight by mid-August, an almost unprecedented rate of series consumption. I just could not stop myself. So now, here I am, sitting not at the end of one of the wildest roller coaster ride I've been on in recent memory, but paused at the top of a long drop into a no doubt twisting, looping, breakneck track. There's a nonzero likelihood I'll be rereading the series alongside whatever books I pick up next, and I haven't had the overwhelming urge to reread a series - especially not so soon after finishing - in some time; the fact that this utterly insane concept works so well for so long is just fascinating to me, and I want to go back to the beginning to see if I can figure out how Dinniman pieced the whole thing together.
(As a closing note, it's worth collecting the hardcover editions if possible; check underneath the dust jackets. It's worth it.)

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The Scorpion Rules (Erin Bow) - My Review
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Frostbite (Ian Boothby)

Frostbite

Ian Boothby, illustrations by Pia Guerra
Graphix
Fiction, YA Graphic Novel/Horror
***+ (Okay/Good)

DESCRIPTION:

A busload of high school hockey players, on the way home from a winter game, takes a wrong turn and slides off the road in the middle of the snowy woods... and is never seen again. This is just the latest disappearance in the valley between the two rivers.
Teen influencer siblings Jen and Dante have a popular channel filming themselves doing outrageous stunts - including jumping out of a helicopter to snowboard down a mountain. But they find themselves in way over their heads when they end up in the dangerous valley as night falls, and something dark and deadly begins to stir beneath the snow.

REVIEW:

A hidden valley, a secret danger, half-seen beasts lurking unseen, a desperate plan to survive a freezing night in the woods... Frostbite may not be the most original of tales, but it's a quick, clean, reliable concept, and it's not badly executed or rendered, but there were some issues that held it down in the ratings. For one, sometimes it was a bit tough to tell a few characters apart as they're bundled in snow gear. For another, the in-story logic feels weak and stretched at times. The monsters themselves have clear patterns and rules, but the people, especially the ones who have lived next door to the monsters for generations and the subset who have dedicated themselves to protecting others from the danger, really should have more situational awareness, particularly regarding the final "twist" in the last frame. I realize that many horror/monster stories require the odd bout of plot-enabling numbskull moments, but this one stretched credulity at a couple or three places. It doesn't overstay its welcome, though, and in the moment it produces some tense moments and startles.

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The Girl in Red (Christina Henry) - My Review
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(Delayed) July Update

Another delayed update, but the two books I managed to finish in July have been archived over on the main Brightdreamer Books site. Rather a pathetic number, but at least the books were good, even if life distinctly is not.

Enjoy!

This Inevitable Ruin (Matt Dinniman)

This Inevitable Ruin

The Dungeon Crawler Carl series, Book 7
Matt Dinniman
Ace
Fiction, Fantasy/Humor/Sci-Fi
****+ (Good/Great)

DESCRIPTION:

The Faction Wars are traditionally a place where the galactic elite get to play at war, capturing castles and seizing territory, sending countless mercenaries and NPCs to their dooms and picking off most of however many unfortunate crawlers manage to survive to the ninth floor of the dungeons. But there hasn't been a crawl like this season before. Now, instead of being outside the carnage as usual, the warlords are now themselves vulnerable to the maiming and death they usually inflict on underlings. There's also a new wrinkle: the changeling NPCs, now wakened to their true nature, have claimed a seat at the table. With an AI that's well and truly beyond anyone's control now calling the shots, the only guarantee is that nobody is safe - making everyone that much more desperate, and dangerous.
Carl and Donut have managed to help keep a record number of crawlers alive this far, but the Faction Wars are going to be a bloodbath no matter what they do. They get unexpected help from offworlder allies - former crawlers, each of whom endured the devastation of their own homeworlds and indentured servitude in crawls to earn some semblance of freedom. But these new allies also bring new complications, not to mention old vendettas. Top that off with further entanglements with the volatile dungeon gods, and the slender thread of luck that's kept Carl and Donut alive this far may finally snap.
This book includes the seventh installment of "Backstage at the Pineapple Club," a bonus story set elsewhere in the dungeons.

REVIEW:

What more can I possibly say about this series? Once again, Dinniman manages to maintain the addictive magic that sucked me into this series, its mixture of humor, cultural callbacks, and cutting moments of trauma and depth. The cast and associated interpersonal complications (and lore, both in the greater galaxy and within the dungeons) continue to grow, sometimes bordering on unwieldy, but it all comes together enough to ride out any moments of confusion. Victories are hard-won and not at all guaranteed; Carl, Donut, and their allies make some mistakes along the way with serious repercussions. Carl also has to learn to step back and let other people help out, including Donut. Still, they remain determined in their mission to bring the pain visited upon Earth to the people responsible, though their vow to remain unbroken by the torments of the dungeons faces some serious threats; it is not truly possible to remain unbent or unaltered, physically or mentally, by the dungeons, as their interactions with the former crawlers reveals all too clearly. There's a saying among them, that everyone who enters the dungeons ultimately dies there, and one way or another that seems grimly true. Yet there is still hope, and more than a few humorous moments to keep the darkness from overwhelming the characters (or the reader).
Like the previous books, the central premise of the floor itself is different enough to keep monotony from setting in. The war "games" of the ninth level demand new tactics, particularly if Carl and Donut want to keep not only themselves alive, but save the NPCs who have helped them so much already (even if calling them true allies might be a bit of a stretch; the changelings still have their secrets and their own agenda, as does everyone involved in the Faction Wars). There's also the matter of the curse Donut inherited when she first donned the purple tiara at the start of the dungeon, the one that obligates her to eliminate all heirs of the naga Blood Sultanate in order to leave this floor of the dungeon... further complicated when fellow crawler and close friend Katia revealed that she, too, ended up with the same curse, meaning only one of them can survive. And Carl still carries the burden of the Eye of the Bedlam Bride, which constantly threatens to break free of his control and destroy everything he has tried to build, every plan he has attempted to put into action to get as many people through the Faction Wars alive as possible. It all makes for a very high-octane installment, after some slower setup at the start of the dungeon floor, building to yet another spectacular, complication-riddled finale.
As for the bonus story, this installment is notably shorter, but marks a very sharp turning point in the plot.
All in all, I quite enjoyed this outing, and will be queueing up the eighth book (the last currently published, as of late July 2026).

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Red Rising (Pierce Brown) - My Review
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