The Anarchist & The Devil do Cabaret, by Norman Nawrocki (Black Rose Books, www.web.net/blackrosebooks) is a very entertaining collection of road stories from a late-90s European tour by his former band, Rhythm Activism. Tour memoirs are inevitably raunchy, and this one is no exception, from visits to cheap Hungarian brothels to typically not-quite-first-class accommodations. The stories and accounts run just a few pages before moving on to the next city or country, sustaining reader interest and profiling very interesting people along the way. As can be expected from an activist band, observations on working conditions and economic degradation work their way into the narrative, especially when they visit Eastern Europe and the squats of Holland. But there’s nothing dogmatic about the social commentary: the focus here is on taking the reader along for the ride, with what in the end is a rock band dealing with the eternal challenge of making it through the tour in one piece; and, hopefully, breaking even.

The Zine Yearbook vol. 8 is an amazing project collects some of the best writing to appear in zines (and magazines with a circulation under 5000) in North America. The selections are voted on by zine readers across the continent, and always result in a truly excellent read. (How can it not?) At $12 and over 150 pages, this is priced to expose the most readers possible to the world of zines. And for zine-makers, it also provides an excellent resource for finding out about other zines you trade your zines (or contributors) with. ($12 US, Become The Media, Box 20128, Toledo OH 43610, www.clamormagazine.org)

Rick Trembles’ Motion Picture Purgatory Vol. 1 is a long-overdue book collecting the one-page move-review comics he’s been publishing since 1985. (We ran his take on Dr. Strangelove in FP Vol. 2 No. 3; readers can also check these out weekly in the Montreal Mirror.) Often more textual than graphic, and peppered with well-researched quotes and film-nerd book excerpts, these strips skewer prominent Hollywood duds as well as bring to light obscure horror, documentary and B-movie gems. It’s nice to have all these in one place, complete with index, extensive bibliography and hand-written introduction. Like a punk-rock Leonard Maltin, Trembles gives you a pretty good idea of what you may or may not want to rent (though you might not find a lot of his strongest recommendations at your local Blockbuster.) 200 pgs softcover, $16.95 US at better bookstores, or from FAB Press, 7 Farleigh, Ramsden Road, Godalming, Surrey, GU7 1QE, England, UK, www.fabpress.com.

Under the Lens of the People/ L’Examen du Peuple, 300 pgs. $25 US, The People’s Lenses Collective, www.underthelensofthepeople.net . This is a near-definitive, lush coffee-table book on the protests surrounding the 2001 Quebec Summit. Dozens and dozens of photos tell the story, which is rounded out by texts (all in both English and French) by Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, David Suzuki and others. While there’s no chance the Free Trade Area of the Americas will come to pass by 2005 as the assembled leaders had hoped, the underlying reasons to oppose it still exist, and the fallout from the protests themselves continues in court. (To that end, all profits from the sales of this book go to a legal defense fund for the remaining defendants.)
For an equally comprehensive look at the Summit, the Toronto Video Activist Collective has finally released Tear Gas Holiday, a 75-minute video documentary. The video pulls together footage from dozens of sources combined with interviews with many prominent activists and noted writers, creating a vastly superior document than the dismal View From The Summit which got far more attention. Even if you’re tired of hearing about the risks of unfettered global trade, the war-zone footage of North America’s largest anti-globalization protests makes for gripping viewing. $20, for order info: www.tvac.ca or www.vtape.org .

Les Machines désirantes by Claudine Vachon is subtitled ‘un récit poétique,’ but its strength is in the author’s seductive narrative. Set in what seems like Centre-Sud in Montreal, we first find the author sounding somewhat bored with life in a low-budget apartment with slacker roommates. She has much time to ponder desire, restraint, and how her friends can get so worked up about social or class issues while having so little apparent concern for their personal lives. She explores, out of existential boredom or curiosity, it’s hard to say, the reactions of friends and strangers to casually delivered quasi-sexual provocations and diatribes. The book’s latent energy explodes later with the staging of some activist performance art, and the orgiastic trashing of a luxury loft belonging to a businessman who just laid off of thousands of workers. Filled with great lines like “La pauvreté est une bombe artisanale” [“Poverty is a home-made bomb”], her and her friends later carry out an even more explosive action. Feeling more empty than sated after watching the event from the mountain, she comes full circle, empty of inspiration and wondering what it would take to set off her “desirous machines” again. Well-written, realistic and free of polemics, the author captures the mood- and mood swings- of lots of people these days. (150 pgs., Les Éditions Rodrigol, leseditionsrodrigol@yahoo.ca, 7439 Drolet, Montreal, Que. H2R 2C3.)

COMICS

National Waste no. 5, $5 US, 48 pgs. silkscreened cvr., Grits Gries c/o Paper Rodeo, Box 321 Providence, RI 02901. There’s a lot of comic and poster art going on in Rhode Island, and this zine is a good sampler of it (though even better is the large newsprint Paper Rodeo from the same gang.) Fans of the stranger comics from Fish Piss will surely get a kick out of this, with head-scratching strips by Robot Neutron, Louise, Matthew Thurber and Keith G. Herzik. My favourite is the uncredited artist whose strips feature a lot of talking animals.

Pretty Beaver is an irregular newsprint mag containing strips by that dynamic duo, Mary Knott and Beppi. This 5th issue is as twisted as always: a monster parade, rats gone bad, corpse remembrances and my favourite, a true-sounding story of a guy wearing a suit made of cornflakes searching for a banana. I’m not sure what they’re charging, but I guess you can ask them (or send US cash): Box 22949, Baltimore, MD, 21203 or email ghostgurl@earthlink.net.

Revolver Vol. 1, $5US, 54 pgs. silkscreened cvr., Max Douglas aka Salgood Sam, www.revolvercomix.com. This is a very nice, clearly laid out collection of some of Max’s strips and illustrations. As seen elsewhere in this issue, Max has a realistic comic style (influenced perhaps by his days working for Marvel Comics), but he still infuses his drawings with a lot of character. This is especially evident in the playful page setups of his Pin City strip here, especially the grey cityscape spread under assorted ink sketches. Also impressive is his sequential rendering of an audio play by John O’Brien set in Chicago.

Duke no. 1, $5 + post., Jason Turner/ Dave Lapp/ Dalton Sharp, also True Loves, $3, (w/ Manien Bothma), www.strongmanpress.com or www.serializer.net. True Loves compiles weekly posted strips with a nice color cover. Not a whole lot seems to happen, and storywise it feels a bit like those old Mary Worth-type strips. But it’s well drawn and certainly a mellow read. Duke is quite different, being a jam comic, meaning all 3 artists take turns starting, continuing or finishing each other’s strips. As with many jams, this results in a fair bit of absurdity and non-sequiturs from panel to panel, but this is more about the juxtaposed drawing styles than any shreds of plot or dialogue that emerge from the mix.

Wag! No. 9, $2, 100 pg. book-bound mini-comic, www.wagpress.net. Dedicated to Johnny Cash, this issue also has a great tribute to also-recently-deceased Edward Gorey (the 26-page Alpha Gorey by Joe Ollmann. Hey Joe, when are you going to submit something for Fish Piss?) There are numerous other fine comics by Joe as well as by Billy Mavreas, Scott Gray and the supposedly deceased Alcazar Spania, whose drawing style is suspiciously similar to Joe’s. Fun non-comic stuff too, really a lot here. My one regret is that it’s a mere quarter-inch too big to fit in a Distroboto machine. (Could the next ish be a bit smaller?)

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