BOOKBUSTER REVIEW: Occult & Uncanny Zines
Shuck; Undefined Boundary; Myth & Lore; Hellebore; Grimoire Silvanus; and more
at BOOKBUSTER
REVIEW BY TIM BARTON
Over the last couple of years, I have seen a boom in interest in the occult, the uncanny, and the gothic, in psychogeography and hauntology. It is not as if there was none previously, but an explosion of zines has boosted interest a great deal. Tough Love Records, on Bohemia Road, recently hosted a highly successful Wiccan Fair, which hopefully will be run again.
The latest arrivals are a Hellebore Yuletide Special and the fourth issue of Hwaet! The latter covers herbal brews, the Pendle witches, medieval ‘cunning women’, and more. The latest edition of Myth & Lore, #7, an issue focussed on witches, also includes a piece on cunning women. Both feature pages of art submitted by readers, Myth & Lore especially. One artist included is Lydia Cockcroft, whose cartoon zine Witches is also available. Myth & Lore has grown chunkier with each issue, and now includes cartoons, poems, stories, interviews and articles with over 70 contributors.
A WILDLY VARIED COLLECTION OF SUBJECTS
Temporal Boundary Press have just released a third zine in their Undefined Boundary series, subtitled ‘the journal of psychick Albion’ (yes, that is how they spell it!). Previous issues have covered a wildly varied selection of subjects, including, to name just a few, the film Halloween III; the band Current93; hauntology artist and magician John Akimfrah; Penda’s Fen; the author Susan Cooper; the artist Paul Nash; and Gig & Magog. Their latest issue, coming soon, will include features on Angela Carter and Leonora Carrington; ‘folk horror’ in the songs of Kate Bush; ancient sites around Cambridge and more. They also publish a zine on the band Coil, and a Detectorists zine.
Shuck zine is one that has reached its sixth full issue, plus a few ‘specials’. Each issue has its own theme, the latest being ‘Beasts’. Dragons, werebeasts, the ‘shug monkey’ and bigfoot are included, to name but a few. The zine is also copiously illustrated by Matt Willis, whose excellent and distinctive digitally-inked pencilwork can be found at his Etsy site ‘The Folk Lore Box’.
Other zines abound, including Rituals & Declarations, Wyrd, Occulture, the very odd Frogs Teeth, and TNHC (which stands for the Nottingham Horror Collective, based in, guess where… Nottingham) who also published the recently reviewed queer horror zine Last Closet on the Left…
A BIT SILLY, BUT FUN
Last but by no means least, is Grimoire Silvanus, which has just reached its ninth issue. This zine uses a font that can be off-putting, but the content is great. The zine includes a CD’s worth of music suggestions, from Six Organs of Admittance to Sandy Denny. Elena Tornberg-Lennox contributes an ace piece of the wildwoods in mythology, including everything from Hereward the Wake to the reintroduction of beavers to our land. Another feature covers the Wild Hunt. There is a great recipe for acorn flour, albeit in a fountain-pen cursive script! One feature, by ‘Caelum Visus’, covers ‘landscape zodiacs’, which are a bit silly, but fun, and reminded me of the Crawick Multiverse in Sanquhar in Dumfries & Galloway. Other features are on pixies, ‘landscape punk’ and British trees. The last article is on deep time, geology and stone-walling, plus a touch of animism.
The most popular zines are Weird Walk and Hellebore. The latter has recently issued their ninth edition, themed around ‘Darkness’, and is beautifully designed. I am excited to see their Yuletide special! Not a zine, but worth a mention as it too is a design extravaganza, is Watkins Books publication The Astral Geographic. Get ‘em while they’re hot…
All zines available from Bookbuster, 39 Queens Road, Hastings TN34 1RE
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