Bill is one of the greatest zine writers I've ever had the pleasure of reading work by. Dream Whip may not be as well known as Cometbus but it should be. In this massive issue Bill travels through Europe and moves in and out of Chicago. It's entirely handwritten with delicate and detailed line drawings of rich architecture. There is a way he describes the everyday that gathers in my chest. I can't describe it so here's an excerpt:
I get back to Texas and the first thing I do is put air in my bike tires. Then I ride out into the country and follow the same old route: past the farm house with the scary dogs in the yard; and past the old cotton gin; and past the gravel yard; and past the padlocked fireworks stand with the words "texas giant" painted across the side. It used to be all cotton fields south of town, but now the churches and the tract houses are springing up, and the cowboys in pickup trucks who used to give me the finger are slowly being replaced by soccer moms in s.u.v.'s who don't.
I get back to Texas and sort through the piles of old stuff at my parent's house. I stuff it in big plastic garbage bags - all of it, the trash of my teenage years, unredeemable and unrecyclable. I pack it up and haul it to the dumpster. Then I check my p.o. box and find a zine from a girl in seattle. She writes about road trips and the stretched-out heartbreak of driving across the country in july, when you sleep in soft grass and swim in cold lakes and drink black coffee in big cities. Road trips full of big cities where you stay up till dawn and watch the street sweepers sweep up every car window that got shattered last night.
I get back to Texas and I can't sleep. I lie awake with my light on, listening to the house creak and the air conditioner switch on and off. Downstairs my parents are getting old, and upstairs I am too. The girl from seattle sent a letter with her zine. She said she'd read one of my zines and thaqt she'd recognized something in it, the same restlessness that makes her restless, too. So she wrote, just like I've done a million times before. What else can you do? You play p.o. box numbers the way other people play lottery numbers - hoping for a pay-off, but knowing all along the odds are stacked against you.
Not only is this well worth $4 but if there is only one zine you ever need to read it's Dream Whip.
Issue 13: 234 pages, ? sized, bound with a rubberband
Cost: $4
Address: Box 53832 . Lubbock, TX 79453
Email: fgibe666@aol.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/dreamwhipzine/
Posted by kubbazine
at 7:48 PM
