Doris #26 (20p, A5, $2, english)

published on January 30, 2010 under zine reviews

Doris is one of the zines that I remember seeing in distros ever since I’ve started looking around for zines. Nevertheless, for some weird reason I never got my hands on an issue before. When I picked up this issue and started reading it, I just couldn’t put it down.

Cindy writes an ongoing encyclopedia and in each issue a few letters are featured. From these letters she rights a mixture of personal stories, politics and punk. In this issue it is R, S and T and you can read the following articles:

Robin: It is about social change, people changing themselves and the world around them. Is it possible? It is also about having a difference of opinion then a person very close to you.
Shy: A comic that recounts the story of Cindy’s first dealing with the punk rock scene. A shy girl that wants to be herself in a scene where people are so much different than her. How she managed to fit in and find people like her.
Social Ecology: An introduction and personal view of the political theory that Murray Bookchin introduced.
Truth: The way we remember and tell stories. How much truth is in them, and how much is left out to make it easier to remember, tell and understand.

Cindy has also written the highly-recommended “Support zine” (which I should write about at some point) and published the book “Doris Book: an anthology 1991-2001”, a collection of articles from the 10 first years of making her zine. You can read an interview she did for Maximum RNR issue #83 in December 2006. Cindy Crabb (Doris zine) on Maximum RNR.

This issue was printed by 1984 printing and has a bright yellow cover that is hard to miss if it’s lying on a distro table. Numerous mail distros still carry it and Cindy distributes it herself through her little distro.