Posted on: January 3, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

Choking Hazard #12 ($1 , No Address – [email protected]) (For Jersey Beat)

A line that finally strikes on almost all cylinders. From the front cover, which has an extraordinarily-well reproduced picture of a hair guy with Slayer on his chest, to the top 24 CDs that are essential to live by (which has lists by six or seven people, Choking Hazard is a fun zine to read. But, before I gush any more about the quality of this zine, I would like to get the weaknesses of Choking Hazard out of the way. First off, “On Dropping Out” is another essay that details the perfection of dropping out of school and highlights the horrors of state-sponsored schooling, without having much in the way of facts or other individual’s viewpoints. What makes this zine so endearing in pieces like “Body Mod” is that the Choking Hazard collective (a group of individuals) all comments on their feelings, and each individual is just that – holding completely different views than the other members. The high number of lists, which would tend to get tiresome in many other magazines, continue to be fresh due to the aforementioned differences between the members. Sure, some of these pieces are not my bag (the stream-of-urine piece “If there’s anything I can’t stand, it’s intolerance”, and the anti-Grotesque Manson piece “MASH, Maybelline, and Manson), but the topics covered are so different, the styles of writing so opposite to each other, that this zine will maintain its interesting nature through 12, 24, or even 48 issues. Pick it up.

Rating : 7.9/10

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