Posted on: April 21, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

My Fat Irish Ass! -#5 / :10 / 36L / $2 / PO Box 65391, Washington, D.C. 20035 / [email protected] /

By far, the first thing that strikes me about My Fat Irish Ass! is the very basic, early nineties layout that they have throughout the zine. Simple text boxes and Comic Sans MS font dominate the majority of the zine, and for MFIA, it actually works well in transferring the knowledge imparted in the zine to the reader’s head. In a truly inspired move, MFIA re-prints the letters that they receive about the zine, something nice and light to tackle right after the show reviews (honestly, MFIA is probably like the 12th zine to cover the Murder Junkies in the last three months) and right before a long, rambling story in “The Tale of the Cracker Slacker”. Continuing the light-hearted flow is the extremely long (in terms of page-count) “McTiles Unchained”, an hastily sketched and written story that really doesn’t make much sense. Finishing off the issue are a number of modified comic strips, a la the Dysfunctional Family Circus, that would be funnier if the modifier actually used the same font as the original comics. All and all, there really isn’t $2 worth of material in this issue, and laughs (which the writers strive for practically all issue) are dreadfully few and far between. Segments like the aforementioned McTiles and modified comics drag on for much too long, and I believe that if that key problem was rectified, MFIA would be a much better zine. Oh well, there is always next time, and MFIA may just be in a rut with this issue.

Rating: 3.8/10

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