Posted on: November 9, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

The first issue of You Idiot I picked up at one of the AMCs I had attended, and the issue was brilliant. Talking about anti-drug and Christian video games among other things, I had a high bar set up for the latest issue of You Idiot to break. Using a lot of the same layout as Nate’s other zine Pick Your Poison, I found myself a little tired reading through about 120 pages total of things that are laid out the same way (even if Nate’s writing is still fresh and crisp). One of the major complaints that I have about this issue of You Idiot would be the extreme length of some of these pieces, including “Here They Come To Save The Day”, with 12 pages (yes, there are some pictures). If Nate would cut out some of the extraneous information and return to the succinctness of the first issue, chances are that the piece would be harder-hitting. A piece about the Macho Man’s album follows that and again, falls into a rut, due to Nate’s tendency to stretch out every piece. While this may work in descriptions of eir personal life, the material that is covered in You Idiot is finite – it is a CD or a 32 page comic, not something that Nate is intimately familiar with. “The brief history of Drunken Robberies” simultaneously suffers from lack and glut of information; Nate tries to cover too many cases and as such, leaves out some vital information. Some cases may be given adequate coverage, but most that Nate focuses on are just needing a little more in the way of information. Still, informational zines like You Idiot are rare, and in the vein of Alco-Beat or The Hungover Gourmet, You Idiot is a solid read.

Rating: 5.4/10

You Idiot #3 / :30 / $2.00 / 56M / Nate Gangelhoff, PO Box 8995, Minneapolis, MN 55408 / http:/www.pickyourpoison.net / Reviewed 11 November 2004

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