Thursday, August 15, 2013

ZINE REVIEW: Les CarNets de Rastapoloulos #9

Les CarNets de Rastapoloulos #9
This is issue #9 of Robert Gauvinov's Les CarNets de Rastapoloulos zine and the second installment of the pen pal theme. I have not seen the first one, but the back story is that when Robert was a teenager in Canada in the 1980s, he signed up to become a pen pal through a Communist youth magazine. Quicker than you can say Glasnost and Perestroika, Robert had dozens of pen pals from behind the Iron Curtain. In this issue of the zine, Rob reprints some of these letters with updates from the people who wrote them. This is a pretty fascinating concept and my only complaint is that this zine merely whets my appetite for more. I’d love to find out more about these people who grew up under Communist rule: what were their lives like then? And now? What sort of future did they see for themselves then and what do they see now? More, more, more. I'm greedy. More.

Les CarNets de Rastapoloulos is a photocopied zine, laid out by hand. It's 14 pages. For more info, and to get free copy, check out Robert Gauvinov's page at We Make ZinesChris Auman


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