10 YEARS OF THE BF SIX TO WATCH! The third incarnation of Bristol’s Zinezilla fair, as co-organised by 2022 Broken Frontier ‘Six to Watch’ creator Mereida Fajardo, is coming this Sunday March 10th, and this year we have an added bonus tie-in to the event. Zinezilla: Megalazine is an anthology collection of comics and illustration from artists established and new who will also be exhibiting at the fair. It’s also a publication with the most unlikely of themes, tying into Zinezilla’s kaiju-style branding by featuring stories inspired by prehistoric mega-shark the megalodon.
Behind an eye-catching cover by Suelyn Lee, Zinezilla: Megalazine boasts work from relative newbies through to established veterans of the UK small press scene like Paul Ashley Brown. That blend of illustrative work and sequential art provides a welcoming platform to dip in and out of the styles of the artists featured. Some entries cross both mediums. Matilda Robertson’s ‘Shark Fin Soup’, for example, which sees a veritable army of chefs working on preparing a butchered megalodon on a culinary production line.
In terms of pure comics some of the highlights include the aforementioned Paul Ashley Brown’s ‘Megalomania’ (above) in which he runs with that central theme but in a somewhat less obvious direction. Brown provides four pages of lyrical yet scathing social commentary that equates the monster of the anthology’s title with an all too human and recognisable one.
Merida Fajardo’s own one-pager ‘What Gordon Saw’ is a typical example of the artist’s experimental forays into the form with a one-page story working as both single illo and panel-less sequential art. Here we observe the fair’s mascot Gordon the Godzilla making underwater discoveries of his own, deep in the sea. Fajardo’s second story ‘Gas Station Maggie’ (above) underlines her versatility. Primarily known for abstract and sometimes darker work, in this short she displays her comedy credentials in a tightly constructed tale of a megalodon who is revived millions of years later from the fossilised depths underneath a desert gas station.
Readers will find their own favourites in the contrasting styles herein but other contributions to Zinezilla: Megalazine to catch my eye included Eirinn Henley’s two-page and two-panel ‘Lost and Found’ with its memorably atmospheric deep sea encounter with a megalodon, and Leo Ioviero’s beautifully coloured and delicately structured ‘Memories of Migration’ (above) with its juxtaposition of the natural and human worlds. Wocco’s fantasy shark designs in ‘Sharkland’ (below) are also memorable fun.
Easily the most niche themed anthology we have ever reviewed here at BF in terms of subject matter Zinezilla: Megalazine is also a fabulous advertisement for the breadth of talent that will be on show in Bristol this coming Sunday.
Archie Taplin, Bennie Douet, Eirinn Henley, Leo Ioviero, Marcy Fraser, Matilda Robertson, Mereida Fajardo, Paul Ashley Brown, Suelyn Lee, Robin HB Pencil, Roman Macrae, Wocco • Self-published, £6.00 print/£3.00 digital
Review by Andy Oliver
