Pinch Point

#11 $1 (P.O. Box 128, North Lima, OH 44452)
by Nik Rainey

These are dire days for humor mags. Spy is but a mere shadow of its once-bad self, Mad keeps rolling along, but you’d be hard-pressed to find anybody over the age of 13 admitting to reading it, and National Lampoon only seems to still exist on the off-chance that Chevy Chase wants to do another Vacation film. The true student of rude, mock-’em-all-and-let-God-sort-’em-out lit-wit is therefore reduced to splashing in the shallow puddles of the ‘zine scene to get their non-PC kicks. Hence, Pinch Point, a cheapo operation that manages to throw Spy‘s old celeb-bashing tendencies, Mad‘s joyously juvenile japery, and the sick feeling in the gut that NatLamp used to be so good at, into its low-budget mix.

Issue #11 features an “interview” with America’s favorite exhibitionist car-wreck, Courtney Love, helpful tips for job hunters (“Do not, halfway through the interview, raise your eyes to the ceiling and proclaim in a loud groan, ‘This is unbearable, my Lord!'”), “Favorite Episodes of Childhood TV Shows” (“Good Times, episode 97 – J.J. turns Michael on to heroin”), some scary-ass Christmas memories, and other savage decimations of things the Generation Formerly Known as X holds near and dear to their ashtray hearts. We need double-barreled castigations like this in these beflanneled times. So get it.