Your Flesh Quarterly

No. 37 $4.95 (PO Box 583264, Minneapolis, MN 55458-3264; distributed by Fantagraphics)
by William Ham

With Forced Exposure fans looking to Nostradamus’ millennial prophesies to suss out their production schedule, it’s down to mags like Your Flesh to uphold the literomusically multicultural mantle that the My Bloody Valentine of ‘zines appears to have dropped. Fortunately, it’s a pretty safe bet that FE‘ll continue rolling along at a decent clip, what with Fantagraphics’ distro muscle keeping it nice and regular like a roughage-munchin’ coffee addict and upgrading its choice of cover artists to boot (the honors for #37 are carried out by Frank comics’ Jim Woodring, also interviewed within).

As ever, its selection of features on semi-obscure bands (Eleventh Dream Day, Firewater, Ghost, Lynnfield Pioneers) and fringe artists (ex-Deviant and multiform fict-scribe Mick Farren, a refreshingly unsensationalistic chat with Answer Me!‘s Jim Goad) remains impeccable, as does its criticism (in addition to their ever-perceptive review sections, Dave Rick musically deconstructs the Monkees to good effect in his contribution). Still one of the best-marbled slabs o’ beef on the stands. Dig in.