Zine Review: Blobarchy by Valeska N Mangel⁣ ⁣ Blobarchy is a palm-sized zine with a pearly pink cover. It bears no title or image so all a reader has to go on in these first few moments before opening it, is a wash of this pink; a shade only slightly lighter than the pink of tubby custard. ⁣ ⁣ It’s cute, which the content quickly works against in an oxymoronic twist that feels like part of the point. Blobarchy asks us to read deeper than simply what is quickly and judgmentally perceived. We are met, not really greeted, almost mid-thought, on some kind of journey, and the lack of capitalisation in this zine reinforces the feeling that we are meeting the weiter somewhere midway between here and there. We are met almost immediately in a gooey-slimy-globular place. ⁣ ⁣ The image of globular bodies is used as an analogy for human form and human relationships throughout; the writing is cutting and distinct. Blobarchy begins with a disinterested trawl through a 3D-graphic/ASMR-infected instagram discovery page, and moves on to take a reader on a dis/embodied globular journey through public and private human spaces such as the train, in the pub, the office, the body. ⁣ ⁣ The narrative is paired with close-up images of Hans Bellmer’s surrealist sculptures: blobby body forms that ooze and drape and bubble. They supplant the narrative with images of blobbiness caught in a kind of free-fall. ⁣ ⁣ This zine feels like it comes from a place of exhaustion and rage, and with it, it is saying a lot. It takes a reader through tiredness, loneliness, surmises how one might be perceived through the blob-body, and finally culminates in an enraged statement against the travesty and trauma of using one’s “fleshy slimes” to grope another. With these flubby and gooey interactions we are taken out of one’s immediate body and are made to look at a series of living slimes, like an instagram gallery. In doing this, these moments are given new clarity and rage through a new pair of eyes. ⁣ ⁣ Get it from @valeskanoemi now 💜 ⁣ _⁣ Want your zine reviewed? email [email protected] with info x