Paper Instagram
Samuel Milianta
Self-Published
Street: 05.01
Salt Lake’s Sam Milianta publishes zines more often than an iPhone junkie adds new photo albums to Facebook—he’s already released at least six this year. His photo zines are typically black-and-white, photocopied chronicles of skate sessions, late-night wanderings and portraits of friends and strangers on the street. In the full-color Paper Instagram, Milianta strays from black and white territory. Shot on medium-format and 35mm film, Milianta’s 24 photographs take us on a weeklong trip around Los Angeles. Images of gawking tourists on Broadway and Chris Swainston brandishing a gun sit alongside Skid Row tarp houses and the Griffith Park Observatory “Just like James Dean left it,” says the text. Milianta’s familiar, cool-looking guys smoking cigarettes and photos of people taking photos still make an appearance, but Paper Instagram still feels fresh and personal, like you’re hanging out with the photographer himself. It’s way more rewarding than scrolling down with your thumb on a screen, too. There are only 32 copies printed, so dig $6 out of that change jar real quick. Milianta will also trade a zine for pizza or knick-knacks instead of cash. Email him at smilianta77@gmail.com or bump into him at the Downtown Este Pizza for a copy. –Cody Kirkland

Paramour Magazine Issue #1: Summer 2012
Various Artists
Self-Published
Street: 10.12.12
Paramour Magazine is a queer DIY print publication and Tumblr that features numerous collaborators working in different mediums. This first issue offers up “Johnny,” a hunky Adonis, as the muse for eleven “brother” artists. The zine’s artwork—photos mostly—all explore male homoeroticism. A short story titled “The Long Dream” is interwoven throughout the zine, covering transgressive literary territory explored by writers such as Jean Genet and Georges Bataille. The story opens with a lyrical scene in which a guilt-ridden male beauty named Jonah dreams of “interrogating” beautiful angels. Pages later, its revealed the guilt has come from irreversibly fucking things up with his beloved now–ex-boyfriend through lust and an onset of disease. Then alone, Jonah falls for “The Impossibly Beautiful Man,” who promises him an oblique opportunity for a cure. The accompanying photography is equally oblique, erotic and reflective, if not outright tragic. No word on a second issue, but you can check out some of this one at paramourzine.tumblr.com. –Christian Schultz

Slay Team: The Poser Wars
Lizzy Green
Bazillion Points
Street: 01.31
Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax … and Exodus! History likes to keep it cut and dry, but heads know that there IS no Bay Area thrash without Paul Baloff, Gary Holt and an army of beer swilling, bong-ripping, circle-pitting maniacs … So, it’s under that banner of cartoonish buffoonery and wild eyed party-ocity that this comic was created. Unearthed in inky fanzine glory, Slay Team served as a fan-only comic by Exodus friend and superfan Lizzy Green. Detailing their graphic exploits of fightin’, thrashin’ and layin’ waste to all things Crüe and Poison, this faithful reproduction touches on all the ham-fisted nihilism and spasmotic energy that made Reagan-era thrash metal such a nascent stateside musical development. A perfect accompaniment to the already larger-than-life mythos of one “poser disposer” Paul Baloff, Slay Team is a lovingly detailed revisit to a classic album (these were given out to fans during the Bonded by Blood tour) and in memoriam of a fallen metal hero. What’s that? You DON’T want to see cartoon reproductions of glam-central poodleheads getting disemboweled with chainsaws? Then keep on walking, bruh. –Dylan Chadwick