RAVEN MACK makes me jealous. Jealous and angry.
Jealous of his tremendous talent and his prodigious output when it comes to writing.
Angry because he makes me feel bad for not getting off my arse and doing more myself.
While I sit in front of the computer, prevaricating endlessly while playing another level of Plants Vs Zombies, he sits in his backyard in West Virginia letting his mind run free and putting magic on paper.
While I’ve taken two years to put out one issue of my zine Rogue (I swear #2 is coming soon), Raven’s already put out eight issues of One Thousand Feathers in less than a year. That’s just rubbing salt into the wound.
OTF is a paper zine unlike any other I’ve come across. Each four-page, cut’n’paste, text-heavy issue is different from what came before, even if a few have a running theme that Raven returns to from time to time. You never know what to expect from the issue that lands in your hands.
OTF #3: The Primordial Traditionalist II is about chickens. Chicken politics, chickens in the wild, dumb chickens vs smart chickens. I never thought I’d find philosophical musings about future KFC nuggets so interesting.
OTF #4: J.J. Krupert I is a discussion about songs and bands – Hank Williams III, ZZ Top, Lynyrd Skynyrd and a handful of rappers I’ve never heard of. Maybe Raven could make me a mixtape (mix-CD?) one day so I can know what he’s talking about.
OTF #5: Freestyle SonnetsI didn’t grab me. But that’s because most poetry doesn’t grab me. Just me, I guess.
OTF #6: Naked Polaroids I is a mash-up of southern noir fiction with William Burroughs’ technique of cutting up a story, throwing the paragraphs of paper in the air, then randomly putting the story back together. Except Raven did this with chapters. Glimpses into the lives of criminals, cops and migrant workers are intertwined in this gripping yarn that jumps back and forth through time. I enjoyed it, but it’s not easy to read. But I suspect Raven didn’t want it to be easy. The reward comes with the perseverance and that satisfying feeling afterwards when you just know you read something brilliant. Grim but brilliant.
OTF #7: Recession Proof II (Buzzards And Eagles aka American Basboosa) will kick your brain like a foot to the arse. A powerful story that drew me into the broken mind and broken world of a mentally damaged Iraqi War veteran. Possibly the best thing Raven’s ever written.
OTF #8: Pissing In Babylon’s Wind I is a collection of Raven’s tweets. This left me cold. Tweets aren’t writing. Raven tries, but it’s just a bunch of random thoughts. And having a thousand or so packed into four pages made it bloody hard to read. I gave up. Sorry, man, but tweets aren’t writing.
Last issue aside, Raven’s zine is worth buying and supporting. He aims to put out a ton of them before he shuffles off this mortal coil. I intend to stick with him as long as he does. I know not everything he produces will be great (no-one can be that consistent, I know), but there’ll be enough pearls of greatness along the way to make it worthwhile.
For more info, write to Raven Mack, PO Box 270, Scottsville, VA, 24590, USA or go to his website at www.rojonekku.com. You can find him on Facebook by typing “Rojonekku” or on Twitter (@SSVa_Raven).
While you do that, I’m off to delete that fucking game off my computer and start writing again. Anger and jealousy are great motivating forces.