Zine Reviews: Ubik #3 and The Ravens Way Review

Written by A. Iwasa

Reviews of music fanzine Ubik, and diving into the essays of perzine Ravens Way Review.

​Ubik #3

​Ubik #3, 30 pages.
8646 Carter Ave.
Allen Park, MI 48101

This is basically everything I want out of a music fanatic magazine.  A perfect mix of local and touring, new and historical acts.  Plenty of good photography and cover art to keep it engaging, and reviews written in accessable language by someone not confined to one genre's fandom.  Though it is mostly punk/adjacent, Ubik gives room and worthy praise to metal, ska and industrial acts as well.

The highlight for me was an interview with Jimmy Doom of The Almighty Lumber Jacks of Death.  Ubik is out of the Detroit metro area, but you don't need to be to dig it.  

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The Ravens Way Review 

#3, Winter 2026, 39 pgs., $4.00
PO Box 3067
Laurel, MD 20709
[email protected]

Made up of three essays and a fantastic 'zine review section, this is a topnotch personal 'zine.

The first essay, "What's Going On?" is three pages of personal updates that sets the tone nicely for the rest of the issue.

The second essay is "Commentary," starting off with a review of Amie McNee's TED Talk, "The Case for Making Art When the World Is on Fire."  After reading the review I watched McNee's talk on the youtube.  As with most things like this I don' agree 100% with either McNee or the 'zinester, Joe3, but both are good as a starting point or encouragement if this sort of things has been on your mind, and isn't that largely the point of talking and writing in the first place?

After about a page, Joe3 shifts to the work of the recently passed 'zinester Fred Argoff as a case in point.   

The third essay, "True Story," is about the rise and fall of a community library Joe3 helped start.  As a longtime participant in the Infoshop movement, this is some of my favorite kind of material.  Why start a library when there's already a public library?  What went right?  Wrong?

Section four is 'zine reviews, and the main thing that kept me from finishing this review faster was I kept stopping to put together wingnut mail art to send to some of the other 'zinesters in the hopes of doing some trades for more potential review copies! 

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