Today’s look at ‘zines is going to be a short one, by necessity because it’s an art/comic ‘zine with very little in the way of dialogue.
Let my crankiest cat show you what is what with BeastMeat by Seth Goodkind.
BeastMeat is a fun and fairly nasty mini-zine/comic hybrid. It’s a little bit of gross horror that is meant to be enjoyed for its grossness, but, believe it or not (believe it because I will explain myself shortly), I was able to associate elements of this ‘zine with a recent presidential candidate’s struggles.
BeastMeat consists of black and white drawings of a man who has some sort of worm in his head, speaking gibberish to him and driving him to madness. He shoots himself in the head to rid himself of the worm – I have no idea why I immediately thought “planarian” but suspect it’s just high school biology rearing its less-than-helpful head – and the worm tries to escape, only to be caught by a goat-looking creature. The goat, whom I assume to be the “Beast,” engages in a struggle with the worm and then the man, and I assume they are the “Meat,” but I’m sort of old and have no real idea what is happening. Then the Beast lays or craps out some sort of larvae sac into the man’s neck. The End.
But here’s why I absolutely had to discuss this ‘zine. A man has a wormish creature crawling around in his head, shouting nonsense and driving him to madness. He rids himself of the worm but a Luciferian goat comes and makes things even worse with a nastier worm-thing. Is there anything in this comic that reminds you of some current politician? If the Beast had been a bear or a whale, would the association I’m making be clearer?
This comic ‘zine was created in 2014 but I think we all know that Seth Goodkind looked into the future, saw Robert F. Kennedy’s worm-infested brain and his struggles with political darkness and drew this comic to warn us. And the upside to this totally coherent analysis is that you can assign members of the political right and left to the role of the Beast, which means you don’t have to leave me angry comments accusing me of being a Soros-funded degenerate or a Russian Trumpette asset.
I have absolutely no idea where I got this ‘zine but Seth Goodkind still sells this comic ‘zine in his Etsy store. He also has an interesting-looking Instagram account. He appears to be a tattooist, and has inked a card from the Edward Gorey Fantod Pack onto someone’s arm. This means he is awesome and I will send a Fantod Pack to the first person not married to me who knows what Edward Gorey character I have tattooed on my own carcass and posts the answer in the comments. Contest open until someone wins or we all succumb to the brain worm and become BeastMeat or succumb to BeastMeat, the comic wasn’t clear.