Hi guys, after some consideration, we’ve decided to start a new feature!

At least once a month, we’ll accept a copy of a zine to review. It’s first come first served, so get in there using the contact form! If no one requests their zine to be reviewed that month, the writer doing the feature will decide on the zine themselves and purchase the zine. Our inspiration for this feature came from George, over at verynearlyalmost, who asked us to review his zine, which we’ve been obliged to!

Anyway, enough of that introduction, let’s get down to the actual review!

Verynearlyalmost ~ Issue 8

To start off this review, I have to compliment George on the quality of the printing. I think it’s printed really nicely, and has come out well I had a quick glance through this the moment it landed on my doorstep, and it looked really nice inside, just on first glance. I started properly reading it last night and finished it this morning. What stuck out was a really good mix of both art and interviews, and I think George balanced the two out really well. You open the zine, and one of the first things that strikes you is a gigantic face staring out at you, painted on the side of a building. While I’ve seen this picture before, I think it’s been really well placed.

It’s not only the quality of the painting which stands out here, although that definitely does stand out. It’s also the quality and quantity of the interviews. It’s not overly stuffed with them, but it’s hardly lacking in them either! I’d heard of I think all the artists that were interviewed, and it includes the likes of Kid Acne, Nylon, Herakut, and Adam Neate. I thought it was really interesting to read them, and to asee their views on both the general street art scene, and how they paint.

There was some really inspiring street art and graffiti there, which gives a lot of inspiration. It was refreshing to see quite a lot of stuff that I hadn’t seen before.

I can’t really think of a lot to say against it, although perhaps it could do with some other stuff, such as possibly articles on aspects of the street art/graffiti scene? Also, while I like most of it, I don’t particularly enjoy the tags, and it feels as if they’ve been put in to fill out the page-count and increase the list of things inside. However, there’s only 2 or 3 pages of these, so they’re easy to skip out if you don’t want to look at them, and I’m sure there’s some of you out there who really enjoy seeing them.

The overall product though, is great, going 100 pages strong, with minimal advertising, you couldn’t avoid buying this! Great work guys, and I can’t wait for the next issue!

~Joe

http://www.verynearlyalmost.com

VNA 8

(more pics coming soon when I get my digital camera working and the pics uploaded )

Ladies and gentlemen. I would like to inform you that Flickr of the Week has made a comeback!

Yes, that’s right! While it never officially left, I think I’ve been a little *cough* lax in posting them. Anyways, it has returned, and should be here for a while!

To mark it’s return, I have also added a thread in the forums where suggestions can be submitted (link is here), or you can submit in the normal way, via the contact form.

Anyways, this week’s Flickr of the week is .FAKE.!

Heres some pics from it:

Link is here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lype/

Keep submitting!

Joe

It’s a pleasure to have seen VNA magazine move from small time project to pro magazine. Although not the typical ‘glossy’, I find VNA to be inviting and a source of great inspiration. I’ve witnessed VNA move from black and white to colour and more recently, saddleback to perfect bound spine. VNA Issue 7 is a step above the rest. I sang VNA 6’s praises and yet Issue 7 has surprised me somewhat again.

Very Nearly Almost Magazine Issue 7 had a fair amount of hype surrounding it. Concrete Hermit even hosted a launch party, deservedly so. Issue 7 has moved outward and away from London. London’s street art scene is still well documented but VNA looks to capture a global audience as it crosses the pond to New York City.

The new issue is better organised than the previous outings. We find dedicated separate sections for each form of street art: graffiti, stickers, tags, stencils. Even the addition of a contents page is welcomed to helpfully navigate the growing number of pages, issue 7 contains a total of 82 pages (over double that of issue 6).

Issue 6 covered the original Cans festival and Issue 7 looks at Cans Festival Part 2. My previous comments in the Issue 6 review, criticising the vast documentation of the mainstream pieces at Cans, have to be taken back at this point (as well as a little bit of my pride) because what VNA have provided for both these events is an awesome, handy reminder of the great pieces which blessed Leake Street. However, I won’t take back that I’d like to see more of the smaller pieces .

Interviews with Cept, C215 and the One Trick Pony collective all come together to improve the quality of content in VNA. Artist C215 has probably had the most recognition recently of all three interviewees, and so it’s great to have his opinion and thoughts available to those who are interested (we’d love to get an interview with him in the future on Concrete Canvas). I personally love finding new artists ready and raring to express their artistic thoughts and opinions and the interview with OTP Collective gave this to me. Along with the interviews, VNA provides extensive examples of the artists’ work and style.

This A5 little wonder has developed into an essential piece of any street art lovers kit. I can only imagine how Issue 8 will turn out. Should the VNA boys decide to keep the setup of this issue for future issues, they’ll be onto a definite winner.

Links:
www.verynearlyalmost.com

We’ve seen Very Nearly Almost (VNA) magazine move a long way from the black and white issues of 2006. The photo street artzine is now considerably smarter with its colour pages. Issue six brings with it a new style: the introduction of a spine and loss of the staples, together makes it look like a ‘proper’ magazine.  What hasn’t been lost fortunately, is the huge range of street art documented within its pages.

Issue 6 covers the stencil art of the great Cans Festival. Unfortunately, only the big names are shown such as Eelus, Banksy, Vexta etc. Whilst this will cover what the majority of people will want to see when looking for pictures of Cans Festival,  I think that Cans Festival is well documented and you don’t have to go far on Flickr to find information on the big artists. That said, the quality of the photos show the artwork in their true form beautifully and if you are unable to get to Leake Street (the Cans Festival Location) youself  or want a reminder of the event, this is a great way to view the artwork.

A highlight of the magazine is the interview with street artist Ace. One thing I personally really enjoy discovering about artists is how they were introduced to street art and I feel that the interview covers this very well. Ace comes across as a very bubbly guy and seems to be open minded where UK street art is headed. When reading the interview however, it felt as if someone had started to tell a joke but forgot the punchline – the ending felt abrupt and I would have loved the interview to have carried on for a couple more pages. With the introduction of the interview to VNA it seems its moving closer to a magazine rather than a photozine (just displaying pictures) which I believe to be a fantastic step in the right direction.

If your looking at getting a street art zine to have something interesting to sit on your coffee table then this is definately a must buy. The pictures in here are great and cover a huge range of artists and styles. If your looking at getting a street art zine to get inspiration from then again, this is definately a must buy. If your looking at getting a street art zine to have something to read whilst your on holiday then you may think again about getting this one. Even though the interview with Ace, is well… ace, its fairly short and will leave you wanting more. The addition of the interview in Issue 6 is brilliant and I hope that Issue 7 will feature more text content. At only £3 you’ll find it hard to complain about anything in this mag and I would recommend getting it to anyone, unless your only buying it to read on holiday . As a photozine it is superb and any artists that finds his/her work in here should be very proud.

Links:
Very Nearly Almost Website

As some of you may be aware, the graffiti artist Kron has recently bought out the first issue of the graffiti fanzine, No Comment.
Limited to just 100 copies, I was lucky enough to get my hands on one.  The zine features a great amount of walls, trains, and sketchbook pieces, and is a great document of a selection of artists that I admire.  It is A4 in size, and features 44 pages of black and white photocopied pages.  Each front cover is individual, and some randomly selected, lucky people (not including me), got hand painted covers from a selection of artists.
At just £3.50, this is a bargain, and I look forward to issue 2!