Doris: An Anthology, 1991-2001

Doris zine #00

by Cindy Gretchen Ovenrack Crabb

Cindy writes her zine, Doris , like she is figuring out the human condition. She makes writing about the simplest and most common things - playing music, childhood, cooking, or sex - resonate with universal understanding. She helps us make sense of more complex things like the satisfaction from doing useful work, natural curiosity, the ability to use logic, gender dynamics, introspection, the need for challenge and change, combating depression, and creating art and literature. She shares and explores the emotions that go along with having an abortion, rape, dealing with the death of family, or sexual harassment in a context that is enlightening and personal, feeling like a close friend opening up to you. What's most impressive though is that she relates these things into every article in her zine seamlessly.

Genres: Nonfiction, Graphic Novels, Feminism, Punk, Memoir, Comics, Biography Memoir

308 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2005

Reviews

[Caitlin Constantine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is how I described this book/zine collection to my husband: like sitting around a kitchen table, late at night, listening to the coolest girl you've ever met as she tells you stories about her life.

I really don't think there is anything more to say.

[Ciara · Rating 5 out of 5]

of course i think this book is great. i have been a huge fan of "doris" zine for years. i actually remember the first time i ever read "doris". i had just moved to portland & i was hanging out with lauren martin. we went to reading frenzy. this may have even been my first trip to reading frenzy, which wound up being a place i stopped in at almost everyday of the two years i lived in portland. i think it was "doris" #12 sitting on the shelf. lauren pointed it out to me & told me it was a good zine & that i should read it. i had heard of it & seen it around, but never picked it up because it seemed like one of those zines that was too ubiquitous to be able to live up to the hype or something. but i respected lauren's opinion, so i bought it & got hooked. i went back to reading frenzy & picked up all the back issues they had, & maybe a year later, a friend that i worked with at powell's gave me a huge grocery bag full of all the zines he was culling from his ten-year collection. the bag includes almost every back issue of "doris" that i didn't already have, including an original copy of issue #3, which had all these hand-made parts. what a score! & i had another friend in california who had all the other old issues i didn't have, so we did a swap & she hooked me up. & cindy herself agreed to make me a copy of issue #5, which was nice of her, since that was several years before she did the anthology & i can't imagine that it was a lot of fun for her to look at that old issue again. (i hate looking at my old issues.) so i already had all the back issues by the time this anthology came out, but i still like the anthology because it's nice to have everything collected together. & there are a few extra bits in here too--stories that cindy wrote for other zines, which i hadn't seen before. i only lament that the book was published by microcosm. i am not a fan. but i guess they helped this book come into the world, so maybe they are only 98% sucky instead of 100%. i also lament that they use kind of cheap materials, so my personal copy looks like it has been pawed over by hobos for the last twenty years, when i've only read it like three times. what the fuck?

[Sarah Cavar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doris is a warm hug, yes, but one that doesn't hesitate to tell it straight when things get hard. Crabb's voice is an absolute joy to read, and her insight and hope are by no means rare, but they *are* rarely expressed, especially today, with the degree of earnestness that was available in the zine form. "Doris" is an exceptionally useful (many practical tips within!) and also an exceptionally courageous zine, which gives me a taste of the 80s-very-early-aughts like none I've had before.

(Also, man. Those entries about infighting and toxic leftist communities. Nothing new under the sun.)

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never read Doris before I picked up Cindy Crabb's book, but it held me engrossed all winter. Whenever the doldrums would set it in I'd just curl up with the book and let the pasted up text and stick figure comics transport me to the familiar world of punk living rooms, railroad bridges and long aimless walks. I never read too many personal zines - I guess the overly self-conscious romanticization of the punk lifestyle doesn't do it for me. Cindy tells her stories from a place of wisdom, and it reminds of my own moments of clarity when I can look back at my past and appreciate it and see how I've grown.

[Brittany · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first edition was published in 2005, shortly after I graduated high school. I'd read a few of the single-standing later issues prior to the compendium's publishing. Doris had an immense impact on shaping my worldview, and I know I wasn't alone in that. I bought a copy of the second edition online a few weeks ago--I forget what prompted it, though I know I was a little tipsy when I hit the paypal button.

I wasn't worried if it would hold up or not, and for good reason. Crabb's writing still hits me in all of the right tender places. What I took away the most was exactly how much of an effect her writing had on my political/social beliefs--from her, I learned (or learned more nuance about) things that inform my work (both personally and professionally) to this day.

It was also FASCINATING to me to re-read this with the eyes of someone who's been living in the Bay Area for seven years, when I'd initially read her work as a recent high school graduate in Cleveland, Ohio. While reading the "a la carte" later issues, prior to the publishing of this anthology, Crabb had moved on from the Bay to other far-flung places in the Eastern US. However, these early issues situate her directly in the lap of where I'm living--and I can't quite explain what was turning over in my head between the girl who initially read these words, who and how she was, and then the girl who's absorbing and reflecting on them now, in 2018, but it sure was SOMETHING. Doris forever.

[Abby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read recently because I am reviewing this zine for LJ. Doris is a wonderful perzine that's been around since the mid-nineties, written, illustrated and published by Cindy, a wandering punk anarchist woman who writes about her travels, her sister, strangers, secrets, making community, sex, history, depression, politics and so much more. She has a real gift for describing ordinary moments in daily life: snatches of conversation, glimpses out the windows of vans, late-night fears and frustrations, the harsh beauty of city landscapes, planting a garden, dancing at a show, so many things we often take for granted. She really sees them, and she tells you stories about them like an old friend would -- simple and direct and full of heart. And when she talks to you about politics and theory, mutual aid and women's self-care, you soak up the words and feel it resonate through all the little details she's shared with you elsewhere. The political & personal are thoroughly entwined in this zine, as they are in life. Most of Doris #1 through #18 is in this volume (except #9 which was not reprinted for reasons she mentions in the book); the zine is up to issue #26 now and you can get back issues 21 through 26 at her website (www.dorisdorisdoris.com) and also through microcosm publishing (www.microcosmpublishing.com), who published this anthology.

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, love it, expect to always love it and come back to it. I wish this was the kind of thing I had produced in the 90s. It's real. and I love the typewritten stuff and handwritten stuff and drawn stuff. I love the dog named Anna and the hardness and necessity of other people, and bright cold mornings and coffee and siblings. I'm glad Cindy was in the world and wrote about how things were for her this way.

[Melanie Brodie]

Didn't quite finish. This is one of those books you pick up and put back down and pick up again when it calls you from the shelf. Very cute. States a time and a place - that long ago time between '91 and '01 - which feels like forever ago. It really is a time capsule.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

She looked at me, all wide eyed and serious. "If you are ever broke, and all you have in the refrigerator is moldy cheese, you can eat it and you won't get sick." This was her last advice to me.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is revolutionary! This anthology is a chronological archive of a series of zines made by one woman between 1991-2001. I'm so happy I discovered Doris, for several reasons. The first is that Cindy Crabb changed the way I think about zines and their purpose: I'd never come across 'perzines' very much before and it was refreshing to read such confessional, honest writing about personal things that is poetic at the same time. I felt like I entered Cindy's world and was following her on her travels across the USA and elsewhere. The zines I have read previously are mostly art zines or feminist discourse.

Secondly, it taught me a lot about anarchism and resisting the idea of anarchism as chaotic, and also community activism and socialism. It was a great insight into DIY and punk communities in the 1990s.

The third is because of how beautiful the writing is. It reminds me of this Tove Jansson quote: "I need to write down my observations. Even the tiniest ones; they're the most important." Cindy definitely does this in Doris, there is such introspective detail and hope in the everyday. She is really inspiring. Everyone should read Doris and I mean that.

[Famous · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently saw cindy on book tour. i've enjoyed doris off and on for years, picking it up just when i came across it. but this reading caught me at a particularly alienated moment and as soon as she got half way through the first paragraph i was re-centered. this is not because the writing is spectacular in every way or even that the story is always my own. But it was a re-affirming articulation of how i ended up in the places i have, why i see the world the way i do, why my life is peopled with the people it is. It does speak to my experiences and does a damn good job of deciphering what i've done with these experiences - from making dumb and destructive choices, to being the warrior queen that slays all demons, to just feeling sad and defeated to finding ways to accept, cope and weather. It also reminds me that i have had and know how to have fun despite it all. It was really fun to rush up to her after and be the gushing fan saying, here's all my money, can i have your book? really sweet.

[Ahmad Nizamuddin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an anthology of Doris zine that consists of issue 1 to 18 that were published within 1991- 2001 (10 years). When I was on the first few pages of this book, I got really hooked and wanted to finish reading it as soon as possible. The first few issues' writings were short stories and information sharing. Cindy shares whatever she went through in life, likes and dislikes from simplest things to topics such as rape, abortion, sexual harassment, and dealing with death in the family.

She also touched on her activism and political collectivism activities. The English is simple and easy to understand. The layout is using cut and paste method all the way with mostly typewriter and a little handwriting for the texts. There are doodles of herself and her dog Anna in most of the issues. It's simple and she managed to maintain the drawing style for all the issues.

[Dea G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tracks the development of the Doris zine and reads like heartfelt letter from an in the know, activisty, understanding friend. The Doris Depression Guide, a highlight, is great for getting out of a funk, and I sent off copies to a bunch of my friends. Her methods of coping with life and love of solitude reminded me to be introspective and self assured. Written by a girl who lives everywhere from Oakland to Vermont to Minneapolis to Russia, she documents punk life in a variety of locations. The anthology gets trite towards the middle, before Cindy's personal stories get colored with more political and informational overtones. Despite a few boring issues, I drank it down like punk rock lemonade on a sizzling, uninspired day.

[Lynne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm relatively new to reading zines regularly, so I picked up my first copy of Doris about a month or so ago. I know it might sound hokey, but it spoke to me (which, I suppose, is what zines are meant to do). I bought a few of the newer ones, but was really happy when I saw that this anthology of her earlier work was available. I bought it direct from Cindy's distro (Down with Microcosm!), and I'm so glad I did. It was really interesting seeing her develop as a writer and storyteller over the 10-11 of writing Doris. I'm pretty excited that she's working on The Doris Encyclopedia right now (http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/3...) so that I can catch up on other issues I've missed. Definitely a good read.

[Mark Robison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compilation of Cindy’s personal zines through the 1990s as she copes with her abusive childhood while trying to create a better world. Unlike a lot of memoir-type books, Cindy doesn’t beat you over the head with painful re-enactments of her past but instead analyzes the ways she attempts to move forward. It's also impressive the sheer scope of her life, traveling the world and getting in crazy adventures, with clearly no money. Her self-examination is so thoughtful, so non-narcissistic, so beautiful that you can't help but wish you knew her and there were a million more like her. I read most of these when they first came out as photocopied zines, and they’re just as good the second time, even if the format necessarily means some bits are better than others. She’s a great writer.

[Kimmy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ahhhhh, I wanted to like this so much! I feel like I SHOULD have liked it... It talks about a lot of the things I'm into (feminism, anarchism, being kind of lost in life). But I think it was just too much in one little book. It is, of course, a collection of zines so it was never really meant to be read all together and I think the book format kind of killed it for me. To be perfectly honest, I did not finish this book, I lost interest about a quarter of the way in so maybe it would have gotten better if I'd given it more of a chance. To me though, it sort of just felt like I was reading the diary of one of the kids I went to college with, sort of self-important and full of not-so-amazing personal realizations.

[Emelda · Rating 5 out of 5]

God, I love Cindy. The Doris Anthology makes my heart sing. I have a few of the zines collected in here, but I'm so, so happy to have access to the older issues... you know, the ones that came out when I was 7 and making my own newspapers for the neighbors. Doris makes me feel fiercely nostalgic, eternally hopeful, question my political stances and want to build for that better world you can sometimes grasp ribbons of, when you're on the edge of this reality. I wish I was re-reading it right now.

[AB · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Doris anthology is an essential book for anyone interested in personal experience zines or narrative. It's a compilation of the authors zines over ten years, highlighting experiences in her life, from organising demonstrations to travelling or living in a squatted house. Cindy Crabb captures the reader with her introspective style that never lingers on a topic for too long, and deals with every aspect of the human experience. After this, I recommend tracking down the further issues of Doris, which Cindy continues to produce up to this day.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Doris zine! There are lots of great things about this anthology. Doris is one of those zines that you can carry around in your pocket and it's like always having a friend with you that you can hang out and read. Cindy Crabb just has a way of confiding in you with such heartbreaking honesty, and that is what you will find in this anthology: realness, honesty, heartbreak, friendship, confessions, and lots more. I've lent this book to so many people that it spends more time away from my bookshelf than on it, but so far it always finds its way back.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most human collections of words I've ever read, Doris is unassuming, personal, lovely, imperfect, heartfelt, heart-wrenching, and heart-mending all at once. When I was 19 or 20, a friend gave this anthology to me, and it reaffirmed that I wasn't crazy, that I had good ideas, and that there are people who are trying to figure shit out in the world. Perfect when you're in the mood to be alone but can't bear to be lonely.

[jerx · Rating 5 out of 5]

i thought this was absolutely amazing. the only real thing i can say is that i love how cindy was able to take small things and certain situations and make them have this incredible and amazing feel. she wrote with such passion and so wonderfully. this was seriously one of the best reads to come across my life.

[ael · Rating 5 out of 5]

My all-time favorite personal zine, now in a handy book version. The advice in Doris 15 (or is it 14? the anti-depression guide) saved my life. she just says things so well, expresses the stuff I never know how to say, and tells the best story. she is the direct inspiration for my plan to live in a treehouse outside Portland. hero, hero, hero.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

doris was one of the first zines i ever read. actually, it was a three pack of mini-zines written by cindy that led me to track down doris. she was and continues to be an amazing and inspiring writer who really openly discussed sexual assault and its impact on everything in the world, mental health, being confused, being alive, and on and on. i almost fainted when i met her in real life.

[doramaar717 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read collection of a wonderful zine called Doris. If you are a feminist, and anarchist, interested in social change, a woman, a girl, a boy, a man, queer or straight, you should read this book. There's something amazing about the way Cindy Crabb captures the feeling of riding bikes barefoot and the contentment and discontentment that accompanies it and all other aspects of life.

[nick padilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite zines. it really captures the feeling of moving around a lot when you're young, leaving things behind and all that. and there are good little pieces of political history and social commentary too to break the monotony of the typical narcissistic masturbation-fest that is the 'personal zine'

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doris is just amazing. I love reading everything that Cindy Crabb puts out, from topics on support, to anti-depression guides, to relationships, and many many others. She's compassionate and real and this book is just the right one for feelings of hopelessness. All of the contents are accessible and very personal.

[Juliette · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my all time favorite zines. This is a collection of Cindy Ovenrack's zines which she makes on an old typewriter and includes cute little drawings. She writes about sexual abuse, feminism, love, travel, history, punk ethos, and depression. She writes about the painful and lovely intimate parts of life. Great to read while riding the bus or subway.

[Javier · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book says: it's okay to be sad/depressed/upset, because the world is fucked up. acknowledging that surviving the trauma of the world while still reaching and working towards a better one, most of cindy's work appears in the form of autobiographical comics, and they're all amaaaazing. the language is incredibly accessible yet poignant and illustrative. loo-ove.

[jack]

great stuff. like a lady cometbus with some great sketches included. she does get onto more serious ground than mr cometbus, but she does it in a frank and open manner. primarily a collection of personal zines covering the typical ground, but well written.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Briefly got into this after seeing Cindy Crabb give an endearing, totally unacademic, and completely refreshing talk at the Schlesinger library. Felt nostalgic for zines at the time, but now it's on the back burner.