Reglar Wiglar is my longest-running title. Like all great ideas, the zine was born in a bar. In 1993 my friend Tom Ziegler and I decided to start what we thought was a magazine. I found out later that it was a zine.
The plan was to create a satirical publication in the spirit of Spy and MAD magazines. With a heavy dose of Spinal Tap-style parody, the zine spoofed alternative music and culture.
Over the next three decades, the zine would grow to 98 pages It featured tons of snarky (cruel) music reviews. Also included were interviews with bands, comics artists, and assorted fringe characters.
I always maintained that the Reglar Wiglar could be anything. It could take any form. An issue could be written on a cocktail napkin or scrawled on a bathroom wall. While that’s never happened, more recently, I published the zine as a comic/zine hybrid. While I enjoyed this experiment, it is expensive to print. Reglar Wiglar #30 will likely be a 28-page B&W standard comic-sized issue with comics and gags. But, we’ll see.
More information on the history and evaluation of Reglar Wiglar, go here.
To order back issues in both physical and digital form, go here.
Factsheet 5 Reviews of Reglar Wiglar
The folks at Reglar Wiglar take the structure of your basic music fanzine and turn it inside out to produce a very funny zine that takes no prisoners. There is some “real” music commentary, like Joey Germ’s “One Word Record Reviews” (Bakesale is “pensive” and Whip Smart is “popular”) but most of it is low satire, poking fun at music culture and music zines, They “interview” the hip hop band “White Bred and Honky MC” and “MotherScratcher.”—Factsheet 5
Reglar Wiglar gets its point across that “alternative music” is no alternative so much faster using satire than rant zines do with rage. Editor Christopher Auman wonders if he’ll be labeled a sell-out because his zine looks so DIY that it must be backed by The Gap. No chance, this is the real thing. In this issue, Tom Ziegler turns in his piquant responses to a psychological profile he filled out for a job at a record store. Anyone who has ever had to take one of these and answer whether their personal life or $4.25 job was worth more will feel vindicated after reading it. Brilliant spoof interview and 100 albums discography with the “Woodrows.”—Factsheet 5
Not your average zine of bad jokes and adolescent party humor by any means. Auman shoots for real satire and succeeds admirably in his work. His version of the Chicago Monopoly* game was an amusing spoof of the city’s neighborhoods and politics. Special rules like electing Da Mayor and staying out of Cook County jail will have non-Chicagoans at a disadvantage. Classic mock interview with Manchester pop kings, Mirage, sudden fiction and a whole page dedicated to T.R. Miller’s Luhey. —Factsheet 5
* written by Tom Zeigler