To me, Dudes Magazine will always be a shirt first and a zine second. That’s pretty much because Daryl has a Dudes Magazine shirt that he wears for stretches of time; at least he did the last time I saw him. And like the T-shirt, the cover of this zine has held up pretty well. I’ve been carrying it around for a few months in my backpack, yet it shows less wear than a textbook would after a week. Moving on. The first thing that struck me about Dudes was their argot. I have never heard “bitch” used in a praiseful manner before. I got my clue when I was reading about their “bitch songs” and found Bananas’ “Nautical Theme” on the list. After a bit of deliberation and reading over some of the other choices, I realized that “bitch” was in fact being used to praise things (and that some Dudes like shitty songs). Nonetheless, I doubt that I will never get the needle on the Dude-o-meter in the red, seeing as how I think it just sounds weird to call something “bitch.” Also, the Dudes are big on abbreviating words—shit like “za” for “pizza,” and luckily not acronyms. I usually have the time for multiple syllables, so I probably won’t be picking this one up, either. Once I got that under control, I began to notice that this zine is kind of a way for the contributors to talk shit on whatever, including each other. For instance, one of the Dudes likes those annoying Free Credit Report band commercials; another Dude finds them to be shitty. Each of them, in separate parts of the zine, has an article about how he’s right about the commercials. There is some other writing about television in here. There are also some record reviews, interviews, celebrity obituaries, a tour journal, and the cover story. One of the interviews is with Off With Their Heads, which was pretty good and kinda recorded. I say “kinda” because interviewer mentions that he usually just takes notes and writes what he remembers. The tour journal follows Nighthawk, I think. He went on tour with some band, who I can’t remember, and, among other things, left porno tapes hidden in people’s homes. The cover story was about Dudes innertubing on some river. I started to read it a few times, but quickly realized each time that I hate water activities and have no desire whatsoever to even read about them. Maybe something totally awesome happened on their adventure. Get the issue and find out. Other things to note are: 1) Dudes prides itself (or at least sells itself) on being good for bathroom reading; not being a bathroom reader, I can neither confirm nor deny this. 2) Nighthawk also contributes to Razorcake. 3) This is worth checking out if you run into it. 4) Similar to this issue coming out after it was originally planned, this review got turned in one cycle late. –Vincent (Dudes Magazine World Headquarters, 714 Zeiss Ave., Lemay, MO63125)