This is an entire zine dedicated to the premise that the editor, Robert Kranzke, is not gay. He writes about male actors who he thinks are cute, he admits to washing and styling his hair every day, he has a favorite sweater (a navy blue girl’s cardigan), he’s a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and he reads Elle Décor UK, but he’s not gay. Of course, the initial, knee-jerk reaction to this would be to say to Kranzke, “Dude, you’re gay,” and dismiss the zine. But I didn’t want to be a knee-jerk, so I kept reading. What I found was a bunch of pretty funny pieces about and/or by a man obsessed with the gray areas of human sexuality. He wrote about his favorite teen movies of the past few years. He wrote about who he would most like to be stuck on a deserted island (called “HumpIsland”) with – first five females, then five males. He even covered the “sweet and charming” parts of the Kama Sutra. There’s also a comic in here about two guys who buy a dildo, ostensibly for one of the guys’ girlfriends, and everyone thinks the guys are gay. The guy who doesn’t get the dildo keeps asking the other guy if he’s gonna stick it up his ass. I couldn’t stop laughing. There were also two quizzes. The first one was to see if you were a “strayboy” (a straight gayboy). I scored low on this one. What can I say? I’ve never gone to the store to buy Biore strips and my personal grooming habits are the pits. I noticed that the second quiz – to see if I was a “straygirl” – was pretty non-specific gender-wise, so I took that quiz, too. I scored really high on that one. Apparently, that means I’m a lesbian. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I’ve kind of had my suspicions all along. So it wasn’t hard for me to deal with this revelation. My next question was this, though: if I’m a lesbian, does that make my girlfriend a lesbian also, even though she’s dating a man (me)? I wrestled with this one for a while and finally decided that, yes, my girlfriend is a lesbian because she’s with me. Thanks Stray! But beyond the silly and lighthearted, there are some very well-written, deeper pieces in this zine, also. One is a fantastic essay on state of modern feminism by Jenn Quinly. The zine is worth picking up for that essay alone. The second piece is a story written by Kranzke about riding the bus home with his girlfriend and when three knuckleheads accost him for being a “faggot.” Kranzke stands up to these guys, and they end up beating him up. The story is labeled as “fiction” – and maybe it really is fiction – either way, it sheds a whole new light on Kranzke’s sexuality blurring. All in all, Stray is serious and silly and well-written, and, deep down inside, I don’t care one way or another what the gender of Kranzke’s lover is. I just like reading his zine. –Sean (Robert Kranzke, 2658 Griffith Park Blvd. #253, LA, CA 90039)