Hasta La Ideas

The creative vision of writer and visual artist Trinie Dalton, “Mythtym” is 200 pages of wildly eclectic pieces culled from a decade of her self-produced zines. The book features work as diverse as meditations on werewolves, collages of Bernadette Peters and a
marijuana-themed crossword puzzle—all with an overarching theme of things mythical, particularly those gravitating towards the fantastic and macabre. The collection is part of what Dalton calls “parties on paper,” which isn’t meant to suggest a bound anthology of LastNightsParty pictures. Rather, the work is meant to approximate the printed manifestation of a cross-medium art salon.

Mythtym collects the work of almost 40 different contributors and generally arranges them thematically, although there are no indexes or editor’s notes to indicate transitions. In addition to reprinted work, half of the book is dedicated to an entirely new work based on mirrors. It investigates the mirror through the lens of horror stories, mental illness and primitive cultures, to name a few. The book’s name itself is even a palindrome, referencing the mirroring of words themselves.

Incredibly varied, Mythtym is necessary reading for no one in particular. But just the same, it’s a multi-pronged look into fields you probably didn’t know you were interested in. Mythtym is available from PictureBox or Amazon.