BARB
Art by Mark Dwyer, Words by Gabe Congdon
The inaugural zine published by Jokes Review features artwork of naked ladies riding dinosaurs by Mark Dwyer and fiction by Gabe Congdon.
Read Selected Fiction from BARB!
Barb
Her name is Barb. They’re all named Barb. I asked why and she said, Because we’re Barbs, Trycycle, we Barb. She sneaks away in the morning to get Taco Time, I don’t know where she gets the NoShirt/NoShoes, but her breath always smells like pico.
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Trycycle
His name is Trycycle. He was born in captivity, but then, who wasn’t? He only eats meat. When I asked him why an herbivore only eats meat he responded airily, Because plants can’t defend themselves.
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Journey of the Fascimile
“I made a doll of myself.” I said this to a new friend and immediately regretted it. “Do you play with your doll?” she asked playfully. “I do,” I said.
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Dino Ladies Artwork!
Online Exclusive: IN COLOR!
Yes we have prints for sale and yes they are freakin’ gorgeous.
About the Authors
And the Origin Story of BARB
Mark Dwyer is the art & fiction editor of Jokes Review. He is also a world-class artist and champion of the felt-pen form. Check out Markndwyer.com to see his work and follow him on Instagram @marckyart.
Gabe Congdon is a fabulous fiction writer—he’s frankly one of the most unique voices we’ve encountered in all the years we’ve run Jokes Review. We had the please of publishing Gabe in our inaugural issue way back in 2016 (check out his story Sandcastles) and we’ve kept in touch ever since. Recently, Gabe join the Jokes team as a fiction editor and song&dance man.
Read more about the authors of BARB on our ABOUT page.
The Making of BARB
When Mark was 16, he drew his very first ever naked lady riding a dinosaur. What exactly inspired this particular illustration is lost to time. But the drawing was—to state the obvious—profound enough to inspire an ongoing series of nudes on dino.
For years, I (Peter Clarke, Jokes editor) had heard about these drawings. Sometimes in late 2024, Mark finally had one on hand to show me.
Immediately I knew: Jokes Review had to do something with this. Mark and I were fortunately very hopped up on caffeine at the time (thank you The Mill coffee shop in Sacramento!) and launched right into a brainstorming session. We hit upon the idea of a zine pretty quickly. (Zines, after all, are all the rage right now!)
But then the question was…what about text to accompany the images? We considered using some ancient and/or religious and/or esoteric texts. Which didn’t seem like a terrible idea at the time but also didn’t seem particularly inspiring. We considered a bunch of other options that I don’t quite remember. But also, on a whim, I figured I’d reach out to our new editor Gabe to see if he’d be interested in taking a stab and writing some text for these images.
Literally…like…just a few days later, we got an email from Gabe: a story. I read the first few lines and I knew. Holy cow, this was it!!! Before I even finished reading, I texted Mark: We’ve got it! The naked dino ladies zine thing is coming alive!
Jokes Review has published all sorts of crazy stuff over the years, but this crazy little gem does indeed feel special. I know a zine is just a zine but BARB feels like the zine of zines. Or the zine to end all zines. If that’s a good thing. If not, then not that. But really, it’s just the best.