Coming in at just shy of 100 pages, the fifty-fourth edition of Aaron Cometbus’ punk rock zine “Cometbus,” titled “In China with Green Day,” will likely be the best rock-related writing you read all year. It will also live atop your favorite issues of Cometbus, and with three decades of amazing zine writing under his belt (three decades!), that’s saying something.

His latest issue details the two weeks he spent on the road with Green Day in Asia in 2010, a band he grew up with in Berkeley, California — and that he was an early roadie for. His tenure with the band lasted only a handful of tours, but his friendship has endured, on and off, ever since. As a gesture of said friendship, the band invited him to join them on the Asian leg of their world tour — all expenses paid — and he didn’t even have to lug gear around, just have a good time. Oh, and he had to agree to write about it.

Green Day fans no doubt will devour this. There’s plenty to learn about the band in the issue (which really ought to be expanded slightly and released as a book), and Cometbus is the perfect guy to write it. He’s insider enough to provide a truly intimate look at the members and their collective dynamic, but also outsider enough, thanks to differing worldviews (which has kept his relationship with the band contentious over the years), to not be sycophantic or doting. The issue is also about the nature of friendship, particularly your childhood friends, the kind you will know forever and in the deepest way but may not have been in touch with so often because life took you in different directions. The story is at once nostalgic and urgent, telling stories about the early days of Green Day against the backdrop of what they’ve become — one of the biggest, most famous bands in the world, flying first class from gig to gig and staying in the nicest hotels on the planet.

There’s a passage near the end of the volume that nicely sums up the crux of the story and Cometbus’ feelings about the experience: “Seeing them up close made me forget the cultural behemoth that they had become. Seeing them from afar made it easy to forget that they were human too.” And the story IS very human — as much about the cultures and concertgoers who are a million miles removed from the band as it is about the members themselves. It also deftly handles the nuances of why Green Day was a divining rod for punks in the ’90s, having been shunned by their scene for signing to the majors, an act that shook Green Day’s members to their core, particularly Billie, the only member of Green Day Cometbus deems punk.

“In China with Green Day” is a must-read for anyone interested in Green Day, but it’s so much more: a deeply personal travel diary, an exploration of the complicated nature of friendship, a look at the inner workings of a massively successful rock band, the ethics of punk and the perils of fame. Snatch up a copy now before they’re all gone from your favorite indie book shop, or just wait until the inevitable bound version shows up as a book at some point. Now if we could just get Cometbus to write something about his couple of months spent as the drummer of Thorns of Life with Blake Schwarzenbach, we’d really have something…

Here are a few other tidbits we learned from the issue:

Tre owns two boats.

The band travels with a tailor.

Al Sobrante, aka John Kiffmeyeer, the band’s original drummer, refuses to cash the royalty checks from the band’s first LP.

The diner Mike owns gives free meal vouchers to every cop of the Oakland police force.

The opening band Cometbus mentions not so flatteringly throughout the story, but never names directly, is Prima Donna.

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