On Sunday morning I visited the Bristol Artists Book Event at the Arnolfini. The harbourside venue had given over its galleries to almost 60 stalls showcasing a variety of meticulously hand-crafted books, pamphlets and zines produced using a range of different methods, from screenprint, letterpress, etching, litho and woodcut to more modern methods such as desktop publishing, CD ROMS, file sharing and podcast. According to the show's brochure, the artists' book has become 'a popular format for artists to publish their ideas, images and texts - produced as pieces of art, often with a visual narrative. They also provide a means for the public to buy works of art at an affordable price.'I only really came to know what an artist book was while working at Brighton University a few years ago (the library had acquired quite a collection - often not actually books at all) - but unwittingly I had produced my own almost ten years ago in the form of tiny 'microcomics' - little photocopied&stapled publications I distributed freely to friends and colleagues. I just didn't know they could be considered artist books. (And actually, perhaps they couldn't. I'm not, after all, an artist...).
As I wandered the stalls, too shy to pick up the beautifully-produced items on show under the watchful eyes of their maker, it seemed the crossover between artist book and self-published zines and comics is blurred. In fact, perhaps there isn't really a distinction between the two.
When I moved into my tiny studio flat in Brighton in 1998 I got back into drawing (I'd studied art at college). Evenings were spent in front of the TV with graphic pen in hand, drawing board on my lap. This led to the design of a little character and soon a few short comic strips. Spurred on by the self-publishing movement of the time I produced an A5 comic full of embarrassing one or two page strips. I photocopied a few, stapled them together and [in hindsight wishing I hadn't!] gave them out to people I worked with or who visited. Next, I moved on to a tiny 1/16th of A4 format I called a microcomic. The first one I made was purely to tell people I was moving, another was handed out around Christmas and played on the character's lack of self worth, lethargy and loneliness provoked by that time of year. Others followed.The comics were given the name idleformat. Originally two words with a capital letter. Now always lowercase. Always one word. The name came from the revered store on Terminus Road, The Record Album, a shop I walked past on the way to and from work each day. In the window was a sign proclaiming, 'WE STOCK IDLE FORMATS'. I thought 'idle format' would make a good name. Years later, long after moving on, I returned with a camera in the hope that the sign was still there. It wasn't.
The name seemed appropriate for my microcomics: it was 2000 and the idea of drawing and lettering by hand then heading down to Video Box on Surrey Street to photocopy them, bring them home to trim and staple together seemed quite quaint and dated: the age of the internet was upon us. Everything seemed so slick and computer-generated.
Around this time Generation X author Douglas Coupland visited Brighton and, being a huge fan, I attended his event at Borders. He handed out blank postcards to the audience and asked us to doodle something during the event and hand them in at the end. I drew my idleformat character looking miserable, wrote some words (wish I could remember what) and handed it in. A few months later I looked on Coupland.com to read his tour diary of his time in the UK and was amazed to see the postcard I'd drawn scanned in among a handful of others and put on his site. It spurred me on and remains one of my proudest moments...
When my brother donated me his old computer and laser printer I began experimenting with desktop publishing software. I bought a scanner and became able to touch-up any imperfections in the original drawings. Soon, handwritten text gave way to computer fonts (never Comic Sans!). Consequently, the original hand-drawn, photocopied style was lost in the process. Moreover, I was no longer living alone in a tiny studio flat and the misanthropic comic character seemed to belong in the past. When I got a job that involved commuting to Surrey each day much of my free time was lost. I stopped drawing.
Browsing the array of formats at the Arnolfini on Sunday made me think back to those self-publishing days. I was thinking how, if I had stuck with it I could have been sat behind one of those stalls. Before moving to Bristol last year my favourite session as a Teaching Assistant was cartooning - sadly I was only ever put in that session to cover absences so I wasn't there often. Dennis encouraged his staff to sit and draw (rather than read comics!), thus I picked up a pen for the first time in years. I enjoyed it immensely.
Time may have moved on. I'm a lot older. The world's a bit scarier. My twentysomething enthusiasm and creativity feels like it's deserted me. But I can't help having niggling thoughts that maybe it's time to pick a pen up again...
Around this time Generation X author Douglas Coupland visited Brighton and, being a huge fan, I attended his event at Borders. He handed out blank postcards to the audience and asked us to doodle something during the event and hand them in at the end. I drew my idleformat character looking miserable, wrote some words (wish I could remember what) and handed it in. A few months later I looked on Coupland.com to read his tour diary of his time in the UK and was amazed to see the postcard I'd drawn scanned in among a handful of others and put on his site. It spurred me on and remains one of my proudest moments...
When my brother donated me his old computer and laser printer I began experimenting with desktop publishing software. I bought a scanner and became able to touch-up any imperfections in the original drawings. Soon, handwritten text gave way to computer fonts (never Comic Sans!). Consequently, the original hand-drawn, photocopied style was lost in the process. Moreover, I was no longer living alone in a tiny studio flat and the misanthropic comic character seemed to belong in the past. When I got a job that involved commuting to Surrey each day much of my free time was lost. I stopped drawing.Browsing the array of formats at the Arnolfini on Sunday made me think back to those self-publishing days. I was thinking how, if I had stuck with it I could have been sat behind one of those stalls. Before moving to Bristol last year my favourite session as a Teaching Assistant was cartooning - sadly I was only ever put in that session to cover absences so I wasn't there often. Dennis encouraged his staff to sit and draw (rather than read comics!), thus I picked up a pen for the first time in years. I enjoyed it immensely.
Time may have moved on. I'm a lot older. The world's a bit scarier. My twentysomething enthusiasm and creativity feels like it's deserted me. But I can't help having niggling thoughts that maybe it's time to pick a pen up again...
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