Future Fantasteek!

'I'm so busy busy busy busy busy busy busy doing so much pointless shite'

This Zine imprint by Jackie Batey of Damp Flat books has been around since the beginning of the Credit Crunch. Issues are published twice a year and reflect the news of the moment and the anxieties of modern life.

They appear at first glance to be simple doodles scanned in from a note book, but on closer inspection are much more nuanced.  Future Fantasteek follows in the comedic tradition of Monty Python or the Simpsons, in the way it appropriates the ubiquitous language of advertising, and in the process sends humanities absurd foibles up in flames.

Drawing and text mingle deliciously, and bold colour gives it an extra punch. Goats, ants, devils, chickens, dogs, bears, cats, aliens, henry VIII as well as the occasional 'regular' person are all the vehicle for the stupid things we humans say think and do. The text is made expressive by the use of frenetic hand-drawn typography.

The last issue to be released was Future Fantasteek no. 14 back in February 2013 when the horse meat scandal was raging, hence the pantomime horse on the cover. I am eagerly anticipating issue no. 15 to find out where Jackie Batey will next direct her fine-toothed comb over society and drag out some more hideous 'nits' of truth.

Future Fantasteek issues 2, 4, 5, 7,  8 , 12, 13, 14 are currently available in the Bookartbookshop and cost £6 each.

- Jon Lander

With the Worms

John Dilnot's bright and breezy illustrated Artists books celebrate English nature in all its glory. With the Worms, now in its second edition, is a colourful cabinet of creepy crawlies such as you might find in the Natural History Museum's hidden vaults - beetles, ants, millipedes, slugs and worms adorn its pages. Alongside these are more unexpected coins, bones, broken plates; the little relics of recent history that litter our gardens, forest paths or our fields. There is a modern 20p piece but also an old farthing, and a Victorian-looking key. Are these little treasures the real pursuit, or a happy accident? Whether amateur archaeology, or entomology the theme is a child-like curiosity, a willingness to get down and dirty to see what you mind find, and not be bothered by the odd looks in the park...

With the Worms costs £50 and is available in the Bookartbookshop now. We also have other titles from John Dilnot such as Birds, and Bad Apples at £8.50.

- Jon Lander

Folded Light and Tide Lines

Folded Light

Tide Lines

Poised between a sculpture and a book, 'Folded Light' by Les Bicknell is a mesmerising multi-dimensional spectacle. It is composed entirely of blank pages, disrupted by circular holes cut into the paper. The magic lies in these little gateways, which reveal hidden depths of space; paper caves that catch and dissipate a soft light, diminishing to a gentle darkness in the book's heart. Viewed from above, glimmers of gold leaf become visible in between the intricately folded pages. This is a book which holds secrets.

Bicknell's Tide Lines is a concertina book that also deploys the signature cut-holes. A single panoramic photograph of a stony beach is united by a coil of blue string that ducks and dives through the holes in the pages. The string acquires a monumental stature, feeling more like the rigging of a ship strewn on to the beach after a storm, or the swelling waves of the sea itself.

Folded Light and Tide Lines are both one-off creations that can be bought for you to own (and no one else!) for £50 and £35 respectively. We also have a whole range of other works by Bicknell that range from as little as £1.

- Jon Lander

Deaf Messenger Notebooks

Snow drifts past the window behind me. The phone rings and I pick it up. A screen on the wall beside me signals my performance; I'm being monitored.

My days are the ordered pages of a book. So regular, completely linear. One chapter follows another. Regimented and numbered.

I catch sight of the snow as I release a call. It seems so free. It flurries steadily, silently, changing direction here and there. Walking over to the window the street outside is white – covered in a thin, translucent layer.

In the shop, spray-painted book covers catch my eye. They are notebooks, seemingly full of found papers; pages relocated from one place to another. They feel organic; leaves that have drifted together. Bound one-by-one to become ordered.

I know we can’t escape the system that governs our lives. But there is space for difference and for freedom within our constraints. And maybe we need to push at those limits, or allow ourselves to drift a little.

-----------

This is an extract from Chris Gibson's text-based installation 'Between the Actual and the Possible' that was installed in the shop from the 19th April to the 3rd May
Www.betweentheactualandpossible.blogspot.co.uk

Hey! Modern Art and Pop Culture

Hey! Is for the true image addict. This Bilingual import from our French neighbours is an unbeatable source of off-the-wall outsider art and illustration. It is a quarterly magazine and we have issues going all the way back to the first edition published back in 2010. There are now 13 of them, each one as packed with gloriously lavish and surreal imagery as the next.

The luscious print quality and generous page size shows off the featured artists well, and these images are supported by in depth interviews that provide a decent glimpse into the personalities of everyone involved. It is a magazine that truly celebrates the creative individual.

Founded by Anne and Julien, they started the magazine with the philosophy of further breaking down the boundaries between 'high' art and 'low' art, showing work that is as equally influenced by the culture and history of tattoos, graffiti and comics as it is of painting. Their wilful manifesto gives the magazine a strong backbone, bringing a thrillingly diverse range of international artists together in one place.

Through their collaboration with the Halle St. Pierre Museum in Paris they have also curated two exhibitions, the exhibition catalogues for these are also available in the shop, bound in extravagantly gilded hardback covers designed by tattoo artist Easy Sacha.

The magazine are priced at £18.99. The catalogues Art Show Part I and Art Show Part II are priced at £30 and £40.

- Jon Lander

Moby-Dick: A Pop-Up Book

We recently restocked this pop-up book classic by Sam Ita. Not considering it suffice to be a mere pop-up book it is also a graphic novel. An adaptation of Herman Melville's weighty tome, it dispenses with the cerebral prose, and revels in a more sensory spectacle.

Each double page spread has a centre piece pop-up with additional gadgets at the side. As you turn from one page to the next you can feel the book creak with loaded intent, poised and ready to spring into life. The sheer mechanics are unfathomable: hidden within this book we have ships kitted out in all their rigging, an entire church congregation, a telescope with an actual working viewfinder, and my personal favourite a three-dimensional interactive Captain Ahab banging his head on a map as an expression of his frustration at the elusive search for the White Whale.

It's not suitable for very young children, given its intricate construction, but for those aged 6 and up. But why would you waste such wonderful artistry on children anyway?

It costs £23 and is available in the Bookartbookshop now.

- Jon Lander

The Badges of Mark Pawson

Book Artist and Creator/Collector of Ephemera Mark Pawson has been making badges from his East London home since 1985. They are a fitting expression of his unique philosophy in art, life and commerce. A believer in the artistic value of everyday design, and producing work in cheap multiples, accessible and affordable for everyone, he has made books about Kinder Eggs, Die-cut Plug Wiring Diagrams and his collection of Scandinavian viking figurines he has christened Noggins.

Over the decades Pawson the One-Man-Production-Line has released badges about books, computers, the weather, the 1990s, Japan, John Cage, Mexican wrestling masks and, naturally, badges about badges themselves.

For the more sophisticated badge-wearer, Mark has also trademarked his own technique for making fabric covered ones, which come in large or small, and a myriad of designs to match your outfit, collected from second-hand fabrics and shirts.

Taking his values of recycling, collecting and appreciating the most unlikely of stuff to its most extreme logical extension, Mark has even produced a limited run of hand bound books constructed entirely out of the used perforated sheets from which the badge designs have been punched out. The book is titled OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, as this is how the cover composed of perforated Os reads. Of course! Mark's work is an example of the best sort of madness: the one that makes perfect sense.

Badges, Books and postcards by Mark Pawson are all available in the Bookartbookshop.
The badges range in price from £3 to £7.50.

- Jon Lander