Small Press in the UK: Our Favourite Comics from the Alternative Press Festival 2010

Avoid The Future, a UK/France based comics blog, have posted a piece on their favourite comics from the Alternative Press Festival and Brighton Zinefest.
Their choices include comics by Hurk, Kevin Ward, Dan Locke, Jimi Gherkin, Julie Homersham, Karoline Rerrie, Peter Lally, Bird, Hannah Glickstein, and me!

Alternative Press Hour on Resonance 104.4fm

From Jimi Gherkin:

Hey guys,

The first of our radio shows on our trip to Angouleme is tonight. It starts at 8pm, is an hour long and features interviews, music and stories from Angouleme International Comics Festival, the largest comics festival in the world (outside Japan!)

We talked to as many people as possible to make some really excellent shows, and in this week's show we have interviews with Philippe Morin, the director of the Alternative space at Angouleme, Russian comics artist Roman Sokolov and editor/events organiser/small press publisher Dmitry Lakolev, German small press publishers TwoFastColour, as well as music from german band The Honeyheads, Russian underground music and french punk band Jack Off live from the Le Dernier Cri anti-angouleme party Angoul-merde!
In two weeks time we will continue with a further installment from Angouleme, including more interviews, music and laughs!
Also, listen out for the recording of what happened when Peter and I met Robert Crumb, and gave him some comics from London's Alternative comics scene!

So, tune in to 104.4fm, 8pm, Thursday 4th March (if you can't get resonance where you are then give us a couple of weeks to get the shows up online...)

Love all round

jimi
http://www.facebook.com/l/8d668;alternativepress.org.uk

Ellen Lindner interviews Jimi Gherkin and Peter Lally...

... at Angoulême!
ellenlindner.livejournal.com



And don't forget to tune into the Alternative Press Radio Hour. The first show can be downloaded here.

Tomorrow night in London...

A Conversation with Jimi Gherkin

Jimi Gherkin has been promoting and revitalizing the UK small press scene over the last year, generally making it a friendlier, more interesting place. He's interviewed by Matt Badham over on the Forbidden Planet blog.

Link via The Comics Bureau.

Are you zine friendly?

A new event and a new blog from the Jimi G and the gang.

APF2 Reports and Coverage

A podcast by creative choices featuring an interview recorded at the Publish You Book Launch (you'll need something like iTunes to open this... then you download the podcast. It's podcast no.3, and it's free).

The down the tubes report written by gareth brookes.

A nice write up of the "Are You Zine Friendly?" event on dazed digital.com (Dazed & Confused).

(via Steve Tillotson on Bugpowder).

I'm Back!

And my advice to everyone is : go on holiday... and remember what it feels like to relax. However, I was sorry to have missed all the fun at the Alternative Press Festival, especially seeing these pictures, put online by Saban Kazim (see the full set here):

Jimi Gherkin on Bugpowder

Here's a great interview with Jimi Gherkin, who is the heart and soul of the British alternative comix scene. The interview was conducted by Gareth Brookes.

Alternative Press Festival 2009

Wednesday 28th July – Sunday 2nd August 2009
A festival of events over five days celebrating the small press, self publishing and being creative in the print media.

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Anthology Book launch
Wednesday 29th July
7pm – 9pm
Free
We will be launching an Anthology book to showcase some of what’s going on in the small press scene at the moment; it will include work by Mark Pawson as well as a foreword by Roger Sabin and a variety of work from different areas of the scene. The evening will include the declaration of our aims and agendas in the form of a manifesto, as well as talks and discussion on the subject of the contemporary small press scene.

Housmans radical booksellers
5 Caledonian road
London
N1 9DX
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.housmans.com/
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Are you zine friendly?
Thursday 30th July
7pm – late
Free
At the foundry we will be having an evening to launch our idea of zine friendly events! In the two weeks around this event we will be hosting a zine wall at the Foundry and asking artists and small press creators to come down and contribute to this ongoing exhibition. There will be music and good times, the twist is that Zinesters, comix and small press creators are invited by the foundry’s owner to come along and sell their material. There will be a communal table for individual zines and the selling of zines out of bags, or diy carriers is encouraged! After all, it is a zine friendly event, the question is: are you zine friendly?

The Foundry
86 Great Eastern Street
London
EC2A 3JL
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.foundry.tv/
Contact – garethbrookes69@hotmail.com

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Spoken Word night out!
Friday 31st July
7pm – Late
Free
In order to promote poetry in the small press, we will be holding an evening of poetry, zine readings, story telling and other performances from artists creating work in the print media themselves.

Venue TBC
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Collaborama!
Saturday 1st August
11am – Late
Free
We hope you’ll join us at the Collaborama (as we’ve affectionately come to know it!) an all day event which will comprise many elements of the small press coming together. Tables will be set out in the main space downstairs at the miller for zinesters, comix and small press creators to exhibit their work. There will also be space where any combination of visitors and exhibitors can get together to create pages which will be used to create a zine of the day. The garden will have a barbeque and the upstairs space will be used for workshops, film screenings and talks. In the evening Resonance FM’s Radio Orchestra will be performing a piece written by Ed Baxter which will be interpreted and illustrated live by two teams of small press artists on overhead projectors!

The Miller
96 Snowsfields road
London Bridge
SE1 3SS
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.themiller.co.uk
Contact – jimigherkin@yahoo.co.uk
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Alternative Press Fair
Sunday 2nd August
11am- 7pm
Free
We will be returning once more to St Aloysius Social centre, where in February we held the first Alternative Press Fair. We hope you’ll join us once more for chilled out Sunday to celebrate comix, zines, poetry, book arts and radical literature. We will have space for around 80 exhibitors and many more visitors so see you there!

St Aloysius Social Club
20 Phoenix road
London
NW1 1TA
Nearest tube Euston
Map here
Contact – peterlally@gmail.com

Electric Baby

I was happy to be given a copy of Jimi Gherkin's new zine "ELECTRIC BABY" at last month's Web & Mini Comix Thing. I don't know much about zines, but if they're all as good as this, then the zine scene must be the place to be! Well, I call it a 'zine', as that's how Jimi himself describes it, but there's plenty of cartooning included, so to me it feels as much like a comic as a zine. Within it's pages, Jimi uses a very clear comic-strip sequence to show us how to screen print at home (something I didn't know about), lays out his views on religion, and numb complacency vs positive action, and in my favourite sequence, takes the history of life on Earth back to the Big Bang - to remind us just how amazing it is we exist at all. Everything is shown in a well designed, pleasing manner, clearly lettered, with a drawing style that makes me think of a more upbeat Dennis Worden.
Anyway, this lil' mag is so damned optimistic and good natured, that I'd recommend anyone to pick it up. It'll put a smile on your face.



www.myspace.com/jimigherkin
comicsandzines.wordpress.com

Just one more week until The Alternative Press Fair!

Read about the artists and exhibitors.

Read the Spoonfed interview with Jimi Gherkin, Peter Lally and me.

Read the *UNEDITED* interview!

Jimi Gherkin at Red Mutha

Jimi G selling comics and zines at the fashion fair in Brighton last weekend.

Express Yrself

comicsandzines.wordpress.com

Wake Up To Christmas

Jimi Gherkin's Xmas comics anthology features work by himself (the great "Black Santa"), plus Jim Burke (nice to see something new from him), Alex Potts (someone I'll be looking out for), Daniel Wilson, Me, a new "Baba" strip by Saban Kazim, and much more.
Contact Jimi at comicsandzines.wordpress.com and hassle him for a copy.