Alternative Press Calendar 2009

Events we will either be attending or organising

Handmade and bound

Sunday 1^st November

The Affordable book arts and zine fair

St Aloysius Social Club, London, NW1 1TA

www.handmadeandbound.com

Comica Comiket

Sunday 8^th November

Small Press Comics fair returns

Nash and Brandon Rooms, The ICA, The Mall, London, SW1Y 5AH

http://www.comicafestival.com/

Are you zine friendly?

Thursday 12^th November

Second event at the Foundry from the Alternative Press, promoting their new web resource the Zine Friendly blog! A night of free zine selling, swapping and appreciating!

The Foundry, 86 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3JL

www.alternativepress.org.uk

http://zinefriendly.wordpress.com

Autumn Anti-Folk UK Festival

Friday 20^th – Saturday 21^st November

An evening of music from the Anti-Folk UK collective. A zine friendly event, Alternative Press will have a table or two to sell your zines and comix. Also, self publishers who come to sell will receive a discount of £2 off daily ticket price (so, £4 rather than £6)! Sweet!

12 Bar Club, Denmark Street, Soho, London, WC2H  8NL
http://www.12barclub.com
http://www.antifolk.co.uk

All I want for Xmas

Thursday 3^rd – Sunday 6^th December

A winter market where you can get all your small press related gifts, from us! Zines, comix, handmade cards and all manner of wonderful things! Come and share some mulled wine!

Old Truman Brewery, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL

http://www.trumanbrewery.com/files/rooms/2765/OTB_NEWSLETTER_LINK.html

Are You Zine Friendly? Thursday 12th November 2009

Are You Zine Friendly?

Alternative Press are hosting another awesome evening of  Zines, comix, book arts and poetry at our second Zine Friendly event at the foundry, in order to promote our new project, the Zine Friendly Blog! A resource for Self Publishers far and wide, we will be listing venues, promoters, stockists and events that are all “Zine Friendly”!

To celebrate this we are inviting small pressers everywhere to come down and promote their own work. For free! All we are asking is that people donate what they can, even a zine or two, to help Alternative Press to keep promoting the scene.

There will be communal tables with lots of space for self publishers to sell their work. Also, printmakers or those with large work are encouraged to use the walls as a spontaneous temporary free arts space where you can stick up your work DIY style! BYOB (Bring Your Own Blu-tak!) Also, we are inviting some zine distributors to represent as much of what is going on in the scene as we can.

We’ll be having a cake sale with free tea, Knitting circle, CD compilation lucky dip (just bring a cd of your own favourite music and take your pick!), free blank zines for you to use and a poetry workshop followed by some performances and a short open mic…

Things will kick off at 7pm until around 11pm.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

86 Great Eastern Street, London, EC2A 3JL, map

jimi

http://zinefriendly.wordpress.com
www.alternativepress.org.uk
http://comicsandzines.wordpress.com

LCC zine library

“The Library at the London College of Communication (part of the University of the Arts London) has started to collect zines. We have a special collection of books, the Printing Historical Collection (PHC), relating to printing history and the development of the Western book dating from the 15^th Century to the present day. We see zines as fitting in well with the private press and artists’ books section of this collection. We are primarily interested in zines which are art or politics based, and are looking to collect samples of a range of zines to highlight the variety of the scene today. We are able to buy zines but, of course, will also accept donations. I should add that whilst the PHC is not on open shelves we regularly show the books (and zines) to our students who find the collection inspiring. Non-students can also make an appointment to see items from the collection. Here is a bit more information about the Printing Historical Collection http://www.arts.ac.uk/library/3819.htm#historical

The zine collection is currently very small but we hope you will be interested in helping it develop. If you are interested in your work being added to our collection, please contact me to discuss this further at l.kassir@lcc.arts.ac.uk

With kind regards,

Leila Kassir

Information Services Librarian,

London College of Communication”

NEW WEBSITE UP NOW!!!

check it out people! also, keep an eye on this blog for regular updates and news on other events and projects…

alternativepress.org.uk

see ya

jimi

x

Alternative Press Festival 2009

Alternative Press Festival 2009

Wednesday 29^th July – Sunday 2^nd August 2009

A festival of events over five days celebrating the small press, self publishing and being creative in the print media.

Anthology Book launch

Wednesday 29^th 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.housmans.com/

Are you zine friendly?

Thursday 30^th 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.foundry.tv/

Contact – garethbrookes69@hotmail.com

Spoken Word night out!

Friday 31^st 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.

The Griffin

93 Leonard Street

London

EC2A 4RD

http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/clubs_bars/venue-102.php

Collaborama!

Saturday 1^st 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.themiller.co.uk

Contact – jimigherkin@yahoo.co.uk

Alternative Press Fair

Sunday 2^nd 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

the Alternative Press Festival is coming!

Video Interview from the Alternative Press Fair

check this out people! it’s me trying to explain what we’re all about and why we’re doing it…

love all round

jimi

x

big thanks to edd from Last Hours

Alternative Press Anthology 2009

Dear all, The Alternative Press Fair was great!  We’ve had reports from all over that those who came had a good time, met some interesting people and sold, bought or swapped work. Some saw exciting things, and generally enjoyed the day. It gave a chance for creators to get their work out to a wide audience, and we think it inspired some people to do something creative. Following on from that, we are now putting together a full colour book. The main aim is to get small press creators and the alternative press scene noticed by a wider audience. We think it’s a brilliant scene; the work, the people, the creative freedom – and we strongly believe that people are empowered by realising their creativity and expressing themselves through the small press. We will set out to reflect as much of the alternative press scene as possible, covering zines, comics, poetry, short stories and political writing as well as anything else that you believe represents the scene. So, the themes are very broad. Introduce yourself! What we mean is, look at yourself and what you do in the small press, why you do it and how you got into it, or how you got started and think about how you can put that across. We want this book to be a collection of the great work going on in the small press scene, as well as having a handbook element exploring how people can be involved or get started themselves. We’d like to include artwork, illustration, poetry, articles, opinion, biographies and ‘how to’ sections. To make it a really special book we are asking people to do something new – it’s your book, promoting the scene and what you do, so do your best work and we’ll do our best to get decent distribution and spread the word as far as possible on its release. We would like submissions by Thursday 30th April 2009, so please get in touch letting us know how you’d like to contribute. Good luck jimi gherkin and peter lally comicsandzines.wordpress.com Pagination: 80 pages Size: 240mm x 170mm (with bleed – don’t need to leave any border round the edge) Printing: Full colour CMYK

What a fantastic day!

Thanks to all of you who came and lent your support to the small press scene. Thanks to those who helped out with encouragement all the way through, those who blogged us, offered publicity through interviews and listings, those that made flyers; Rich Cowdry, Al Maceachern, Scott Jason Smith, Gareth Brookes, Chloe McCormack and Zarina Liew look up these guys they’re wicked. Thanks to Peter Lally for being a great working partner and taking care of business, that guy does not mess about!

Anyway, that is how I see this scene; a massive community, everyone helping out where they can, and it’s great to be a part of it!

Keep your eyes peeled, we’ll be holding another event in around six months time, and in the meantime we are planning to put a book together (see below) dealines, themes and specifications will be issued shortly.

Take care of yourselves, love all round,

jimi gherkin

comicsandzines.wordpress.com

Alternative Press Anthology

Firstly, we hope that you had fun at the fair. Maybe you’ve seen something that inspires you to create your own alternative media; to draw a comic, produce a zine, or to write a book or some poetry – anything’s possible. Perhaps you’ve simply enjoyed what people are doing and are interested in seeing more.

The mainstream media isn’t our forum; it’s not owned by us and serves the interests and agendas of other groups. This is why the world of small press publishing is so important; there is the freedom to express, without having to serve others.

We organised this event in order to show what is going on in the world of small press publishing and for people to meet and exchange ideas. To present people’s work in another way, we are putting together an Alternative Press Anthology book. This will showcase the talents of small press creators and introduce people to what the scene has to offer.

Please get in touch with us if you would be interested in being a part of this. We would like as wide a variety of work as possible, and to cover areas such as perzines, comics, art books, poetry pamphlets and radical literature – anything that’s out there really. Articles, illustrations and anything else which you feel represents what you do will be considered, though due to the constraints of reality we cannot put everything in and so will have to select and arrange the material. We will strive to create a book that will do justice to what we believe is a great scene and you too will need to do the same……

The point is that we really show the best of the small press so get your pens and pencils out, your glue and glitter and let’s show people what we’re made of!

jimi gherkin & peter lally

ALTERNATIVE PRESS FAIR, LONDON, 2009

Pens, Pencils and Photocopiers

Alternative Press Fair

St Aloysius Social Centre,

Phoenix Road,

Euston, NW1 1TA

Bringing together the worlds of alternative comics, zines, self-produced art-books, poetry and diy/punk culture  for one amazing day, like a great colourful blacmange that you can’t eat.  Meet the artists, see their work, buy some if you like it.  THEN relax and enjoy an exciting evening of music, song and melody, starring the Singing Sensation of the Nation, Mr. Trent Miller (& The Skeleton Jive).

This event is FREE to all good men and women everywhere.

A day to live long in the memory – come along.

When? Sunday 1st February 2009, 12pm to 6pm (music to late)Where? St. Aloysius Social Centre, 20 Phoenix Road, NW1 1TA

How do I get there? Alight Euston Station, venture up Eversholt Street on your right is Phoenix Road and a modern church – we’re in the basement.

For more info  Contact:  jimigherkin(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot)uk or peterlally(at)gmail(dot)com or check http://comicsandzines.wordpress.com/ for the latest news