Museums Press, Rowan Jackson, Hannah Evelyn Rowlands and Lucy Jones

MUSEUMS PRESS, we'd say, is one of the most right on small publishers making small run and lovingly made publishings right here, right now. These funk soul brothers first emerged with 2010's epic pizza box, Museums One. A pizza box (epic) full of curated goodness across the board (box). Then came another pizza box, Museums Two : Biggest Fan, chocful of 25 zines by Museums One contributors and other folk for a most exceptional price point. Their latest is Museums Three, a newspaper format centrepiece on a literary tip with an all-star list of contributors from these shores, them shores and all those other shores. To be sure, to be fair, it's great. Definitely one of the nicest packages I've seen come out of Manchester in my time here. No rest for the wickedly prolific as January 2011 first saw the tri-release of Museums Press' ongoing monthly laser-printed zine series (pictured above). The first three come from Harmen De Hoop (Rotterdam, Netherlands), Michael Crowe (London) and Damien Correll (Brooklyn, New York). Each of these is A5 and vary in content from photographs of protest flyer air bombing (Harmen De Hoop's Useless Actions), Microsoft Paint filtered modern art, maybe (Damien Correll's ClapTrap) and short stories and poems (Michael Crowe's Pebble). Each retail at £3.50 and can be found adorning the shelves of Good Grief!

Museums Press also released this A4 risograph print by Denise Kupferschmidt (Brooklyn, New York) in January. Edition of 75 on 120gm paper stock with purple ink. £3.50 instore.

Here's what you get in MUSEUMS THREE...

That's two newspapers, two booklets, one risograph print, one photographic print and one screenprinted comic supplement. It's an edition of 100 and it officially dropped this month, this year. Packaged together and laid out like an absolute beaut, this is one essential piece of kitola. The newspapers include stories, poems, articles, essays, interviews, photographs and film stills from Matthias Connor, Heather Rose Dominic, Jess Higgins, Jess Hilliard, Tao Lin, Freek Lomme, Rachel McFarlane, Owen Richards, Seb Wheeler, Nicholas Ainsworth (creator of the story  produced in large format type across the centrefold and author of this blog which GG can't get enough of it, read back through the entries, it's GOLDEN), Miriam Avery, Andrew Beswick, Edwin Stevens, Ethan Swan and Matthew Walkerdine. There's an A4 interview booklet documenting gmail chats with Ethan Swan, Simon Joyner and David Bailey (that's me!) conducted by RL Perry of Comfortable on a Tightrope and infinite inspiration. An A5 zine by Matthias Connor about clubbing (tune) entitled "Living Forever". The screenprinted supplement is a "funnies section" with comics by me including "Cocaine Co-workers", one about babies and one about an interview with a futuristic footballer. It's screenprinted by Lucy Jones, of whom you shall read more below! Then there's the two prints, a risograph by Brion Nuda Rosch and a photographic print by Julia Scott.

Yours from Good Grief! instore for just £10 or buy it direct from the Museums Press site!

BAM! Now let's talk about ROWAN JACKSON, he done these...

Limited edition prints on canvas-like heavy paper, real nice to the touch and to the eye. Scritchy scratch black  inksome drawings in part pattern-centric, other part sparse and dark. Equal parts curious shape dabs and cutting ink stabs. Rowan descends from York and lands in Manchester at present, his work would look great on your wall. A snip too at the price! Just £1.50 for the smaller letterbox style prints and £3 for the A4 prints.

HANNAH EVELYN ROWLANDS, illustrator currently bowling over the Kingston Illustration course sent us these...

We have six different, or possibly seven, varieties from Hannah's "Little Pin Friend" badge series. Never before has it been so in reach to become the envy of all your friends and consistently a cut above, simply adorn one of these badge fellows to your blouse or bag fella and wa-la! Laminated illustrations mean your miniature wine and dine partner is wipe-clean and dress ready for any occasion. Simply wonderful! My fave is the dog head.

£3 each

"Supermarket Sweep" is a sweetly packaged little zine packade from Hannah Evelyn Rowlands. Full colour throughout, cover to cover photographic documents of a larger animation I believe Hannah is working on at Kingston. Hannah's ace illustrated characters are brought to life via the gift of joint fasteners and fully detailed supermarket backgrounds. It's all there, baby! Buy one get one hundred free offers and shelves stacked high with UHT milk. The peoples are put against real-life supermarket backgrounds too which gives the whole thing added chutzpah. If you liked little pin friends, then you'll love this!

£2.50

Meanwhile, in other news...

My good old mate, LUCY JONES has only gone and got herself a tumblr! Lucy is one of my fave illustrators of all time ever and Good Grief! insists upon a steady constant flow of her work on our shelves and walls. The latest we're packing are Lucy's screenprinted greetings cards. Pictures of those coming soon but in the meantime, feast your eyes on the bevvy of wonder posters, illustrations and photos over at her site. Non more highly recommended. GO TO IT NOW!

The seagull-eyed among you may have noticed that our web shop is currently down. This will be revamped soon. In the meantime, if you see anything on this blog that you are interested in purchasing and you can't get in to the real-life shop then please do email me to enquire about availability and sendability. It can be done!

Jane Richardson, Dina Kelberman, Jordan Bernier, Bryony Jackson, Mildred, Pacolli...MORE!

Wellity well well well,

Feels like it's been blogades since I last blogged about recent arrivals. Here's an update on a small selection of new things that have descended since last blog. There's lots more to document and this blog was originally going to be of epic proportion but I decided to cut it down into bite-size (byte-size?) chunkies for the baby toothed (teethed?) among you. Play on playa.

BEGINNINGS #1 by Jane Richardson

The first of hopefully many comics by Jane Richardson in Good Grief! Manchester/York has got talent! Autobiographical one-pager comics musing on America, conserves and thoughts in transit. Flights of fancy, internal and external dialogue. Funny with high page turnability, plus the drawing stylings remind one of an early-day Lynda Barry i.e UH, YES! These factors combined = we like, we like, we like!

£3. Act fast, only a couple of copies remain. Stay tuned for Beginnings #2

IMPORTANT COMICS by Dina L Kelberman

Dina Kelberman is the bomb. Not only did she supply Good Grief! with numerous tasty treats from her native Baltimore, BUT she also creates red hot funny and innovatively composited comics like the ones here in this book. The colours, the textures, the papers used, the big titles, the contrasts, the characters, the conversations...YES!

A perfect-bound piece of pocket-sized perfection, yours for only £9.50

TRIANGLES by Jordan Bernier

Jordan Bernier (Baltimore) pops up with a tour de shape force of a zine. Screenprinted cover with photocopied insides courtesy of Baltimore's Kitty Cat Press. Triangles have been in vogue (en vogue?) for a while in illustration but these drawings are beyond that. Heavily worked pattern tapestries that give the impression that you should be able to reach down and pick them up off the page. Weighty!

£4.50

LINES by Jordan Bernier

Ooohhh, now I loved 'Triangles' by Jordan Bernier but this is like Triangles...unleashed. Without the constraints of triangles as the only form. Not that Triangles felt restricted at the time but this feels wild. Weighty shapes flying around in space. I like the big shapes, I like the little shapes, I love lines! Baltimore, USA, stand up!

£4.50 again with a screenprinted cover by Kitty Cat Press

FRIENDS VOLUME ONE

Eleven artists are showcased here in this zine celebrating the friends of Kitty Cat Press, Baltimore. Black and white contrasting drawing approaches with some real winners in the mix. The Bernier family is literally teaming with talent, they have three entrants. Special mention to Christian Bernier, who *might* be a child, very excellent especially "pre-life crisis" which *might* be the work of a genius.

£4.50

PARIS by Lucy Lorell

Real nice off-kilter black and white photo zine of Lucy Lorell's (Manchester) trip to Paris. The grit of the photocopy works well with the quality of the original photog prints. The row of pigeons on page 5 is outstanding! A5 edition of 15 made.

£3

THIS IS F***ING URGENT by Leigh Crow

Melbourne/Manchester man, Leigh Crow, creator of umpteen zines that we've stocked throughout our short ages, drops this envelope clad mini-bopper upon us. Photographer by trade but also a super tight collage masher upper (in the traditional sense) and draw star. This zine meshes the brutal alongside the mundane alongside the erotic. Some excellent source material.

£1.50

Can't believe no-ones bought the above A2 screenprint by DYLAN HUGHES yet, there's only one people! Just sayin.

£10

Handmade models by Bryony Jackson

Oh me! Oh my! Have you ever seen such wonder? Liar! Hand-painted and printed models (toys? soft-sculpts? squishies?) by Bryony Jackson, graduate of the Manchester illustration course (same year as Dylan Hughes no less!). Exquisitely illustrated 3-D models (moguls? showpieces? showponies?) that are so good that they're not even for sale. Strictly top-shelf display material. Golden era Nickelodeon twixed with mid-nineties zonked out MTV animation type eye-gorge(ous). Or something? A very current (not past) master. We're excited for the new toys that Bryony is readying for us. In the meantime, check out Bryony's website and get in touch if you need your special toy ASAP!

We do have Bryony's work in screenprinted 2-D form though...

OUCH! These A5(ish) and A3 screenprints in a smorgasbord of differing colour-ways be stinging our eyes. Wildly refreshing and exciting when you see screenprinting being done right. And by right (IMHO) I mean making prints that use layers and colours to full effect...as well as using amazing drawings as the original basis. Luckily we stock quite a few prints by people who manage this and Bryony is the latest to that stable. The A5'er prints even include hand inked elements BTW!

A5 £4, A3 £5

RIFF RAFF by Mildred

San Franciscan import from Mildred, whom we suspect is a dude. These stark classic black and white drawings confirm it, Mildred IS a dude. A non-gender specific dude. Cool dog/armadillo drawings with special mention to the Beavis and Butthead renditions. Grade A riffage with a nice mix between stoney simples felt-tip drawings and more laboured ink ladled penmanship, not that either one is better but we like seeing them riding in unison. Mildred, we think, is of Brazilian descent, as is his/her partner in crime, Mildred...

£5

SHITFACE by Pacolli

A rose by any other name...San Franciscan import from Pacolli. Funny sweet drawings with annotation based upon real life and the dream world. Stoning sloganeering with slogans that deserve to be printed on flags a thousand feet tall. Or sleeveless t-shirts at the least. "Toughen up or die" and "There are Crows everywhere but when I think of you dear, I don't dare". More besides. Bumper-packed fun-fest!

£5

SPXSF

Oh yes! This is a zine catalogue of an art show that happened in May 2010 at the outstanding Needles and Pens zine shop in San Francisco. Eight artists from Brazil were exhibited and now showcased here. We happened upon this via the hand and post of Pacolli, curator of the exhibition. A mix of photos from the show and reproduced drawings from the artists involved. Work by Stephan Doitschinoff, Carlos Dias, Dan Ielone, Silviana Mello, Luciana Araujo, Znort, Diego Medina and of course, Pacolli. Real nice!

£5

HOTDOG! That's the end of the blog! Oh, come see us in Soup Kitchen. We get lonely you know. Though don't come see us this Saturday as we'll be at the Self Publishing Zine Fair at the Art Corner in Fallowfield 12-5. You remember the Art Corner, right? It's where we had the Good Grief! Group Show! Can't miss it, above Trof Fallowfield AKA the original Trof. AKA duh. You wouldn't wanna miss it. Super tight bros from way back when, Museums Press will be there as will a bevvy of other smallpress beauties. Cafe Royal and that! Plus lots of current freshmen from Manchester School of Art. Go on! 'citing.