Coming soon

Swan Lake by Ping Zhu – March 2012

A stunning concertina detailing a night at the Ballet, which anyone with an interest in the performing arts will love!

Based on a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake, the images are not only inspired by the dramatic story but also the atmosphere of a working dance venue. On one side, we see the pristine theatre, audience and performance, and on the other side, in a world away from the delicate presentation of the front stage, the back-stage bustle and nerves.

A beautiful concertina that can be read as a book or displayed on a mantle piece, or even framed as a print. Suitable for all ages.

Cramond Island – February 2012

Cramond Island is the first instalment in the Jean Baptiste Baigorri narrative, created by Basque comic book virtuoso Irkus M Zeberio. At 19 x 27 cm it is also one of our largest short-run comics to date. The tale follows Jean Baptiste Baigorri an embattled poet/freedom fighter/ existential superhero as he struggles with his rapidly disintegrateing relationships, increasingly absurd surroundings, and the missions set for him by a mysterious secret society…

Jean Baptiste has been living in a cottage with his girlfirend in Edinburgh for a while. Lately they haven’t been getting along very well. Jean Baptiste works in a kitchen run by the oppressive minions of the restaurant’s owner: the Fat One. It’s hell on earth, literally, the kitchen is built at the mouth of one of the seven gates to hell. He works twelve hour days and the company’s unrelenting cost-cutting strategies force their employees to sink to ever lower levels of depravity for the sake of company profits. JBB is tired. Still, as all great poets, he utilises his suffering to advantage, creating particularly spirited (but awful) poetry from his myraid experiences. JBB longs for a change of scene and is ripe for manipulation.

At the news of his grandmother’s deteriorating health, JBB attempts to take time off work to collect his thoughts and visit his ailing relative – after failed attempts at reason with his superior at Hell’s kitchen, he escapes, attracting the attention of an agent of the Fat One. Realising he is in danger, a mysterious duo, including the elusive Dr Echtegeray and his blonde assistant whisk him to safety and enlist him into a paramilitary sect of poets, whose aim is to subvert the Status Quo universally through non-violent terrorism. Their aim: to deliver a message to the people through poetic activism. Will they succeed in opening the masses minds to the liberating power of the Poetic Act, or will they remain in the hopeless throes of their mindless consumerist existences? You’ll have to see won’t you!

Beginning his career as a contributor to reputed and critically acclaimed comics anthology Kus! Irkus quickly became known for his sensitivity to the literary tradition of magical realism and his deep mastery of the visual language of comics. At times cryptic, always engaging, his work recalls the boldness of contemporary Serbian author Igor Hofbauer, whilst nodding to the obsurdities of Clowes’ darker material. A work entirely of its own, dashing the conventions of graphic storytelling, Cramond Island is but the first taste of an adventure that spans nations, worlds, even dimensions to bring our protagonist ever closer to his destiny: literary greatness!

Leeroy and Popo – March 2012

Leeroy and Popo is the first book by up and coming talent Louis Roskosch. The full colour strip follows the misadventures of a couple of slacker extraordinaire, adolescent friends as they loaf around trying to hook up with girls and generally avoid doing anything that might be construed as work. Roskosch’s duo of protagonists are characters any of us who would recognise immediately – they get stoned quite a bit and argue over who’s turn it is on the games console – so it’s all the more interesting when we note that Leeroy is a bear and Popo a dinosaur!

The anecdotal, observational comedy is expertly played out in this lovingly crafted debut graphic novel. The book takes the form of episodes – each a small story in it’s own right – which link up to sustain the longer narrative threads.

Louis Roskosch graduated from Bournemouth Arts Institute in 2007 with a degree in Animation. After spending some time working in Shanghai as an animator he returned to Dorset where he lives now, working as a comic book artist and freelance illustrator.