Words: Simon Fay
Artist of Muddled Web-Comic

Following up on our promo for Summer Edition, I attended Summer Edition 2010 with cautious enthusiasm.

You may remember the blurb, ‘Summer Edition is a unique chance to see the diversity and originality of book arts happening in Ireland today.’ Sounds great doesn’t it? Well to be honest I had little idea what it would be like. The event is only in its second year and it was my first time attending.

Indie comics and independently crafted books can bring to mind two polar images. The work of original, undiscovered artists or on the flipside you imagine the self publishing equivalent of an X-factor contestant that has us cringing so much that we change the channel. I’m pleased to say, though there was a mixture of both, the latter were far and few between. In fact it was a pleasure to be walking around a hall where the Douglas Hyde Gallery had somewhat self consciously set up camp beside the likes of Subcity Comics.

It would be worthwhile going over every table at the event, reviewing everything that was to be seen, but word counts being word counts and attention spans being attention spans, it’s best just to give an overview so you kids will know not to miss out on next years show.

Organised by the soft spoken but affable Philip Barrett, Katie Blackwood and Paddy Lynch the event had a welcoming country fair atmosphere to it. Illustrators themselves, Philip and Paddy had plenty of comics on offer, editions of a comic called Last Bus were particularly eye-catching.

Rounding up the collection of self published books, Antic-Ham and Francis Van Maele had some beautifully put together collections of prints. One eye catching piece was encased in wood block covers, protecting a delicate collection of one off prints on traditional rice paper. Coracle and Jaykoe had some equally interesting collections of art on show and short story magazine Albedo were making sure their presence was known by the power of a DVD raffle.

As diverse as the collection of artists was there was little doubt that the tables were dominated by comic and zine creators. The like of this stuff has yet to take off in Ireland in any major way and it can be an isolating life working on pictures in the corner of your garage.

As the man behind The Story Of Grass Gus Hughes said, ‘It's my first time selling the story of grass and nothing bad happened, there's a great sense of community and I love feeling a part of it.’

Eoin Ryan was representing the hilarious web-comic Space Avalanche as was Patrick Brown of The Ulster Cycle. It being a web-comic of the more intense variety.

Ciaran Lucas and Karen Browett are just two more examples of artists working for the love of it. In the absence of a supportive industry it’s festivals like this that create the sense of purpose, at least until the wider market appears, but still one could wonder what it is that drives them to do it. With little cash incentive you can only assume it’s the love of the craft that fuels their engines.

To end on a more cryptic perspective, The Eek Collective were handing out free posters. With penetrating journalistic instinct I asked, ‘Why are you handing out free posters?’ ‘Why not?’ was the reply. Why not indeed.

Check it: editionbookarts.com