Four Minutes to Midnight table at Expozine

This year’s Expozine weekend was another smashing success, with an especially impressive roster of exhibitors, including many new artists and publishers, and a great vibe all around. It seemed slightly less crowded and chaotic than usual, which was nice, allowing people to engage more with the exhibitors. For this year’s edition, in addition to my normal organising duties, I also helped to redesign the website (code by Hello Everyone, full implementation still in progress…), and got to see my new logo silkscreened onto tote bags and t-shirts!

It was so nice to get to see all our self-publishing friends again (like seeing fam for the holidays without the emotional turmoil), and table alongside Billy Mavreas and Larissa from the Concordia Co-op Bookstore. An entertaining (to say the least) set of neighbours!

Though we didn’t have a new issue of Four Minutes to Midnight out for the fair, we had plenty of fun stuff available (pictured above). The Wu-Tang prints were incredibly popular, as was our new set of poems. We completely sold out of Riot and Capitalism Kills Love prints, which makes me feel that all is all right in the world (despite the current news headlines). We didn’t sell a ton of back issues (the Expozine Issue and Happy Hour), but I was really happy to share their stories with those that were interested. John’s Hard Mouse Best Mouse, an EP of quickly written and recorded song sketches, was also a really nice treat.

We were happy to help sell some stuff for our friends, including the HTMlles 10 Festival Reader (beautifully designed by Amy Novak), and Lazy Lady patches by the Ladies Invitational Deadbeat Society.

Many sincere thanks to EVERYONE who stopped by our table to say hello and chat, check out/flip through, or actually put down hard-earned cash for our work!

Concordia Design Art Students table

This year, I coordinated a sponsorship from Concordia’s Design and Computation Arts department (where I teach), allowing design students to showcase their bookworks. Students from both my current class and that of my colleague, Pata Macedo, produced some really beautiful projects this year. Expozine provided a great opportunity for them to get their work “out there” and engage with a broader audience while also exposing them to the alternative press scene in Montreal.

My Expozine purchases!!!

Buoyed by the great vibe (and plentiful sales at our table), I definitely splurged a bit this year while running through the aisles. Though I haven’t yet dug through everything yet, I wanted to point out a couple of my great finds:

I’m really excited by Conundrum‘s latest book, All Citizens, which documents Serena McCarroll and Tyler Brett‘s art/community space/project/experiment in Bruno, Saskatchewan.

Good buds JP King/Paper Puser and Kirsten McCrea/Papirmasse had a ton of new stuff, including a beautifully printed and designed book by Kirsten entitled Dan-D-Noser.

I’d been meaning to check out the books from Jack Allen’s Trapshot Archives for a while now, and was really happy to pick up two haunting artist’s books by Erika Altosaar and David Zilber.

Emilie O’Brien‘s Small Shrines to Electricity and Melancholy Pleasures is a poetic gem. I had no idea she did this kind of work and I’m very glad to discover it. Hopefully, some future collaborations will arise.

Ballz Montreal… simply put, journalism at its finest! Love these ladies!

Finally, I was really happy to see Crimethinc represented at Expozine, for the first time, I believe. Their books have always been a powerful political inspiration to me, a heady mix of anarchist thought, poetics and action. And well designed to boot! I picked up the latest copy of their journal, Rolling Thunder, surprised (and pleased) that I had never heard of it before.

Pata Macedo and myself representing Concordia Design Art

All in all, another great Expozine. I know I’m biased, but every year I’m reminded of just how amazing and diverse the community we have here is, and I’m so proud to play a small part in bringing about a space where we can all get together, at least for a little while. There’s no doubt that it’s a lot of work, so a tip of that hat is in order to Louis Rastelli, without whom this would never happen. To all those that participated, as organizers, volunteers, exhibitors, or visitors, thanks for not only keeping independent print culture alive, but making it thrive. See you all next year!