Review by Sarai Vardi
Think Cornwall is all about the pasty? Think again. Based in Penryn, Atlantic Press is an independent publishing house with integrity. Dedicated to giving an individual voice to illustrators, Atlantic Press produce rare and collectable books with content and personality.Specializing in graphic literature, Atlantic Press aim to bring the illustrated book to a wider audience. Working in partnership with the MA Authorial Illustration course at the University of Falmouth since 1998, the publishing house was created to produce first authorial book publications for authors/ illustrators. “Authorial” in the sense that they stay true to the illustrator’s personal vision. Working with new talent as well as established artists, Atlantic Press provides a platform for illustrators to do things their own way. The result is an original, intelligent and wonderfully left field back catalogue.
Sound too good to be true? I’d like to say yes, but I’d be lying. The more you read their various publications, the more Atlantic Press win you over. Their books are quirky yet classy. Grown up, yet wonderfully eccentric. Illustrated books tend to attract skim readers, but Atlantic Press’ books are little works of art, savour them and you will reap the rewards.
Richard Dinnis’s idiosyncratic first book, A Postcard from the Mountains with the Mountains Tipp-Exed out is a sketchy treat for the mind. Packed with witty observations and surreal circumstances, Dinnis takes you on a black biro adventure into his world. A world where weathermen talk glorious nonsense and gated communities play host to the author and Hugh Grant sitting together drawing animals and not talking.
Equally entertaining and absurd, but in a completely different style, is Paul Slater’s illustrated nonsense book Fried Eggs In Brine. Beautifully bound and housed in its own case, it’s filled with traditionally skilled paintings of ridiculous war scenarios. Grand piano tanks ride over fire filled trenches while on another page two men mounting a large fish look at a poster of an army general with the words,“ I Want Your Trout” emblazoned across it. There is an underlying seriousness to Slater’s humour, and all the imagery essentially serves to highlight the daftness of war, and of human kind in general. In an era full of illustrators being weird just for the sake of it, Slater’s absurdity is mature and authentic.
Atlantic Press don’t just deal in humour, Steve Braund’s The Riddlers is a work of graphic poetry. Hand drawn words accompany ambiguous pencil drawings to create a narrative that’s very much open to interpretation. The Speckled Egg is also made up of cryptic imagery. 15 minimal visual narratives from 15 different illustrators challenge the viewer to “find the story”. Pictures came before words in this publication, which plays with the idea of storytelling- at times successfully and at other times, not so much. Barnaby Richard’s The Funeral, on the other hand, adopts a more typical comic book format but it still has that timeless feel that all Atlantic Press’ books share.
Tucked away in England’s south west tip, Atlantic Press’ distance from London has worked in their favour. Being out of the capital has allowed them to create their own world of illustrative fiction, removed from the influence of current trends. You wonder if they ever make any money (considering their strong ethos and high production quality) but that seems far from the point. Atlantic Press want to bring personally authored and illustrated books to the masses. They strive to create experimental and innovative graphic literature, uncommon in the commercial mainstream. And hats off to them, they’ve only gone and blooming done it.
"We got in touch with the founder of the Atlantic Press, Steve Braund. who was kind enough to answer some questions for us about the ins and outs of the press…
1. How do you choose what and whom you publish?
It took several years before we realised exactly what the press wanted to be. It feels very clear now that it has emerged both as a champion of illustrators who want to author their own books, and also as a champion for popularising illustrated books designed for an adult audience. Children’s books are great, but where are the picture books for mature reader/viewers that tackle subjects in more depth?
We have an annual graphic literature prize for our authorial illustration MA students and we publish the winner. One book, 'The Garden Sketchbook', sold out in a couple of months at zinefairs and is now likely to be published in a new edition in association with Tate Publishing, who noticed it at the London Small Publishers Bookfair. Paul Slater's first self-authored book 'Fried Eggs in Brine' also looks likely to be published as a trade soft-back edition shortly by a large publisher, which just goes to show that this approach can work. We are acting as an incubator for innovative illustrator-authored books that start to attract the mainstream world of publishing. We do small editions of 500 or 1,000 copies to test the market.
2. Each edition has a beautiful print quality. Do you have your own print press?
We are learning that the quality of 'making' in our books is key. Consideration for a very high standard of illustration, for good design, nice paper (recycled where possible) and good packaging are all vital. We have built up a working relationship with a local printer who are very helpful. Some elements of our books, such as a cover for a current project, are screen-printed but most publications are printed on a commercial offset litho press.
3. Who designs the layouts of the publications? Do the illustrators/authors have a say in the paper stock/ layout/ size of their books?
It's part of our ethos to give up control to the illustrator to make their own decisions. This way books emerge that are shot through with the illustrator's signature. This is not always possible and we are there to make decisions where necessary and this usually ends up in a very enjoyable collaboration.
4. How many people work at Atlantic Press and how many books do you publish a year on average?
Atlantic Press is ten years old and is currently run by Dean Owens, Roger Combe, Mat Osmond and myself. We try to publish two books a year, but we are currently developing four.
5. You say in your ethos that you aim to create 'experimental and innovative books that are also marketable'. What kind of avenues of promotion do you pursue?
Atlantic Press has, since its inception, tried to publish books that match the quality of mainstream commercial production values. Even the name of the press was chosen to carry this kind of signification (the Titanic logo is an ironic signifier). This way we appear to be a ' big publisher' and it works! People take us seriously and assume that we must have a big book factory somewhere. We try to produce experimental and innovative illustrated books for a mature audience which are designed and packaged so as not to alienate the mainstream booksellers, but rather to insert a small spanner within its works in order to make the necessary adjustments to the way it is engineered and in so doing to promote change.
We promote and sell our books through www.atlanticpressbooks.com, by visiting the small press book fairs and by selling our books through bookstores (word of mouth really helps too!). The key point is to encourage more illustrators and collectives to publish work of high quality to show what is possible and to saturate the marketplace until it feeds into our culture to the extent that larger publishers can't ignore it's influence and popularity. If you look carefully, this is already happening (Tom Gauld, Simone Lia, Jonny Hannah, Nobrow Press, LeGun, etc). So it’s a good time to be a part of this and generate your own work, especially as commissioned work is thin on the ground.
