Published by Lydstep Lettuce - Oct 2017
A5, 80 pages. black and white with colour covers.
£4 (or pay what you feel you can afford) + p&p
It's the lightness of touch to both word and line that'd I've come to love about Simon's work, a simplicity that disguises a nuanced approach to storytelling. The threads and themes of issue #4 unfold across moments in time: the death of Simon's dad, layered accounts of memory, the retelling of boyhood memories, and recent domestic still-lifes.
In inclusion of photos in this issue adds further dimension to the zine, one that enriches Simon's expressive style. A kitchen in the 1970s seeming as unreal from now as the fantasy worlds lurking in the bushes of childhood.
The addition of an extra 'story behind the stories' sheet, pulls back the curtain on the creative process. I definitely recommend leaving it until after your first read of issue #4 - as one of the joys of Minor Leagues is making sense of the space, the gaps in time, and in not knowing where truth and fiction meet. That said, the extra sheet adds dimension and emotion to the pages that benefit from context - drawings made while being a passenger in car driving through the Welsh countryside for example. I think the delayed knowing compels you to revisit the drawings, mirroring how memory and knowledge shapes and reframes.
This zine is warm, personal, funny and emotive. A genuine open door into Simon's life, filtered through the act and art of sharing into something much larger.
Buy a copy: http://smoo.bigcartel.com/product/minor-leagues-4
Or visit smoo.bigcartel.com for subscription options.
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