Minor Leagues #7 - 'Where?' Part Two

Minor Leagues #7: 'Where?' Part Two

By Simon Moreton

120 pages, B&W, cardboard cover with French flaps. Stapled. 22.8 cm x 21cm. 

£6 (or pay what you feel you can afford) + p&p

Minor Leagues #7 is part two of a four part series of publications in which Simon excavates and sifts layers of personal and social histories. (If you missed it, you should read my review of 'Where?' Part One). 

In short, Where? is a genre bending memoir - combining text, comics, collage, historical documents, and contemporary photographs. But it's much more than the sum of those elements - it's a brave work, richly evocative, and full of honest emotion. 

If you've experienced Simon's previous work you'll need no convincing to get hold of a copy, Simon's trademark art really works in this format, adding dimension to leaps in time. And if you're new to Minor Leagues I urge you to subscribe to all issues of 'Where?' as your starting point - it is a weighty, witty work that that genuinely pushes the boundaries of the factual graphic novel.

There has been a trend in zines over the last few years for high prices, Simon takes the opposite approach - offering a lower cost price for those who can't afford the full price. (Details of his pricing can be found here).  https://smoo.bigcartel.com/faq

Order info for Minor Leagues #7 here:  https://smoo.bigcartel.com/product/minor-leagues-7-where-part-two

All four issues of Where? can be found here:  https://smoo.bigcartel.com/category/where

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Review by Nathan Penlington

Previous issues of Minor Leagues are reviewed here.

Minor Leagues #6: 'Where?' Part One

Minor Leagues #6: 'Where?' Part One

by Simon Moreton 

108 pages, B&W, cardboard cover with French flaps. Stapled. 22.8 cm x 21cm. 

£6 (or pay what you feel you can afford) + p&p

I've been a fan of Minor Leagues since issue #1 landed on my review pile back in April 2016. Simon has the perfect eye and ear for detail, the seemingly insignificant moments of life that are the stuff of memory, coupled with a gentle humour. 

There is a clear evolution of Simon's work over the course of Minor Leagues. The early issues being collections of short stories, anecdotes, fragments that have a heartbreaking honesty that make you laugh, and that walk the line between visual and textual.

In Minor Leagues #6 emotional weight has been given dominance, and with it strength of focus - it is a work unafraid to move across history both ancient and modern. Taking the very personal - the diagnosis of cancer in Simon's dad - as a jumping off point to explore layers of social history. The cultural and social history of place is built up in much the same way Titterstone Clee - the central element in part one of 'Where?' - was built from:

'mounds of the earth's belly on top of the plant matter and silt and animals and mud and debris and shit laid down by millennia of weirdo ancient sea creatures eating each other, breeding, then dying, on repeat'.

The largest change of style between Minor Leagues #6 and previous issues is the ratio of text to image, there are less sequential graphic moments in this issue, but an increase in stand alone illustrations to accompany the text. Simon has a definite feel for the right form for the content, and there is a fluid change of pace and tone throughout.  

Some of the stories from earlier issues have been reworked into the text of 'Where?', although it really doesn't matter if you recognise them or not. The recombination of memory is a foundation of conversation, and the reuse in this context helps you feel fully enmeshed in Simon's life as told.

A trick that Simon manages to consistently pull off, where many fail, is sweetness without becoming saccharine. The 'Exploring Attitudes and Values' exercise Simon completed in school in 1994, and shares here, is one such moment. 'The most important thing in life for me is...' question was answered with 'Art, cats and my family'. Minor Leagues stands as a testament to values someone has always held as important, and that is an extremely rare, beautiful thing.

I think one of things you can't help but wonder when you come across a zine series that you've never read and that is already on issue 6 is: will it make sense to start here? In some cases it wouldn't (Läskimooses is a prime example of having to start at the beginning), but Minor Leagues #6 forms part one of a book length project, and so it makes complete sense to use this as a chance to get acquainted with Simon's work. And if you're already a fan of Minor Leagues you won't need any convincing from me to engage with Simon's first feature length project. 

Buy Minor Leagues #6 here: smoo.bigcartel.com/product/minor-leagues-6

Or visit smoo.bigcartel.com for subscription options.

Review by Nathan Penlington

Previous issues of Minor Leagues are reviewed here.

Volunteers #1 - Rob Jackson

Volunteers #1 - Rob Jackson 

36 pages, black & white

£4.70 (free UK p&p, see site for rest of world)

Volunteers #1 is the first in a series of comics following a group of volunteers working on a preserved stream railway. It's easy to imagine the setting as the perfect idea for a sitcom, and the storyline unfolds with the tension of the best TV dramas. 

It's charmingly drawn, and the script evokes the tension, burgeoning romance, rivalry and chivalry, between the characters. 

Look beyond the steam railway of yesteryear and you'll find themes centred around investment and 'progress', and treachery inherent in capitalism. Volunteers #1 couldn't be more about now, even if it was focused on electric cars.  

You can buy direct from Rob at his website: robjacksoncomics.ieasysite.com - check out the rest of his work while you're there. 

Other comics by Rob are due for review here soon.



Review by Nathan Penlington

Minor Leagues #5 - Simon Moreton

Minor Leagues #5 - Simon Moreton 

Published by Lydstep Lettuce - March 2018

62 pages, A4, black & white. Cardboard cover. Plus 22 pages, A6, coloured paper.

£5 (or pay what you feel you can afford) + p&p

The fifth outing for Simon Moreton's Minor Leagues series (previous issues are reviewed here) sees a change to a larger format, and with it an enlargement of Simon's stories to encompass histories beyond his own.  

We learn about the real ghosts that haunt his present, spectral memories from childhood encounters, and thoughts of the recently departed that shift focus when you observe them. 

It's no secret that Minor Leagues has come one of my favourite zine series - and it still has the capacity to surprise, and genuinely move me. In this issue, like previous ones, the interplay of documentary photography, well crafted text, and expressive illustration, pulls you into Simon's world. Included too is an additional smaller zine which explores the locus of this issue from different perspectives. 

Whether this is your first encounter with Simon Moreton's work, or you're a regular reader, you won't be disappointed. It's a zine of hope, heart, and humanness. 

Buy a copy: smoo.bigcartel.com/product/minor-leagues-5

Or visit smoo.bigcartel.com for subscription options.

Review by Nathan Penlington

Minor Leagues #4 - Simon Moreton

Minor Leagues #4 - Simon Moreton


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.

Review by Nathan Penlington

Minor Leagues #3 - Simon Moreton

Minor Leagues #3 - Simon Moreton

Published by Lydstep Lettuce - April 2017

A5, 66 pages. black and white with colour covers. 

£3 (or pay what you feel you can afford) + p&p

This is the third outing for Minor Leagues. Simon sums up the contents as: 

"Comics about teenage indiscretions, childhood dreams; writing and diary comics about change and renewal in the face of trauma and loss; Spring scenes, Spring feelings, drawings, that sort of stuff."

While writing this issue Simon's dad was diagnosed with cancer, and sadly passed away shortly afterwards. As an autobiographical zine the emotional core of issue 3 centres around the emptiness and bewilderment of sudden loss. But it's not a death comic.

While grief is always personal Simon's work has a way of striking an outward resonance. Minor Leagues doesn't just tell - the combination of image and text creates mood - it evokes. As regular readers will have come to expect there is still humour in the stories and observations, originality in the depiction of the nuances and details of everyday life. 

Although largely autobiographical Minor Leagues succeeds due to knowing what to reveal, what to fictionalise, and what to keep private. Simon has written a blog post that details his thoughts during the making of this issue here.  

Simon offers a cost price of £2 and a regular price, which is still just £3. This is to enable people who really want to read/buy small press work but can't afford the luxury. "Why?", I hear you ask - Simon answers: 

"I think it's important to make this kind of work as available as possible, and I hope this goes some way towards that. I know postage is expensive and life is expensive too"

Support if you can. Buy issue 3 direct from Simon - smoo.bigcartel.com/product/minor-leagues-3

Or visit smoo.bigcartel.com for subscription options. 

My reviews of Minor Leagues 1 & 2 are here.

Review by Nathan Penlington

Minor Leagues #2 - Simon Moreton

Minor Leagues #2 – Simon Moreton

published by lydstep lettuce -  October 2016

A5, landscape, 88 pages, cardboard covers. 

£4 / or £18 for a four issue subscription

There are many things I love about my girlfriend, one of them is how much she loves December. She gets excited about New Year's Eve and Christmas of course, but she loves this time of year because it is when people publish their favourite books of the year lists. She LOVES those lists. 

Why am I telling you this? Well, back in April Minor Leagues #1 arrived on my doorstep, and it is definitely on my own list of the top 5 best things I've read this year. And now issue #2 has arrived it's going to nudge something else off that list (unless I can convince my girlfriend that two zines count as one entity).  

I don't want to repeat myself so check out the review of issue #1, and you'll know why I love Simon's work. Issue #2 continues in the same vein. What sets Minor League apart from a lot of zines is that it gives itself space and time (over 80 pages) to linger over fragments and details, an antidote to the textual rush of social media. 

Issue #1 dealt with death and loss, Minor Leagues #2 raises issues of grief and helplessness: grief after death, but also the grief of losing friendships and relationships. It also reflects the grief and despair most of the UK has felt this year. That all makes it sound like a heavy read - it is not. There is a gentle quality to Simon's work, a tenderness, and a reaching out that is hard to express in words. 

For me, I think part of the strength of Minor Leagues is that it also expresses the struggle inherent in making a zine - the difficulty in breaking the inertia that can so easily stop you creating anything, particularly in the current cultural climate. After what 2016 has achieved we need zines like Minor Leagues more than ever. 

Buy issue 2 of Minor Leagues here: http://smoo.bigcartel.com/product/minor-leagues-2

Or visit smoo.bigcartel.com for subscription options. 

Review by Nathan Penlington

Minor Leagues #1 - Simon Moreton

Minor Leagues #1 – Simon Moreton

published by lydstep lettuce -  April 2016

A5, 100 pages, cardboard covers.

£4

I don't buy into the myth of refinement, but with age I'm certainly more sure of what my tastes are. In all things I like honesty of emotion; I like humour that has truth as a foundation; I like originality of vision; I like the beauty of the ordinary. Minor Leagues #1 has all of this, so I'm very happy it found my letterbox. 

These are short stories of heartbreaking honesty that will make you laugh, that walk the line between visual and textual, exploring moments we feel could be profound if they could be wrestled away from their everydayness. We have all experienced those moments that if only... if... arrh... oh... gone.

I love the sparseness and the specifics, the humour in the writing and the poetry in the line. The graphic sections are definitely sequential art rather than comic book narrative, full of movement and suggestion, the style helping to feed the mood of the text pieces. 

Although the main themes are death and loss, the result is a zine that is not afraid of being emotional but that never takes itself too seriously. It is a really lovely, lovingly put together thing.  I don't want to say more than that - buy it, read it, experience it for yourself. I know you'll want to share it, so maybe buy two. 

Buy issue 1 of Minor Leagues here: moo.bigcartel.com/product/minor-leagues-1

Or visit smoo.bigcartel.com for subscription options. 

Review by Nathan Penlington