Imprints, Magazines & Presses
Spirit Duplicator
Paul Bareham, Matthew Cheeseman, Sevi Landolt, Manu Meyer, & Mat Pringle
Doncaster, UK
2015-
Doncaster, UK
2015-
The British Esperantist 8 (2016)
This story is in two parts: we haven’t reached the dramatic crescendo / fall from grace into abject obscurity part yet.
A couple of years ago, my pal Matt Cheeseman and I were hanging out in his office, looking at some of his thousands of wacky books and talking about 'The Archive', the avalanche of literature and art and music and maps and tapestries and souvenir thimbles that people like us collect and become obsessed with.
'Can we make sense of it all? Or is it too late?' asked Matt, talking as much to himself as to me, although I answered anyway (I'm like that) - 'Perhaps', I said, 'it isn't about making sense of The Archive - maybe we just need to point at a portion of it every now and again; it certainly couldn't hurt, and people do like looking at things.' Matt concurred, or, at least, he didn't strike me violently across the face and eject me from the room.
From this conversation, The British Esperantist was born, a DIY publication that samples antique books and provides that pointing finger. The contents are selected more or less at random, with little or no editorial interference. It's not art and it's not literature - nor is it history or woodwork or sports science - to be stupidly disingenuous, it just is, it just is. It serves no purpose other than as a means to give some love to this STUFF that fills our heads, our hearts and our homes.
We made it ourselves and we got it out there and it was really very easy. Our initial investment was repaid quickly by sales, and the rest paid for the next issue, and the next, and the next…our next edition will be our tenth, and will be a special celebratory double issue. It’s our cross and we’re bearing it.
Not content to be a one hit wonder, in 2015 we teamed up with an illustrator (Mat Pringle) and Manu & Sevi from Swiss based design group Go! Grafik to create a new publishing imprint and small press called Spirit Duplicator, named after those smelly analogue mimeograph machines that ruled the reproduction business before photocopiers.
Spirit Duplicator is just over a year old and has an eclectic and eccentric back catalogue. We’ve published poetry, a beautifully illustrated book about Atlantis, the paranoid ramblings of a man in the throes of a nervous breakdown (me) and a newspaper about British wrestling. Our publications go all over the world, not in particularly great numbers, it must be said, but you can’t have everything. We are self-sustaining and content. We are not a threat to the multinationals. We just toddle on, happy amateurs.
We have a surfeit of ideas and lots more in the pipeline, even though the pipeline needs a whack with a shovel now and again. We’re always interested in collaboration; we’re always interested in the next book. When we stop being interested, we’ll stop being.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of holding a freshly printed publication in your hands, knowing that you’ve been instrumental in bringing it into the world. They even smell like new born babies.
—Paul Bareham, April 2017
.
A couple of years ago, my pal Matt Cheeseman and I were hanging out in his office, looking at some of his thousands of wacky books and talking about 'The Archive', the avalanche of literature and art and music and maps and tapestries and souvenir thimbles that people like us collect and become obsessed with.
'Can we make sense of it all? Or is it too late?' asked Matt, talking as much to himself as to me, although I answered anyway (I'm like that) - 'Perhaps', I said, 'it isn't about making sense of The Archive - maybe we just need to point at a portion of it every now and again; it certainly couldn't hurt, and people do like looking at things.' Matt concurred, or, at least, he didn't strike me violently across the face and eject me from the room.
From this conversation, The British Esperantist was born, a DIY publication that samples antique books and provides that pointing finger. The contents are selected more or less at random, with little or no editorial interference. It's not art and it's not literature - nor is it history or woodwork or sports science - to be stupidly disingenuous, it just is, it just is. It serves no purpose other than as a means to give some love to this STUFF that fills our heads, our hearts and our homes.
We made it ourselves and we got it out there and it was really very easy. Our initial investment was repaid quickly by sales, and the rest paid for the next issue, and the next, and the next…our next edition will be our tenth, and will be a special celebratory double issue. It’s our cross and we’re bearing it.
Not content to be a one hit wonder, in 2015 we teamed up with an illustrator (Mat Pringle) and Manu & Sevi from Swiss based design group Go! Grafik to create a new publishing imprint and small press called Spirit Duplicator, named after those smelly analogue mimeograph machines that ruled the reproduction business before photocopiers.
Spirit Duplicator is just over a year old and has an eclectic and eccentric back catalogue. We’ve published poetry, a beautifully illustrated book about Atlantis, the paranoid ramblings of a man in the throes of a nervous breakdown (me) and a newspaper about British wrestling. Our publications go all over the world, not in particularly great numbers, it must be said, but you can’t have everything. We are self-sustaining and content. We are not a threat to the multinationals. We just toddle on, happy amateurs.
We have a surfeit of ideas and lots more in the pipeline, even though the pipeline needs a whack with a shovel now and again. We’re always interested in collaboration; we’re always interested in the next book. When we stop being interested, we’ll stop being.
There’s nothing quite like the feeling of holding a freshly printed publication in your hands, knowing that you’ve been instrumental in bringing it into the world. They even smell like new born babies.
—Paul Bareham, April 2017
.
Selected Output
The British Esperantist 1-9
Poetry Conspiracy Radicalism (2016)
Atlantis (2016)
Benamin Dorey. Seven Hills (2017)
Poetry Conspiracy Radicalism (2016)
Atlantis (2016)
Benamin Dorey. Seven Hills (2017)