Folding Space Ship
Folding Space Ship is a science fiction book that folds into the object it describes, using a cross cut fold registered as a design. Five inside pages of varying sizes and formats, screen printed on 100gsm with a 300gsm cover, two colours outside and three inside, March 2017, signed and numbered test edition of 30.
Galactic Narrowboat
The narrowboat reappears here in a science fiction setting, having already been the subject of one of the early concertinas. Reusing a motif across the catalogue is consistent with how the practice worked: a shape that separates well into flat colours is worth returning to.
Europa
Europa exists in more than one form, including a case-bound edition and a folded version. The title carries both readings the word offers, and the book does not resolve which is intended.
Camino de Santiago
Camino de Santiago is a leporello in a hard case, made from the 2015 pilgrimage. 48 pages, folding to 13 × 13.5 cm and opening to 51 × 72 cm, four colours on 130gsm Lambeth Cartridge with a two colour hardback cover. August 2017, signed edition of 100, adapted from a first edition of 45.
What Changed in the Later Work
Three things separate these from the earlier concertinas. Colour counts went up, from two and three to four inside. Papers got heavier and are named specifically, no longer described generically. And the structures stopped being uniform — a single book now uses pages of different sizes, which means the imposition has to be worked out for that book alone, with no known pattern to take it from.
All of it is more work per copy, which is why the editions did not grow.
Four colours, heavier named papers, and pages that no longer share a size.
The Manuals
Alongside the picture books the catalogue carries a run of technical titles, and they are the part of the list that circulated furthest. Screen Printing Manual came first, followed by Advanced Screen Printing, which sets out to solve the problems that beginners and experienced printers hit in practice instead of introducing the process again. Image Making, Multichannel and Photoshop for Screen Printing deal with preparing artwork: how an image is decided into separations before any screen is coated.
The manuals were written from the same workshop that produced the picture books, which is why their examples are specific about stock and mesh where a general handbook would stay vague.
ISBNs and Distribution
The technical titles and several of the picture books carry ISBNs registered under the publisher’s own block, among them 978-1-9996217-0-4 for Advanced Screen Printing and 978-0-9932990-8-7 for the screen printed booklet of We Will Rule the World.
An ISBN on a hand printed book is a deliberate step. It moves an edition out of the category of artwork sold directly by its maker and into a catalogue a shop or a library can order from, and it is what allowed the titles to be distributed through the trade as well as across a table at a fair. The books were printed by hand in the workshop and sent out through ordinary book supply at the same time, which is an unusual combination and explains why the editions are numbered in tens while the manuals reprint.
Why the Editions Stayed Small
Nothing in this group was made faster than the work before it. Colour counts went up, the papers are heavier and named, and the structures stopped repeating, so each title needed its own imposition worked out from scratch instead of borrowed from a pattern that already existed.
The Science Fiction Group
Micro Voyage, Folding Space Ship, Galactic Narrowboat and Europa share more than a genre. Each one uses its structure as part of the premise, so that unfolding the book is the same gesture as the journey it describes, and the reader arrives somewhere by opening paper rather than by turning pages in order.