Book Zines, Underground Magazines & A Bath Full Of Gravy: The Manchester Creatives Bringing Back Print 

It’s the smell that hits you first. In the chicly barren basement of Village Books lies a blue paddling pool, filled to the brim with gravy. “It’s real. It took a lot of granules,” reveals Joe Torr, co-founder of the Manchester magazine shop.

It’s surrounded by portraits of competitors from this year’s World Gravy Wrestling Championships (it does what it says on the tin: brawling in broth). Titled IT’S ALL GRAVY, this exhibition finds beauty in imagery of grainy, coagulated beef juice. “It replicates a smaller scale of the event and brings the gravy to life through the smell – it’s an invitation!” photographer Shahram Saadat says. Sadly, no one is brave enough to take the plunge.

The opening marks the start of Bound Art Book Fair, an annual celebration of zines, mags and monographs, held at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester at the end of November. First launched in 2017 by Torr and artist Rob Parkinson, Bound has become a staple of the Manchester creative calendar.

In 2018, publisher Lillian Wilkie joined the team. “It’s about providing a platform for a community of independent publishers and DIY imprints to come together,” she says. This year’s programme explores the culture and politics of food, hence the getting granular about gravy. “It’s about trying to find a way in which publishing speaks to another discipline. There’s a conversation right now about food and the notion of authenticity so we wanted to interrogate this,” she says.

It’s also why, at the pre-party, the new issue of FILLER – a zine exploring our relationship with grub – is being toasted. The venue is P3 Annihilation Eve, previously known as Peste: an achingly cool bookshop and bar, featuring Victorian-themed spirits (drinks, that is), gothic decor, occult ornaments, menus that look like prayer books and pastiche Sports Direct mugs that instead are printed with ‘JACQUES DERRIDA’. If you ever drop it, just say it’s deconstructed.

Downstairs, in its dank cellar, I bump into Anu, the NTS resident DJ and illustrator. “You know there’s a literal crisp curator here?” she says, munching on a pack of prawn cocktail as we chat about mags. (She’s correct, ‘crispfluencer’ Jonny Black is in charge.)

Waking up the next day with what must be a Victorian hangover, I head to the Whitworth for Bound’s opening. It’s already stacked with cool kids looking to stock up on freshly printed zines, garlanded in arty scarves that match the gallery’s hanging tapestries.

For many of the stall holders I speak to, Bound is all about the process, and the satisfaction of putting a hard-copy publication together. Including Gabriel Carr from The Lemming, an anti-profit mag with gonzo stories and old-school illustrations. “There’s an appreciation of picking up an object that’s clearly considered and beautifully designed,” he says, explaining that they use a risograph machine and bind it by hand. “It’s a labour of love.”

Elsewhere, experiments in form abound. “This book is supposed to be a sculpture as well,” says Maia Leung of Soft Tofu Press, showing off a pop-out pamphlet shaped like a table tennis bat, complete with custom ping pong balls.

Others are more focused on the content than the medium itself. “Books are just a vessel to carry such a wide range of things,” says photographer Sky Dair, pointing to her new ring-bound, diary-style book – Dream Baby pt.2 – covered in cutesy stickers.

Making your own zine lets you fill in gaps left by the mainstream media. “I want it to look like it’s going to punch you in the face but be sexy at the same time. I’m quite bored of a lot of photography magazines that just have rich kids who are really cool or old white guys,” says Sam Hutchinson, in-demand photographer and founder of BOOT MAG.  

 
This is echoed by James Robinson, creator of Craic magazine and a Dazed100 alumnus as of this month. “There was a lot of negative press in Northern Ireland at the time [of the Brexit border agreement], so that was the starting point [for Craic]. It’s about blurring fashion and real life. It’s about good times,” he says, flicking through heady photos playing with motifs such as Guinness and, of course, Tayto crisps. 
 
Bound also provides a launchpad for new projects. “It gives people a deadline,” Lillian says. And at just £60 a pop per stall, you can get your idea out into the world and likely, at the very least, break even. I catch up with Anu at her stall. “We [at CAMP! Publishing] are debuting our first zine called Remnants, which is like a queer, smutty exercise in sexual exploration and cocktails. It’s been a breeze, and the building is beautiful,” she says.  
 
But Bound’s DIY ethos doesn’t mean the mags lack quality: they’re seriously impressive and far from a side hustle. “People give so much of a fuck and put their passions together, as opposed to just trying to make money,” Sam says.  
 
This community – creative rather than cliquey – is what makes Bound so special. “Everyone is so welcoming. It brings all the underground publications up to the surface for everyone to come and see. It’s not pretentious,” says Morgan Ambler, who’s sharing a stall with University of Salford coursemate Anson Johnston, proudly displaying their new zines Tied Loose and 91. 
 
There is, it seems, a print revival happening across the globe right now. But for Bound, this local connection is key. Manchester has become a proper hub for print, with Village Books and fellow mag shop UNITOM just a quick stroll away from each other in the Northern Quarter. “Everyone here wants to say hello and get to know about your work,” James says.  

But the fair is also facing new pressures. Arts Council England withdrew its funding for the first time this year, leading Lillian to look elsewhere. “It’s scary and we don’t know what Bound will look like next year,” she says, before adding: “I even emailed Vimto [the soft drinks brand], which is iconic in Manchester.” Finding the right partner is tricky, as Bound is unapologetically political and wears its heart on its sleeve – two poignant talks this year focused on gastrocolonialism and the use of starvation as a weapon of genocide in Gaza.

Lillian is confident it will continue in some shape or form and she wants to make it even more accessible. “We want this to feel like a buoyant, energetic, happy and nourished space,” she tells me, explaining that they worked with food artist Joe Whitmore to give everyone free dahl for lunch. “[The right mood] is not going to happen if everyone’s hungover and just eating crisps.”

Ah. She’s bang on, though; Bound’s appeal lies in its fulfilling, free-for-all approach, giving everyone print space and enabling the kinds of creatives who say ‘mags’ or ‘zines’ – not ‘magazines’ – to bond. As I walk out of the Whitworth, I notice a stall I somehow missed on my way in: GRAVY, a Salford-based zine bigging-up emerging creatives. I just can’t escape the jus. Maybe, if Vimto doesn’t bite when it comes to finding new funding, it’s worth giving Bisto a call. For now, everything really is gravy.

Kyle MacNeill is a freelance writer based in Manchester, with a focus on fashion, pop culture, and music. He has written for publications including The Guardian, VICE, THE FACE, Dazed, i-D, Vogue and The New York Times