Goblin Library Dispatch October 2025
I listen to every M. R. James story Michael Hordern and David Collings ever recorded as if they were beloved, formative albums from my youth.
On the third of October the Global Sumud Flotilla was ‘intercepted’, her people were seized and detained. On the 10th, the first stage of the US-brokered ceasefire came into effect. Since then Al Jazeera reports that, as of 4th November, 236 Palestinians have been killed. A fraction of the promised aid has made it into the enclave.
I dream of Gaza rising from the rubble, expanding out and out. The flourishing of Palestine. I dream of olive trees and sunbirds, universities and bread.
I make time to make new things. We spend a few days by the sea and my pockets are full of sand. I coax a new story out of the corners of my mind. I steep myself in ghosts to fight the nagging anxiety of the times we live in. I pencil and trace and pencil and trace. I don’t like what I draw. So I draw it again...
I try to finish the new comic in time for Edinburgh Zine Fair on November 1st. I do not succeed. It takes me a little over two weeks to write everything, to draw the book and get all the layers in order for the Riso. But I have not left enough time for the printing. Riso is an art and takes a minute. The print houses are small operations run by artists who know their business. As I write this paragraph the comics arrive on my door step.
They were worth waiting for. Footprint Workers Coop have done beautiful work.
The Haar descends and keeps us locked in her pocket for three days. She clears for a moonrise and some star burned nights, but the daylight hours are a cataract. Voices echo up from the beach, distorted and strange, through the mist. I carve lino cuts. Little grey curls everywhere. I don’t lacerate my hands on the chisel for once. A wasp stings my little finger instead.
The end of month before the zine fair is still a mess of folding, lino printing, business card making and Shenk wrapping. There is work to do. Commissions and a November project that I’ll tell you about later. There are always Goblins of course. I feel overwhelmed, but gloriously. Rapturously. Bury me in ink and paper.
The dark gathers. The sunsets and sunrises turn the kind of colours that traditionally signal danger. I am in love with winter.
I open the door and she pads in on delicate feet. I have elaborate ambitions for her.
Welcome, welcome.