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Seeing Through the Eyes of Another: In Conversation with Iestyn Pettigrew, Editor of The Seas

Iestyn Pettigrew has carved out a niche for himself with his enthusiastic signal-boosting of zines. Now, he’s turned to Kickstarter to fund his debut anthology as an editor and publisher, The Seas. A publication that’s equal parts experimental and poetic in its exploration of the human mind, we found much to like about it in our recent review.

We caught up with Iestyn to discover more about the process that went into creating this complex, visually sumptuous comic.

A Place To Hang Your Cape: This is your debut comic as an editor. Why did you want to create this anthology?

Iestyn Pettigrew: That’s an interesting question! The quick answer is, a lot of things came together and that said to me it was time to try this.

The longer answer is, there’s been a whole load of small steps that have led up to this big leap. Much of it is just from the experience I’ve had becoming part of the zine community on Instagram, the kindness and openness of those involved.

Whilst this is my first published anthology, it’s not my first time coordinating or commissioning work. I have an Instagram account, @iesorno, where I’ve found some amazing creators and become online friends with a few. One of these friends runs a zine called Kermesse (@16pages on Instagram) where he’s accepted contributions from other zinesters, including me, but he’s distributing to nearly 100 people for free and I don’t have that kind of money!!

That inspired me to do what I call ‘secret zines’, these are for contributors only, like an old APA and I’m the central mailer (and there’s a whole other digression there!). The first of these started with me sending out a poem I wrote in school, one I consider a very bleak and personal commentary on my psyche, but one I’m still proud of. The poem goes; ‘Beauty plays before my eyes, All I do is criticise.’

Each contributor was asked to respond with a single page showing their first reaction to that poem. What struck me was that this bleak comment on myself resulted in a beautiful piece from everyone asked to contribute; very different and personal responses. It was a shock; a very happy, very moving feeling to have that come from something I’d created. It planted this seed in my head, in fact in my heart more honestly. Most of my zine work has involved dealing with darker thoughts, mental health issues and the like, but, secretly, I want to make beautiful things, I just can’t stop myself undercutting them even when I do.

I’ve always had an interest in hearing about people and experiences that aren’t mine and seeing those responses, these things of beauty brought about from my thoughts just fed something very special. So I did another zine and that was fun. It was about getting people to contribute abandoned works and then handing them on to other creators to see what they made of them, trying to spread the idea on from my work to a group’s work. Some of those pieces were intensely transformative of the originals. This time there were people involved that I really thought of as above me, outside of my reach, yet they wanted to contribute for the fun of it. That moved the dial on my ambitions, just made me think that reaching out to people, even people you think are above you, out of your reach, sometimes that pays off.

Also, just a number of more practical things happened. One of the pieces in the second zine was the artwork by Jaime Nyx that’s now on the cover and features as the centre spread of the anthology. As soon as I saw that piece I could see myself opening a book with that as the cover and the centre spread, it felt satisfying imagining that design. I’d started up my blog zinelove by that time and done an interview with Jaime where she’d said something in an answer that immediately struck some sort of chord in me, like a little hidden thought I’d never said. That’s now in the anthology as well.

Also, I’d seen Gareth Hopkins’ submission to Broken Frontier’s Andy Oliver’s birthday anthology that seemed very sea like. I’d also dug out some long-buried paintings I’d done so I could submit one as a potential cover (actually used in the end!!) for Sliced Quarterly. It all seemed predestined really.

In February I put out feelers, including this very odd seeming tweet and that started the whole process off really.

‘I’m looking to get a few women comic artists who produce colour, textured handmade art (not computer created, sorry) Things like pastel, crayon, colour pencil, paint anything where your images talk about experience as much as your words Probably not paid 2-5 pages Theme – the sea’

At the heart of it all, though, at the heart of all of these works is the desire to curate something that pulls together what interests me into something permanent. We spend all of this time curating these online feeds that pass what we like in front of us, this one and done radio stream curated by some THING we can’t hardly influence. It just seems a shame that we don’t more personally curate these streams and fix something permanently in place.

I’ve said it before, I want this to be like a great album, where each story is strong, but the context strengthens the whole.

AP2HYC: The Seas brings together numerous creators to produce an eclectic, experimental body of work about the ocean’s reflective qualities of ourselves. What might you say the overall message of The Seas is?

Pettigrew: The overall message is, essentially, being a person is all we have in common and that’s a good thing. I’ve said in a number of places how I love to live the life I haven’t lived. That’s what I wanted here, an anthology recognising all stripes and types of humanity. I actually had someone sum up the idea at the heart of the anthology perfectly when they talked about their own comic.

They used the word ‘Accepted’, where difference was accepted seemed like the perfect foil to the rising xenophobia and isolationism we’re currently experiencing. Yes, it’s important to fight, but sometimes, it’s important to let people experience the different. Don’t make it an argument, show it as natural that all experience can be celebrated.

Really, that’s always going to be my theme – you’re not me and that’s to be accepted and celebrated. It’s the positive flipside of my answer to bigots everywhere ‘just because I hate you, doesn’t mean you have to die’.

I’d also say that, whilst the anthology includes experimental work, it all speaks from the heart, it all attempts to show an experience rather than tell a story. My personal favourite in there is Motobus’s strip because of how it so simply lays out her experience, how she thinks and feels. I kind of feel that it’s done so cleverly that people are going to miss how well it works at laying out her personality so openly. You just accept what she says as the fact in that story, you don’t realise for a minute that you’re truly seeing the world through someone else’s logic.

Also, there’s something so amazingly personal about Mister Zinester’s piece. It’s the closest thing I’ve ever read to the experience of hearing a Smith’s song. Just go and truly look at those pictures, how beautiful and romantic they are in comparison to the actual story laid out before you. There are some great little subtle stories in this and that’s good, because I’m terrible for making things that batter at you to make their point!

Really, to me, everything in the anthology is incredibly strong, it all has personality as a piece of work, but it’s not style based, it’s there laying out an emotional experience for you, using the logic, the thought paths of that person. They all put word and image together to immerse you in another way of seeing to bring you the experience of another person. What more purpose should there be for art?

AP2HYC: What was the process like of bringing the creators on board? Did you search them out yourself, or did they request to submit their work for inclusion in the anthology?

Pettigrew: I sought out every person in the anthology, except for Dave Crane who, wonderfully, saw my weird little tweet mentioned previously, and stepped forward for inclusion. I’m so glad he did as I’d not known his work before, but it’s wonderful stuff and his contribution is so beautiful, like poetry made in stained glass.

Everyone else I reached out to, some I’d previously done zines with. Since going on Instagram, I’ve been inspired to reach out to more people, even if just to tell them that they are amazing and what their work says to me, that’s essentially what I did with everyone here. Out of everyone I contacted very few couldn’t contribute. Even when refusing, people were extremely polite in saying no.

I’m unlikely to do an open call for submission, but maybe I would, who knows. This time though, I really knew the breadth of styles and content that I wanted to put together, the balance I wanted to make. That includes things like trying to balance a mix of gender and geographic location. I wanted to balance race, but online that’s sort of more difficult because you can’t really know that without directly asking it and that just seems rude and a bit creepy. Also, I really don’t know enough about South American, African and Middle Eastern creators, something I am trying to remedy, because they all seem to have some great traditions to explore.

It was important to me to be able to know that I was getting as wide and representative a range of people contributing, because then you just automatically get a range of perspective, a range of insight. As I was trying to talk about the human experience, that’s important to have a wide range of voices. I want to walk in many different shoes, not just polished brogues, y’know.

AP2HYC: I mention this in my review, but it felt like you gave your contributors relatively free reign in creating their work. What did your editing process involve when guiding the creators in producing their work?

Pettigrew: That varied depending on the creator, some produced work that was perfect as delivered, some needed just some technical putting together or spellchecking. Others it was a discussion about what they wanted to say and how to make that clearer or fit to the anthology a little better, some others I had specific plans of what I wanted out of them, that was maybe a little different to their normal project.

Everyone received an initial brief to deliver to and then, as I said, there were those I got more specific with. Here’s the general brief:

‘Sitting, listening and watching The Sea is an act of turning inwards and listening to the voice inside. The voice inside speaks from whatever you will call it; soul, subconscious, character, whatever you will. Sit me on a beach looking at the waves; my mind will turn inward; my spirit will float out of me and my eyes will open and let the waves wash in and out of them. The waves wash in through my eyes and into my mind, the sound rinses through my ears and speaks calm to me.

The anthology is called The Seas because there are many Seas on the Earth, whether watery or the character of each of the 7 ½ billion people alive. The idea of the anthology is to express something of each self to the world; maybe an interest, maybe your spirit or maybe just a little memory of being by The Seas.’

AP2HYC: How might you want the reader to interpret the anthology?

Pettigrew: Oh, that’s tricky, really, really tricky. I don’t want to impose a meaning, but there’s definitely reactions that would make me very happy to see.

I’d want them to be moved by the experiences of those not like them. Just for a minute to be seeing through the eyes of another. To accept being different to each other as the great strength of humanity, not its weakness. I’d also love them to go out and find the work of all the creators involved, because every one of them is incredible to me.

At best, they’d be moved to reach out and connect with those creators, even if it’s just to tell them about what they experienced when reading their story. Really, for me, that’s the greatest of all things, to hear what the experience was like, what a person felt when seeing that work.

AP2HYC: Has it been rewarding experience to produce your own anthology?

Pettigrew: Absolutely. The work itself, the anthology, is everything I wanted it to be without any of it being what I expected. It hangs together beautifully as a whole. People have all produced stories I would defend to the hilt as being great work.

On top of that, there’s been a really good buzz from people wanting to help and on seeing the anthology. We’ve had some great reviews, people have stepped up to help me when I’ve needed it. People who I don’t even know that well. It’s been a joy all round. Just over a week in and we’re over two thirds funded! That’s great!

Genuinely so many good people out there have made time to make something happen with someone who has no record of publishing anything and whom they owe nothing to. It’s a picture of humanity and community at its best.

You can discover more about The Seas via our review! Have you backed The Seas yet? Let us know in the comments section below or send us a Tweet!

About the author

Fred McNamara