Title | Catholics |
Artist / Creator | Matt Runkle |
Place of Publication | Berkeley, California |
Publication Date | 2015 |
Process / Technique | Letterpress and laser printing |
Structure / Binding | Full-cloth, flat-spine case binding |
Medium / Materials | Collage and drawing (laser printed) |
Paper Stock | 80# White Mohawk paper |
Number of Pages | 96 pages |
Dimensions (WxHxD) | 6 x 9 x .5 inches closed |
Edition Size | Edition of 25 |
Signed & Numbered | Signed and numbered edition |
Catholics makes use of illustration, collage, and letterpress-printed typography to explore my traditionalist Catholic upbringing. Eight prose sections relate fragments of memoir: my dad battles Masons for church parking spaces, my grandmother worries about my future in a post-Vatican II world where people receive communion in their hands, I learn about ACT-UP by reading my parents' right-wing newspaper, and my family's fervency is refracted through my own spiritually scuffed lens. The book's visual elements create their own various counter-narratives, exploring Church history, pre-Christian mythology, and the places where such spiritualities resonate with twentieth-century pop culture. In Catholics, the sacred and profane, the humorous and tragic, the zine and literary fine-press all end up as strange bedfellows in desperate need of confession.
Artist Bio
Matt Runkle is a writer, cartoonist, printer, and book artist. His short fiction collection, The Story of How All Animals Are Equal & Other Tales, was published in 2014 by Brooklyn Arts Press. He is creator of the zine RUNX TALES. An alumnus of the University of Iowa Center for the Book, he serves on the College Book Art Association board.