Even with their fifth anniversary party coming up at London’s Gosh! Comics it’s hard to believe now that Colossive Press’s Colossive Cartographies series of fold-out zines have been such a mainstay of the UK small press scene since 2020. Scores of creators, both within and outside of comics, have applied their minds, practice and styles to this distinctive tactile format in that time. Some have even come back for return offerings, including Hayley Gullen who revisits the series in Colossive Cartographies #65 with ‘Adventures in Pictland’.
Gullen’s six-panel comic has something of a psychogeographical approach to its subject matter, depicting a trip to North-East Scotland in the Autumn of 2024 to ruminate on the mysteries of the surviving Pictish symbol stones. Artefacts whose meanings have long been lost to history. These thoughts take on a more profound sense as they lead Gullen into a wider meditation on the ephemeral nature of lived experiences, and how the brutality of history can become a mere curiosity.
To facilitate this Gullen uses her limited canvas to contrast the ancient with modernity; to see echoes of the past in the present, and to question the way in which we interact with a past outside of our own cognisance. In doing this she places an uncomplicated, stripped-back representation of herself against more detailed backgrounds, allowing her own emotional reactions to take on far greater resonance, from wonder to puzzled contemplation. Of note is the way she also uses the folds of the zine to emphasise architectural majesty as constructs and buildings disappear up into the crease. Gullen’s graphic memoir This Might Surprise You: A Breast Cancer Story is coming from Bloomsbury later this year. On the basis of her Cartographies contributions it’s going to be well worth looking out for.
Hayley Gullen (W/A) • Colossive Press, £2.00
Review by Andy Oliver
