Tuesday, October 20, 2015

The beetles

Tenuous links have always been good to OTN so here’s another one. Martin Creed has been in town (he has a great show on at Michael Lett at the moment) and you may recall a post linking him to Miriam Elia. She was the author and publisher of the satirical book We go to the gallery mocking art appreciation in the classic Ladybird kids book style of the 1950s. Pitch perfect as far as we were concerned but the Ladybird publishers Penguin threatened legal action and stopped sales. Now that same don’t-you-dare-make-fun-of-our-imprint publisher is doing its own set of mock Ladybirds introducing Peter and Jane to hipsters and hangovers. Written by comedians Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris they're as close as you can get to the look and feel of the Elia effort. But Elia, who has changed her own imprint to Dung Beetle and can't be bothered asking Penguin to pay up for nicking her idea, has produced a new book in the style We sue an artist - just in case they miss the point