One of the great delights of this decade is @Scarfolk, @richard_littler's long-running art-project about a English horror-town trapped in an endless, looping Thatcherite decade, whose artifacts are pitch-perfect comments on our own daily lives.
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The period Littler focuses on - the dawn of neoliberalism - is a turning point in our collective timeline, the ascendant moment of selfishness, the elevation of sociopathy to a virtue, the moment in which corporate personhood was elevated at the expense of human personhood.
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As such, the parallels he is able to draw are incredible, savage and brilliant, augmented by his biting prose and his superb draftsmanship and outstanding design.
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Littler's work was born digital, but it transitions VERY well to print. Last year's SCARFOLK ANNUAL was one of 2019's best art-books.
https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/30/the-first-scarfolk-annual-a-mysterious-artifact-from-a-curiously-familiar-eternal-grimdark-1970s/
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https://memex.craphound.com/2019/10/30/the-first-scarfolk-annual-a-mysterious-artifact-from-a-curiously-familiar-eternal-grimdark-1970s/
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This year's addition to the print Scarfolk canon is "Scarfolk & Environs: Road & Leisure Map for Uninvited Tourists," endorsed by the likes of @billybragg and @Beathhigh.
https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/2020/11/scarfolk-environs-road-leisure-map-for.html
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https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/2020/11/scarfolk-environs-road-leisure-map-for.html
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For those of us who grew up poring over the endpaper maps in Lord of the Rings or the giant hex-paper Greyhawk maps in our D&D modules, this is a weirdly comforting and profoundly discomfiting artefact.
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It retails for £12.00; Britons can buy it from Waterstones, Foyles, Blackwells or the Book Depository. There's also a web-exclusive run of 1,000 with Herb Lester that comes with "a Scarfolk bookmark made of genuine imitation leather."
https://www.herblester.com/products/scarfolk-environs
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https://www.herblester.com/products/scarfolk-environs
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