Looking For Outsider Visions? Meet Beehive Books
by Staff
New small press imprint Beehive Books was founded by artist and designer Maelle Doliveux, and writer and editor Josh O’Neill late in 2016. O’Neill is also the publisher of Locust Moon Press which continues with its own publications, making its biggest splash to date with the multiple award-winning large format book Little Nemo: Dream Another Dream and more recently, with The Lost Works of Will Eisner. You may also have heard of Locust Moon as an independent comic shop in Philadelphia, now shuttered, and as hosts of the indie comic show Locust Moon Festival in Philly.
Beehive differentiates its goals from Locust Moon Press by being a home for a more art comic aesthetic and even including graphic art in its focus, potentially ranging as far afield as illustration, print-making, and book making. The founders say that the name “Beehive” was chosen because of its community-facing and including goals—bringing readers in as team-members in shaping the future publications of the imprint.
Doliveux and O’Neill describe their tastes as “off-beat” and tending toward surprising works that might even reclaim creators of the past who had mysterious and lesser known works that deserve a reappraisal.
They say:
We like pictograms and cryptographs, enigmatic historical artifacts and inexplicable interdimensional zines. We like gleaming draftsmanship and outsider vision, pronouncements from the mountaintop and urgent cries in the dark. We like text that cuts through images and images that read like text. We like secret shrouded messages and nobly bald-faced propaganda. We like books and artworks that crackle and seethe with true, unmistakable magic.
Beehive is searching for an audience that celebrates the same “unmistakable magic”. Using Kickstarter to fund volumes ahead of production, and having already funded one extremely fascinating and bizarre volume, we look forward to what Beehive may bring to us in 2017.
In October 2016, they successfully funded a lavish book bringing the forgotten work of Herbert Crowley to light: The Temple of Silence: Forgotten Works & Worlds of Herbert Crowley. The book and some of the Kickstarter rewards are still available for sale on their website.
Beehive is also interested in hearing from fans and readers about what we’d like them to publish. Do you know of any under-appreciated past masters of comic or graphic art? What sorts of books would you like to see on your shelves celebrating creative visions?
You can contact them with suggestions here or by e-mailing beehivebook at gmail dot com.
