We can't decide in five minutes. Supposin we're wrong
This year, Mercy are producing twelve monthly E-Zines, each one based on a character from Sidney Lumet's seminal 1957 movie, 12 Angry Men.
Why? Well, we love the way the sentiment of this film chimes with our strapline If We Don't Care, Who Will? and the Mercy touchstones of irreverence, integrity and provocation.
Since the day dot, Mercy events, zine and design production has thrived on the will to challenge the accepted norm, the energy to make things happen, and the generosity to see it through to the hair-raising end. In this sense, Davis from 12 Angry Men is Mercy's dad.
If We Don't Care, Who Will?
We're not out to start a revolution, but we want to put new ideas, conversations and beautiful stuff on the doorstoop, and see if the cat licks it up.
The characters in this film themselves represent interesting archetypes for humanity, and a real nice collection of themes for our creatives to get their teeth into. So you can expect all the work to fit nicely around what is essentially a fragmented and incomplete version of western civilisation.
The zines won't be angry, and nor will they be contributed to solely by men. But there will, conveniently, be twelve of them released monthly throughout the year (on the last Thursday of each month).
Each zine will feature newly commissioned poetry, illustration and polemic from our delicious minions, and be presented in spick and span technicolour web 2.0 for your convenience and pleasure.
So! With all that in mind, it is with pleasure we announce the release of Mercy's 12 Angry E-zines, issue 1:
This first issue is themed on Davis, the architect in the white suit with the integrity, courage and curiosity to make the story happen. Featuring illustration and typography from Mercy, Charles Williams, Scott Spencer and Bobby Newall, with new writing from Tom Common and Nathan Jones. Each month we have also asked an editor to curate a couple of pages of these zines. This month it is Tom Chivers, whose imprint Penned in the Margins produces top-quality poetry books, including a smashing series designed by us at Mercy. Tom has selected two poems for this issue.