The Devil's Artisan

The Devil's Artisan (DA) first appeared in 1980 under the editorship of Paul Forage, William Rueter (University of Toronto Press) and Glenn Goluska, latterly of Coach House Press (Toronto) and currently print design consultant to Phyllis Lambert at the Centre for the Study of Architecture in Montreal. The magazine was founded `for the purpose of presenting to Canadian readers information on the craft of printing and bookmaking, on bibliographic and historic matters, and on communicative, sociological, and technical subjects related to printing.'

The Porcupine's Quill purchased the magazine in the spring of 1995 and has published two issues a year, spring and fall, since that time (Number 36).

The focus of the journal has broadened somewhat, over the past twenty-eight years, from an early technical interest in the craft of fine printing to its current role as `A Journal of the Printing Arts'. The magazine has, however, remained committed to its constituency — and hence is released in the spring at the Wayzgoose festival of the Book Arts in Grimsby on the Niagara peninsula, and in the fall at the Ontario College of Art & Design Book Arts Show on McCaul Street in Toronto.

The spring / summer 1999 issue (DA 44) featured a spotlight on the work of The Gauntlet Press, owned and operated by the late poet Richard Outram and artist Barbara Howard. The issue included an annotated checklist of the press prepared by Don McLeod. The keepsake was printed on the Vandercook by Stan Bevington of Coach House Printing directly from the block engraved by Barbara Howard. The issue was launched in the lobby of the Robarts Library (University of Toronto) at the opening of a major retrospective on The Gauntlet Press curated by Alan Horne, mounted by Emrys Evans (conservator for the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library) and jointly sponsored by the Robarts Library and DA.

The complete text of Richard Outram's memoir `A Brief History of Time at The Gauntlet Press (Or, Some Days the Earth Moved)' is available by clicking on The Gauntlet Press.

The text of Andrew Steeves' history of Thaddeus Holownia's Anchorage Press is available by clicking on The Anchorage Press.

A small number of copies of DA17 (1985) are still available for the favour of $20. The issue included an article entitled `The Gourmet Vandercook: Printing on a press never really designed for printing' which continues to attract interest, and is now available for download in pdf format at The Gourmet VanderCook. Many thanks to Paul Moxon of Fameorshame Press for this idea (and the pdf file).

A one-year subscription to DA consists of two issues — one in May, the second in December. The cost is $24 for individuals and $29 for institutions, GST included. For subscribers outside Canada, the cost is $28 US. $33 US for institutions.

A complete sample issue (Number 56, featuring Frank Newfeld and McClelland & Stewart's `Design for Poetry' series) in PDF format is available by clicking on the Sample Issue page. Warning: the sample issue is a large file!

A down-loadable subscription form in Adobe "PDF" format is available by clicking on the Subscription Form page.

DA, A Journal of the Printing Arts now accepts subscription orders paid by VISA (only, we are not able to accept Mastercard or Amex) by voice phone at (519) 833-9158 or (preferably) fax at (519) 833-9845. Please include your name, VISA card number and expiry date on your faxed order. Please also include a voice telephone number or an e-mail address in case of unexpected trouble. Please do NOT send us credit card information via e-mail (it's dangerous). If in doubt, e-mail publisher Tim Inkster. For story suggestions or other editorial concerns please e-mail editor Don McLeod.

DA, A Journal of the Printing Arts is also now available on abebooks.com, who do accept Mastercard payments, as well as Visa.

As of May, 2009 the Devil's Artisan is also available digitally at zinio.com

ISSN 0225-7874

The Devil's Artisan is remarkable in Canadian publishing in that most of the physical production of our journal is completed in-house at the shop on the Main Street of Erin Village. We print on a twenty-five inch Heidelberg KORD, typically onto acid-free Zephyr Antique laid. The sheets are then folded, and sewn into signatures on a 1907 model Smyth National Book Sewing machine.

To take a virtual tour of the pressroom, visit us at YouTube for a discussion of offset printing in general, and the operation of a Heidelberg KORD in particular. Other videos include Four Colour Printing, Smyth Sewing and Wood Engraving. Photographs of production machinery used on these pages were taken by Sandra Traversy on site at the printing office of the Porcupine's Quill, December 2008.