Lurking Fear Publishing: An Artistic Manifesto
Where the Page is a Canvas and the Word is a Weapon.
The Core Concept
Lurking Fear Publishing is not a company; it is a collaborative art project, a collective nervous system made manifest in ink and paper. It operates on the belief that the most potent ideas—whether they are stark truths, fabricated horrors, or searing critiques—are not merely communicated but experienced. They should lurk in the margins, grip the reader from the shadows, and linger long after the cover is closed.
We are a haven for raw, unfiltered expression, where the medium of a book, zine, or pamphlet is treated as an art object in itself. The content within is the soul, and the physical form is its body.
The Three Pillars of Lurking Fear
Our output is categorized by the type of fear it engages with—the political, the real, and the imagined. All are delivered as art.
- Political Commentary (The Fear of Now)
- Form: Subversive manifestos, satirical pamphlets, screen-printed posters, and typeset essays.
- Artistic Approach: This is polemic as performance art. Data becomes poetry. Rhetoric is dismantled and rearranged into brutalist collage. The design is aggressive, provocative, and meant to disrupt complacency. It’s the fear of the present moment, articulated and weaponized.
- Non-Fiction (The Fear of Truth)
- Form: Experimental journalism, personal essays, philosophical disquisitions, and historical excavation.
- Artistic Approach: Here, the truth is not just told; it is sculpted. The narrative structure, typography, and accompanying imagery (photographs, diagrams, found footage) are curated to create an immersive, often unsettling, experience. It explores the fear that comes from understanding the complex, terrifying, and beautiful reality we inhabit.
- Fiction (The Fear of What Might Be)
- Form: Weird tales, cosmic horror, psychological thrillers, and transgressive fiction.
- Artistic Approach: This is our most traditional yet most liberated pillar. Stories are crafted to evoke dread, awe, and sublime terror. The publication itself becomes a artifact within the narrative—a discovered journal, a corrupted text, a forbidden transcript. The binding, paper stock, and illustrations are all in service to the atmosphere of the tale.
A Call to Contribute
Lurking Fear is built by and for those who feel the compulsion to create, critique, and confront.
We invite:
- Writers with something screaming to get out.
- Artists who draw in the margins of society.
- Designers who see layout as a language.
- Printmakers who understand the tactile power of ink.
- Thinkers with a blueprint for a new kind of pamphlet.
Contribution is open. There is no gatekeeping, only a shared ethos: Create with intent. Design with purpose. Disturb the silence.
The Aesthetic
Visualize: Risograph printing, gritty textures, stark typography, occult symbolism blended with modern iconography, high-contrast photography, and a palette often dominated by black, white, and a single, violent accent color (blood red, sickly yellow, deep void purple).
Every publication from Lurking Fear should feel like a found object—something you might discover in a second-hand bookshop that changes your perception of the world.
Final Statement:
Lurking Fear Publishing is a testament to the idea that art is not a diversion from the world’s chaos but a direct engagement with it. We do not offer escape. We offer a reflection, a warning, and a challenge, all bound together and waiting for you to open it.
Are you afraid? Good. Now contribute.