Pigeons for Darwin!

On the occasion the anniversary of Darwin's 200th birthday (this February 12th!), it seems only right to be releasing a zine about pigeons.

Why? For Darwin, they held a special place in his argument for evolution by natural selection put forth in The Origin of Species. In those days pigeon breeding was quite popular in Britain and they were a natural place to see how small variations can result in big changes. That is not to say that interest has died in our contemporary world - consider the NPUSA or any number of pigeon racer associations.

Pigeon fancying hasn't died either, and the ways people choose to work that out are always ripe for invention. Just last week a man was stopped by customs in the Melbourne airport in Australia trying to smuggle two live pigeons in his pants. Would seem to give new meaning to the idea of a "passenger pigeon" (!).

Artists and scientists in collaboration with the public are also trying to understand these creatures better and work with them more closely in the urban places we share. Take for example Beatriz de Costa's pigeon air quality project and Natalie Jeremijenko's work (& a video here). As innovative as they are, both of fall into a long (sometimes sorted) history of how we relate with these ivory-and-charcoal feathered flyers.

This new zine is small, but *packed* with information, and a view of these birds with bit of a Chicago flavor.

It is a different, smaller format: double-sided printing = four zines per sheet! Print out side 1 and then side 2, copy them out double-sided, slice into fourths, and fold into fourths from there! (accordian fold style)

- - To read it in online comic format, just click the image below: