In the beginning, there was a joke. A ‘literary vigilante’ who is a Batman for the written word. Stopping bad poetry in its tracks, correcting split infinitives and terrifying those who dared submit to a literary magazine without a cover letter. As the editor and art director for literary magazine Far Off Places, Annie Rutherford and I had seen it all and longed for a force to at least make sure prospective writers included a cover letter.

But from that joke came the inkling of an idea, of a female driven comic book adventure we have titled Samizdat, after the Russian underground newspapers. Written and illustrated by women, starring women as the heroes and villains, this endeavor would give us the stories we wanted to see. Intelligent women using their brains to solve problems, with a literary bent. Drawing inspiration from the Kindle deleting 1984, from the ‘death’ of print media, and the closure of mom and pop bookstores, we developed the basic premise for Samizdat. Such is our love letter to stories, to adventures, to Edinburgh.