Daily Cosmonaut #17: Coloring Books To Challenge Paradigm

coloringIt’s estimated that last year adult coloring books added $50M to publishing industry sales, creating a record sales year. But Microcosm sort of operates like that island in Lost where we hear only infrequent communications from the mainland and happily can focus on the kinds of things we want to say to the world rather than responding to every peculiar news cycle. And one day, under those conditions, we realized that the Cunt Coloring Book was constantly out of stock so we decided to produce The Vulva Coloring Book to be more factually accurate but also because the former was over 40 years old.


Naturally, within a few weeks Elly had the idea to add post-structuralist theory to the book and it became The Post-Structuralist Vulva Coloring Book. Slowly, as we learned about the huge adult coloring book trend, the book became a way to challenge gender stereotypes and make commentary about how women are shamed about their bodies in so many ways and it can often be difficult to discuss these things.
The book slowly became (as far as I understand it) a way to make fun of the inherent meaninglessness of post-structuralism in a way that could read as “authentic” to people who were actually familiar with it while challenging people’s conceptions of bodies and gender. And for once we happen to be synched up with the trends to get a few more inches on our agenda with this book!