Microcosm publishing is a Portland, Oregon based independent publishing house. It was founded in 1997 in Ohio as a punk rock record label. However, now it mostly deals in zines, independent books, buttons and bumper stickers. Most of these materials have a political focus that could be described as radical leftist, but some of the materials are non-political or humorous.
The label goes back to when the founder, Joe Biel, was a college student in Ohio. However, its position as a zine distributor only took off when Joe moved to Portland, Oregon, and met Alex Wrekk. Through means of some financial wizardry, the two of them managed to buy a house in North Portland, and stock it full of publishing materials. Along with printing materials, Microcosm is also responsible for organizing the PDX Zine Symposium, an annual event where zine writers from around the country come to Portland to share their wares. Microcosm also sometimes arranges concerts and events around Portland, and several members of the communal house that the company is located in took place in helping make The 48 Hour Movie and the Somewhat Rapid Movie Project.
With all of this cred, and the fact that Mr. Biel's latest project was a work on whether the CIA had a link to the death of Martin Luther King, you would think that the Microcosm Publishing group would be either pretentious hipsters or snarling, "holier-then-thou" anarchists. However, after a New Year's Eve spent at the house, playing Diplomacy while drinking Martinelli's and eating home made french fries, I can say that that is not the case.