A post-WW2, mermaid!Cody AU, and featuring art by @shukruut on the dust jacket and for each of the title pages which is absolutely stunning!
For this bind I finally got to pull out *two* of my marbled papers from izumin marbling, the stone wave pattern on the front and the bright marble on the inside for the endpapers, paired with duo oatmeal bookcloth. I pulled colors from the endpapers into the french double core endbands as well. Edges painted in "cloisonne orange."
for each of the three parts in this bind, I used a @shukruut artwork, and pulled a color from that art to set the chapter headers and one of the sea-creature drawings in as an accent on the summary page.
(I also found a very silly little fish as a paragraph break ^)
the combo of script font (Trafton Script) and art-deco-ish font (Onyx) is directly inspired by a 1940s yearbook on the site Fonts In Use. The script + serif font combo was very popular for this time period. Nautical paragraph breaks, chapter headers, and summary page illustrations are from Heritage Library's free public domain collection.
(I have hit the picture limit so on to the next reblog!)
It's taken me more than a year to make this post. And it would have taken even longer, except I realized that what was holding me back now was wanting it to be perfect, which, let's face it, will never happen. So I am here to tell you about my friend @zulufic, about the amazing people of @renegadeguild, the Renegade Bookbinding Guild, and about fandom and community and how sometimes we really do get it right.
Zulu was my fandom and irl friend, and there is no good way to say this, she died of cancer a year and a half ago. She was family. She and my wife and I knew each other for twenty years, a significant part of our adult lives. Were at each other's weddings (her wedding to @belldreams was only a dozen people), travelled to cons, and helped each other move. She spent an unplanned week camping out in our living room one summer, as we torrented Stargate Atlantis, modded a House big bang from our living room couch, marathoned six degrees of actor separation media with us. Fell in and out of fandoms around each other, large and small. Witnessed each other's families and relationships and lives grown and change.
When I started fanbinding, I made her a pamphlet of her crackfic for Christmas. It was right around the time we found out she first had cancer. Surgery, chemo, and then we had another two years with her. She fell into another fandom, hard. I made her an anthology of her A League Of Their Own fic--all that she'd written at the time, at least. ("Would… you make a book of my fic?" she said when she saw my first casebound books. I never want to forget the way she said my name when she was asking me for something that was a foregone conclusion. "That was already the plan for Christmas," I told her.) I bound her rarepair House mpreg crackfic the next year, because that's what friends do. I didn't finish it until the spring--and then we found out the cancer was back.
She asked me for a favour over that summer. "Soooo… could you do something for me? Could you do another pamphlet, of this particular fic?" Yes, I said, yes I will. I will make you a pamphlet. I will make you TWELVE pamphlets. A HUNDRED AND TWENTY pamphlets, and more. (Spoiler alert, I did not make a hundred and twenty pamphlets, but I did make multiple copies of three.)
Here's the thing. She was on the prolific side, as a fic writer, and had been in fandom for decades. I wanted to bind more of her fic than I could possibly accomplish in time. I recognized there were finite amount of things I can finish while she was still here to see it, and that if I had tried to make this the only project I had, I would have collapsed under my own sadness.
That week, I said to a good fanbinding friend, I want to bind more of Zulu's fic, I'm just feeling a bit overwhelmed right now. Her response: "Can I help? Do you want me to typeset something?" Me: (ALL THE EMOTION) "… yes. But also, I was thinking of asking the Renegade guild if anyone else would be bind a few of her fic, too, maybe a few quick pamphlets?" Her: "YES, do it."
I did it. I posted. She immediately started a spreadsheet organizing what I'd already bound, and to let other people sign up for things, and put herself first on the list. The fact that someone else was organizing for me (made a SPREADSHEET!) made me a bit weepy. By the time I went to bed an hour later, I think we had half a dozen people signed up to participate.
I should have been prepared for the full force of the Renegade Bookbinding Guild members, otherwise known as the inhabitants of the enabling server.
The next morning came. And a few more people signed up. I tentatively suggested that if anyone wanted to include a card or note and maybe some stickers for her wife and their kiddo L, it would be welcome. And people started asking me questions. Like, what fic does she like best? Where should we start? Can we make a care package? What does her wife need?
Knowing the people in the server, and their general kindness and enthusiasm, I should not have been surprised, I really shouldn't. It just hits differently when you're the one who's the recipient, you know? "I don't know why you're surprised," said another friend. "You asked us to help and we're helping!" And it wasn't an official guild project, just an incredible act of community and compassion. And immense enthusiasm and zero restraint.
I started asking some surreptitious questions of Zulu and Bell. I'd asked Zulu a few weeks before about granting blanket permission for anyone to bind her fic, and for the typesets to be shared. I casually said, "Sooo I mentioned this to the fanbinding group. If someone does want to send you something, can I share your address? And can I suggest they send cards/stickers to L?" (Yes, and yes.)
We started a separate thread in the Discord server to keep up with the planning. Some collaborations started to come up. I'll typeset from South Africa or southeast Asia or from next door in the next US state, you print and bind, we'll collect some of the American books for a mass mailing to Canada. I don't have time to bind, but I can contribute to shipping costs. I don't know that fandom, but I can take your typeset, and make a copy. I love that fandom but don't have time and materials, but I'll typeset if you bind. At this point, there were more than thirty people involved. New-old fandoms were discovered. Techniques and experiments grew.
I told Bell a little bit. She knew there were books coming. I didn't let her know the full scope, but I figured she could use something good to look forward to. Zulu said one of her goals was to finish all her WIPs before she died. (That hurt my heart. She almost made it! But even at the end, she got distracted by a new fic idea...)
The behind the scenes binding continued. There was negotiating over obscure fandoms, and exclamations over fic for niche favourites. A need for a great deal of baseball theming because Zulu wrote a LOT of ALOTO fic in the last few years. There were anthologies and pamphlets, and tiny books, and large chonks, and an entire collection of every drabble Zulu ever wrote in House fandom.
There was a 100-word hockey RPF drabble bound in a one-page folio with metallic foil details. There was a whole-fandom slipcased pamphlet set of her handful of Friday Night Lights fic. There were Buffy and X-Files fic unearthed from deep in her backlist. There were several bonkers-ambitious binds of her SMAUs, social media AUs of tweets and screenshots that had me throw up my hands and exclaim "how am I supposed to typeset this?"
There were obscure Canadian fandoms encased in the fanciest of marbled paper pamphlets, and a House fic about stolen lunches bound in a brown paper bag. A flower-titled ALOTO fic with a cover patterned like a seed packet. A Yuletide obscure movie fic in silk moire. Firefly fic with a marbled paper inset, and a Stargate Atlantis fic with a vellum dustcover. A crackfic five things fic with a metallic paper DVD on the cover as a Chinese stab binding, from a fandom that needed MOAR LENS FLARE. ("I am sure you know this, Luna," said the binder working on it, "but Zulu is really fucking funny." Yes, yes she absolutely was.)
I can't name every single book because there were more than FORTY of them, but I love every one of them and the care that went into them.
I told you Renegade goes hard.
We drove to nearby city to see Zulu and Bell in August, 2024. They'd just changed up her pain medication and she was having a good day. We had a good visit. I put the pamphlet fic in her hands myself. They'd told her in June that she should expect about a year at most. It would only be three months. That was the last time I saw her in person.
We moved up the projected mailing date from mid-October to mid-September.
We knew, over the September long weekend, when the group chat went quiet, that it wasn't a good sign. I'd kept up a steady stream of pet pictures and other small bits of news. As the summer ended, we had fewer responses from her, and were more likely to just get an emoji back. Morning glory flowers only bloom for a day, and they were blooming outside my back door. I started sending a picture of that morning's flowers to the group chat each day. (And cat pictures. Of course.) I don't know if anyone but me really cared about the morning glories, but it felt like something tangible to hold onto.
The first few envelopes and boxes started to arrive. There were cards and stickers and handknit slippers, and a science facts zine just for L. I told Bell, tell Zulu we love her. And that I'm not sorry I unleashed 30+ fanbinders on her AO3 account.
Bell: (lists off the books that had arrived.)
Me: Oh, so the group shipment from California isn't there yet. Plus at least three other packages I know about.
Bell: Holy shites
Several lovely people found my name in the acknowledgements of more than one fic, and sent me copies, too. (Twenty years in fandom together…) I cried.
We knew things weren't good when Bell emailed to set up a time for a video chat. A few days after the September long weekend, we talked to them face to face, to get the news that they were moving Zulu into hospice care the next day. It would be the last time we'd hear her voice. We knew it was coming, it just all went so much more quickly than expected. She died less than three weeks later.
(But take a look at the dates on the last fic on her AO3 account. In such typical fandom fashion, she was updating her last fic from her hospice bed. A direct quote from Zulu: "The most important thing once I'm there, of course, will be to sort out the wifi situation.")
So, timelines got bumped up by another week. There was a rush for mailing. One international package from Europe got returned to sender without leaving the country due to post office shenanigans, and had to make a return trip, too late for Zulu. The package from Japan made it. The big group shipment box was sent via overnight delivery. It was supposed to arrive on Tuesday. It showed up on Friday, the day that she died, after she was gone. But by that last week, I'm not sure how much Zulu would have taken in about it, honestly. Bell took it with her to supper that night with friends and family to open as a special treat.
There were more than forty books of all sizes all told, from more than thirty people, and I still have about four more in progress myself right now, though I'll never get to put them in Zulu's hands and see her grin and say "Aww, you GUYS…"
But we flooded her with books of her own fic. We deluged her family with her words and love.
The books were on display at her memorial service, along with the quilt that her ALOTO friends had made for her. Also, the jersey she got printed based on her own fic (such a dork, I say with the world's most affection.) The books were all over the front of the room, and it wasn't even all of them. Zulu's mom sent a heartfelt thank you card to be shared with the whole group. The memorial also included earl grey tea and shrimp (two of Zulu's favourites) and a video message recorded to her from one of the actors from A League of Their Own (which I am sure confused many people, but we knew what was up!)
The second group shipment arrived with me several months later, and at least one more book came to me in person at the Renegade retreat, and Bell has them all in a bookcase together. I still have a few more to finish right now.
And, Renegade being Renegade, a couple of people have eyed Zulu's AO3 account and said, "Well, we didn't manage to bind ALL her 350 fic… so far…" And I laughed until I cried, and I am still hugging you all right now Renegade, SO HARD. And you've left a legacy, and you've made a difference. There are no thank you's that are enough. The love is stored in the fanbinds.
I've asked anyone who wants to share what they made to tag it #fanbindsforzulu. If you want to see some amazing things, check out the tag. And if you want to read her fic, and if you want to bind it, she would have loved that, and I would love to see it, too. And tell your friends you love them.
I was honored to be a part of this project, and devastated to have lost zulu before my books made it. Gone far too soon.
I bound a trio of Friday Night Lights pamphlets for her — the only fics from that fandom in her vast repertoire — and added a folding case reminiscent of the DVD case.
The first flower Obi-Wan hacked up on the bridge of the newly-named Negotiator was a marigold. Thankfully, this one didn’t come with roots—those were always the worst, leaving his throat sore or abraded for days after—and was relatively small. He’d felt the rattle in his lungs when as he’d first walked through the shining halls of the Venator, the soft-spun stoppage of petals and stem in his chest.
Due to my move causing a book binding hiatus, I decided to do a project to get back into things where I didn't need to do the typeset. @mourningmountainsbindery made this beautiful typeset for @catboydogma's great codywan hanahaki AU, and serendipitously I had done a painted silk class with @aetherseer when she visited me in Japan a while ago, resulting in a very pretty flower design - so! Put the two things together made bookcloth out of my silk.
This is a wonderful fic series, and I particularly like how in this AU hanahaki disease is not fatal, and more based on one's own feelings than whether it's reciprocated.
I also pulled out some of my floral chiyogami for cloth-jointed endpapers (mayhaps... i fucked up cutting the endpapers & thats why they are cloth jointed), and colored the edges with acrylic ink, and when there's so many Japanese components I have to sew the endbands in the Japanese silk, ofc.
Multi billion dollar corporations: We make crap AI ads because we rather hang themselves than pay an extra cent for a quality work.
Midsize art supply manufacturer: We commissioned a watercolor artist to make an illustration for every color of our watercolor palette and make it into an art book with swatches.
(Ekaterina Goland for "Old master" watercolors by Gamma)
Now this is the kind of thing I am here for. I'm generally not a fan of "people being good at things on the internet", mostly when it's presented in that tiktok/asmr/perfectionism style.
But this? This is someone showing you their craft in a normal way where you can clearly see they're an expert. The book binding is fascinating to see and the watercolours are mind-blowing! Absolutely stunning work 🤩! I'd love to leaf through that book...
Another book finished and cased. This fic is In the Heart of Cherry Hill (and other stories) by Needleyecandy. The formatting was done by @armoredsuperheavy and I did a little tweaking before printing the physical copy.
Tried a little experiment here. When I put on the metallic paper it got a little skewed and rubbed a bit so I decided to use some ribbon as an accent to hide the flaw and it came out looking great.
Its a Victorian era Thorki AU so the Loki colors and metallics seemed to fit the vibe. I am really glad the ribbion accent worked and for sure plan to use it again in the future.
I was a little worried abour how green the green was but it came together in the end.
Guess who just realized they never posted the book they made for their spouse's birthday LAST YEAR? It's Comma! Have some pictures!
One of the movies we watched INCESSANTLY while we were dating, took along on our honeymoon, play a "Comma mockingly imitates characters" drinking game with, and have queer headcanons for is the 2005 Pride and Prejudice. Why is it our favorite? I mean, have you SEEN the cast? Also The Hand Clench. Enough said. Since we haven't already purchased enough variations of the book, I obviously had to bind them another copy. I made my own typeset of the illustrated edition (sans the drop caps and chapter headers) and, since letters are a decent portion of the book, I picked out unique handwriting fonts for each letter writer.
Originally this was supposed to be a 2023 Christmas present but uh. Life happened and the book did not. So instead, I gifted them the textblock for Christmas and they helped choose the rest of the cover materials to complete for their birthday! Lots of purples, some pinks and reds, with a touch of gold - purple should surprise no one, obviously we got together because we share a favorite color. We even broke into my Crepaldi stash, though as it was my first time working with it, I didn't realize it would wrinkle quite so much during glueing and nearly cried to behold it. Thankfully the wrinkles mostly came out as it dried and pressed, so all was not lost! In repayment for the emotional distress, the rest of the casing in was a DREAM.
Should I have rounded this one? Absolutely. Did I? Certainly not, the concept terrifies me for no good reason. Did I cut the first perfectly lovely attempt at endbands off because they we just a few wraps off from symmetrical? I mean, have you met me?, of course I did, it would've bugged me. They're lovely now, move past it. Did I change up my usual colophon book curse to fit the theme? Holy Grail insults will always remain my beloved, but I am rather proud of this curse, everyone say thank you @daemonluna for the inspiration. Should I have done ONE MORE LOOK THROUGH before printing? Headers on chapter title pages and That One Pesky Image Placeholder HIGHLIGHTED YELLOW point to yes. Oops. But hey, that's what makes it unique, handmade, and crafted with love, right?
Technical stuff below the cut.
Bookcloth: Verona Plum from Hollanders
Cover Paper: Purple and White Waved Gelgit from @renato-crepaldi
Endpapers: Craft Consortium Ink Drops - Rose pack
Textblock paper: short grain cream from Church Paper
Titling: We R Memory Keepers foil quill in rose gold
@bindrebindery shared their bookcloth swatches that they have collected over the years and I thought that was such a neat way to create a small archive and reference material, that I started swatching all the bookcloths I have and some of the endpapers I have used too
And then I made a storage box to store them with a lid. BOY the box making was a learning experience with lots of mistakes and having to start-over in between.
Fanbinding(ish): Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
(More photos below the cut, and I'll add the rest in another reblog.)
I had the idea for this four years ago. I actively started on the typeset about two years ago. I finished the typeset in about two weeks before the NG news broke--in fact I'd sent him an ask on tumblr just before he left, asking him if there's an explanation for Good Omens's inconsistent dropcaps. Maybe I'll ask the publisher.
Anyway! I almost didn't keep going, but I'd already put an insane amount of hours into the typeset, and also, fuck it. So I did it mostly for me, but also for Terry Pratchett, and also for the vine.
For those who aren't familiar, a red-letter Bible is one where everything Jesus says is in red. I thought it would be funny to do one where everything the antichrist says is in red--and then I also thought it would be funny to do pull-out quotes like my Catholic Youth Bible had, and then I thought, why stop there, and that's when things started to get weird. Trying to get the text to line up coherently around the trees and the mountains especially was delicate--and of course if I changed something on the page before it would throw everything out of whack.
The cover was inspired by those giant Bibles with covers that are an inch thick with a cross or something like that debossed in the middle. The text wasn't long enough to make it that thick, but it's two layers of thin board glued together. Leather on top, and then I used a foil quill to do most of the design--anything that's a circle is a brass stamp.
I make the design on Illustrator, and then had the cricut trace it onto the foil with a sharpie. I found that a lot more effective than printing it out and trying to do the foil quill through the paper stencil. I'll let you try and guess what shape I used instead of a cross, and will put the answer under the cut.
Doing gold page edges was a bitch and a half; I sanded off attempts about a dozen times. Fake gold was a bust; so was heat activated foil. I ended up doing one layer of acrylic paint and about five layers of gold acrylic.
And because I got this a lot about My Immortal: no, I'm not going to share the typeset. Even before Everything, I feel fine justifying this because I own the paperback, the deluxe edition hardback, the DVD, the script book, and the coffee table book. But I'm not actually into book piracy. (Unless you are the Terry Pratchett estate, in which case, sharing is caring.)
I'll do another reblog with the rest of the interior images.
(And for those who were looking for it: the cover is, of course, the dread symbol Odegra/the M25 motorway.)
Fanbinding(ish): Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll
You've heard of the quarto-legal. Now get ready for the...
Quatro Legal
(ramen for scale.)
Okay. So. Context. For understandable reasons, people regularly say "quatro" when they mean "quarto," when talking about page size. (It's what it sounds like: a quarto is a quarter of a page.) @mourningmountainsbindery @zhalfirin-binds @ficcinghell and I were wondering what a "quatro legal" would actually look like, and decided it would have to be four legal sheets in a 2x2 grid.
So this book is 28" tall, and 17" wide.
I printed it on a large format printer a friend of mine was kindly willing to give me access to, and it's folded accordion style--looks like this when it's fully extended:
and the covers are chip board, though if I did it again I'd shell out for proper davey board, because I ended up spending way more time on the cover than I'd planned.
Here it is at the @renegadeguild retreat, with @mourningmountainsbindery's quarto legal, for scale:
Process pictures and videos under the cut.
So the first question was, how to get the cover on. Because PVA dries fast. I didn't want to use paste, because I was afraid the water would fuck up the boards, but in the time it would take to get glue on the whole board, the first glue would have already started to dry.
The answer:
dumping some glue onto the board, and slowly unrolling the fabric while my girlfriend frantically went ahead with a silicone scraper. So basically, curling.
For decoration, the first thing I knew I wanted to do was make a glow-in-the dark cheshire cat, so I started off by putting lines of masking tape up next to each other, drawing the design on with a sharpie, and then cutting on said lines to make a stencil. I then thought the cover looked a little empty, so I added the title. (Intermittently adding additional layers of glow in the dark paint.)
Then I peeled the tape off and the edges were a little wonkier in places than I'd hoped for. So, obviously, I had to do an outline. And I had all this imitation gold that I'd failed to make work on the page edges of my Good Omens bind, so obviously....
This also ended up requiring a ton of touch-ups: I just did the gilding adhesive directly onto the book cloth, which isn't the recommended method but I didn't trust my ability to keep my hand steady enough for primer. I did have to do two layers. (Pictured above is a bit of gilding adhesive waiting to be dry enough to put more gold on. It takes half an hour or so, and then the sealant that goes on top takes 4 hours to fully cure. So I did not do this on every single letter, though I considered it for one insane second.)
The endpapers are butcher paper a teacher friend kindly stole obtained for me. Getting them on required another frantic glue fest, with the assistance of @eebeesee, who was very nice about it.
Obviously, it was too big for the press. So here it is under a piece of chipboard, the glass top of the coffee table (surprisingly heavy,) 50lbs of dumbells, and then, for good measure, my actual book press plonked on top. Also required the assistance of eebee because keeping all of that aligned was kind of a four-arm operation.
The chipboard still warped a bit because, again, it's chipboard.
Eventually I'm going to make an actual quarto legal with the same cover so it can be compared to its mini-me.
My personal goal is to try and make fanfic binding as accessible to everyone as possible, so here are some resources on how to make a fanfic hardcover for under $25.
This is a barebones bind for the broke college students and such. Happy to field questions, too!
Here's a proposed budget breakdown:
Loosely organized thoughts:
Fanfic bookbinders often share typesets amongst each other. Never pay for a typeset for a fanfic.
You'll hear a lot about grain direction for your printer paper, but as a newbie on a budget without your own printer, settle for some nice 92 bright paper. If you like the hobby, splurge after but expect to pay at least 2-3x more for short grain paper.
Printing is a pain because some copy shops won't let you print intellectual property smut, and it's very expensive. You are better off bartering instead or looking for a free printer on Buy Nothing.
You know the thick paper wrapping that comes with online orders? It's a good weight for endpapers if you need to scrounge. Paper grocery bags or gift bags (birthday presents) might work, too.
Ask your local library to give you covers from books they are throwing out. Ask for outdated textbooks (those covers are built like tanks) or three-ring binders that are too busted to be binders anymore.
Obtain a used book that was mass produced (so your destruction of it does not impede anyone's access) and maybe even become a little vindictive with it.
If you can afford it, I recommend the Olfa SVR knife (~$10)
If you can afford it, upgrade your ruler to a t-square.
I really hope this resource is helpful! I want to stress how possible this is and encourage people to cherish what they love through art.
If you are interested in fanfic binding and have a little more disposable income, I have an affordable Fan Fiction Bookbinding Starter Pack that I carry on my site. I pack them myself and drop them 1x/month on the 15th.
Fanbinding: The Desert Storm (series) by @blue-sunshine-mauve-morning
MAY THE FOURTH BE WITH YOU!
This is 1 of 2 posts for today, a massive project that I have hit a significant milestone for: completion of both my & the author's 15-volume set of the 1.1 million word The Desert Storm. This is the fic series that got me into Star Wars as an actual fan.
Four years after Order 66 and the fall of the Jedi Order, a grieving, struggling Ben Kenobi finds himself inexplicably taken back in time, crashing headlong into the foundations of fate. Grasping hope and vengeance with both hands, Ben rebuilds his identity and seeks to change the course of history: by saving Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi Order, the galaxy - and just maybe saving Obi-Wan Kenobi along the way.
My design for this typeset was significantly influenced by mem, who had begun a typeset before me and selected black & white images for the title pages, a trend I continued.
As this fic series has meteliculous attention to both canon & EU lore, I stuck with aurebesh characters for titles wherever appropriate, which occasionally gave me some fun opportunities for chapters & tables of contents like this:
For scene dividers, I used a image you can interpret either as twin suns, or as an eclipse.
While I committed to a more classic and less elaborate design for this series, I still rounded & backed every volume in the set. "Editioning" high numbers of similar books like this is often considered in bookbinding circles as necessary to practice skills (I am at 37/45 volumes), and I can certainly say that I have gotten much better at a number of things along the way. The largest book in this series is 616 pages; the smallest, 160 - and I needed to round & back both.
Further thoughts...
Blue_Sunshine (the author) has a fantastic skill for foreshadowing; reread of this series are a must. On top of that, character relationships are consistently and realistically fleshed out and developed. And critically for a "go back in time" story, Blue has a wonderful grasp of the dominoes - what changes trickle down and ripple out; and how that could come back to bite some people. Finally - if you live a badass Obi-Wan Kenobi, this is definitely a fic series for you. Also Blue is a lovely person & our little bits of correspondence has been such a bright spot for me.
Material notes: Duo oatmeal bookcloth, orange marbled jute from Sustain and Heal, hammermill cream paper, gold foil + paint for titles.
(Keep reading for full cover pictures, close ups of the endbands with a peek of the endpapers and links to the individual book posts)
Round up of my re-binding project of the Moomins books.
I really enjoyed making them, but I'm also happy the project is complete now.
Back and front covers of the each of the books.
While I used some of the designs chosen for the book edition I had bought, I altered pretty much each of them to fit the size needed and/or also have an image on the back cover instead of the solid colour and a summary the published edition had.
The titles are printed with a metal cliché that I had custom made for that another binding and chose to use, instead of going for the full titles of the books. To indicate the volume I opted for dots above the title.
Endbands
I tried to also use the endbands to tie the different books together and picked one thread to be the leather colour or previous book and the others to fit the cover. I'm mostly happy how they came out. Only in the 3. book (where the colour shifts from violet to yellow-orange) the bead looks a bit irregular. Bead on the edge is simply not the endband style meant to be worked in such a pattern. I still like how it came out.
See the individual volumes here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Deeply honoured to have my very own copy of one of the coolest pieces of fan work I've ever encountered: a tiny book version of the "Mass Hysteria" exhibit from The Mistholme Museum!
It passed the sniff test with Frog, by the way.
Deeply grateful to @fantailpress for this incredible gift, which has been on quite a journey across the world to make it here. I'm constantly in awe of the things people make, and honoured that they chose my work as their inspiration!
I did a thing! A very small, wee thing. This is my favorite audio segment of literally anything ever, and I am thrilled that I got a chance to make it for its creator!
@daemonluna gifted me a hard copy of my Mass Hysteria typeset last year, so this is actually the only copy I have personally made.
This book is about 1.75"/4.5cm tall. First time rounding corners and doing a leather pseudo half-bind. Title is hot stamped in four colors to mimic the glitching theme.
The tiniest headcaps and headbands!
Cover paper and endpapers marbled by @aetherseer
The typeset emphasizes the glitchiness throughout this segment of the episode. For the three stories, I color coded them in red, blue, and green, but there's a lot of overlapping between them to emulate the actual audio. I added a little more chaos to this specific typeset, compared to the one I submitted for the Tiny Books Bang.
Dom, thank you for creating a wonderful and entertaining podcast. I'm very glad this is now in your hands!
I’ve wanted to try my hand at creating a lectern book basically since the moment I saw one, and what fic could fit the bill better than the most epic work in a very much epic fandom?
✨ Sansûkh retells the entire story of the Lord of the Rings and then some, so fitting all of it into a single volume was the kind of fuck around and find out idea that is common among ficbinders.
✨ So, I typeset the text in a two-column style, made it way smaller than what I usually go for (but still very much readable!), added footnotes (as opposed the original endnotes) with translation. It turned out to be 1200 pages, which I printed out twice (remember the fuck around and find out part? Textblocks over 10 cm thick do not fit into the guillotine I have access to, and using 70 gsm paper led to a textblock of just over 10 cm. So I had to scrap those 300 sheets of paper and start again with my trusty 60 gsm Ekko paper).
✨ So then, I painted the edges black, sewn 14 cm of endbands, and took a pong hard look at my life and my choices. The lecterb case was only made possible thanks to this fantastic doc by @spockandawe and @lootthecoyote's excellent mathing. I’m honestly amazed it turned out so great on the first try (ok, we did construct a mock-up first, but even it only had one mismeasured part and that 100% on me). I also made an inner cover so no parts of the textblock would show indecently. Also! The case even has inner endpapers (all theoretically visible parts are lined with the same paper I used for the actual endpapers, but taking picture of this whole Object was super awkward.)
✨ Not only did I foil the spine, there’s even a foiled design (matching the one on every spread of the pages) inside the Oxford hollow (that’s the creepy black tunnel between the textblock spine and the spine of the inner cover, you can see it in the first photo).
✨ And the most amazing part: it does the thing! Stands on its own, opens nicely and all that. (Though the pages are a bit too light to want to stay put, and you have to hold it open a bit).
Between what was and what will be stands James Tiberius Kirk, in all his fractured patchwork glory. Because saving the Federation was only the beginning.
This fic has been on my to-do list for a long time, and serendipitously got pushed up for me to do RIGHT NOW because I needed a fic I could use to demonstrate layering boards for cutouts for a class @pleasantboatpress and I taught for Binderary. @finalfrontierpublishing had a great typeset, so I rushed to get the text ready enough for the class demo that I could start the cover... and then things got out of hand. Whoops.
I started with a basic circle cutout for the globe, which then grew a secondary layer for me to sandwich copper wires into. Atlas got printed onto marbled paper and added in on top. Then I developed a plan to have the moon-earth orbits, etc on the cover...
...and I needed a sun & I had this awesome paper I decided to use for endpapers, so we get a stupid complicated paper inset too...
...and I had been meaning to try out French double core endbands so why not do those in the colors of the earth from space...
Annnnnd then I was going to a box-making class & this is the kind of delicate that kinda needs one. so. here we are!
bonus: that art peep in the background is a super awesome metal print by @natureintheory
bonus bonus: cutting out the sun, and the cardstock layer goes under the bookcloth to create the indents that the pieces of the sun fit into like a puzzle
materials notes: colibri uran bookcloth, extremely delicate handmade Japanese paper for endpapers (did an adapted form of made endpapers) that i think? is from Itoya?, marbled jute paper for Atlas + globe, copper wire, copper acrylic ink for the edge, silver + rose gold foil applied with handheld foil quill pen, japanese hand-sewing silk for endbands.
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