This typeset of Pentimento by orange_crushed was created by @teleportbooks for me in the 2022 @renegadeguild typeset exchange! (And bound as part of my Binderary 2023 stack, and look, I am REALLY behind at posting right now, and going to schedule some posts to catch up.)
This fic is a MDZS Wangxian modern AU set in a museum, where Lan Wangji is an art conservator, and Wei Wuxian is an art handler. (Drama! Tension! Meeting after years apart!) One of the joys of a well-constructed AU is seeing how the author recontextualizes canon, and I really enjoyed how the pieces fit together in this fic, as well as Lan Wangji's voice and point of view.
I raided my wife's art supplies for this one (also for the most themed photo op I've done to date) and used two different types of canvas for the book cloth. The lighter cover is just untreated canvas, backed with fusible interfacing and tissue, run through a home laser printer for the cover, and the title on both the cover and spine is acrylic paint using a Cricut-cut stencil. The darker canvas on the spine was gessoed and had a backing on it, and it did NOT want to stick with wheat starch paste, and only held with great reluctance with straight PVA glue. But it worked in the end! The endpapers are some of my wife's gelli-plate printing experiments, for a modern art vibe.
The typeset is lovely and elegant, with a title page set up like a gallery placard, and @teleportbooks included all of the artwork referenced in the fic as if they were colour plates in an art book! Look at this gorgeousness...
I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out overall, and the setting was definitely fun to riff off with the materials used. (Although I will only use that darker canvas again under duress... or for something else where it's the perfect fit, honestly.)
Last Binderary book is DONE!!!! This is the incredible Maybe sprout wings, by @moorishflower.
This post is going to be a doozy, so gonna just skip straight to the cut!
INTERIOR
INTRODUCTION
I really wanted to model this bind after my own copy of the Odyssey, (which is all highlighted and bookmarked and annotated to hell from my Great Text courses in undergrad ehe, so this bind was such a fun trip down memory lane!). But beyond just the cover/general aesthetic, I also wanted to give the book a similar feel to these kinds of editions of classics--there's usually an introduction, translation notes, and other supplementary materials, right? Like, a physical manifestation of the work of many, many people, all having conversations with one another across time and space.
So that's what I did! I wrote a short introduction (I will also probably post it to my AO3/my blog as well, in the name of preservation etc. etc.) and began reaching out to folks in the fandom who I knew had created art and meta for the fic. The result? 18k words of analysis, comments, and meta, and nearly twenty pages of art!
And this is what I love most about this bind, I think! This book is the work of several people--truly a collaborative work by the fandom--all of whom I will now be shamelessly calling out below :D
CHAPTER HEADER ART
First and foremost, this book would not be what it is without the gorgeous header art by @fancy-rock-dove! Thank you so much Dove for letting include your work, and for being so supportive and kind these past few weeks about this bind <3 You in particular have contributed so much to this book (which I will be getting more into in the next section ehe), and I'm so psyched I get to hold your art and words, too!
NOTES ON THE TEXT
This section was divided into four parts: Asks and Answers, Meta, Selected Comments, and Chapter Heading Art: Process
For Asks and Answers, I trawled Heather's blog for meta she had written in response to questions and other meta about the fic. Asks came from @fancy-rock-dove, @quillingwords, @kulapti, and myself! (I THINK I got all of them--tumblr's search function is finnicky even on its best days, so so sorry if I missed something T_T) I first got hooked into reading this fic because of one of these asks, so I'm very fond of this section in particular :D
For Meta, I included two wonderful essays written by @pastrypuppy (also known as @kulapti) about Hob as an author figure and the Disrupted Fisher King narrative in MSW. Her analyses were so fascinating and I just had to include them in the book! (And thank you as well for your permission, friend!) (also hello fellow Renegade comrade 🫡)
For Selected Comments, I owe everything to (once again :3) @fancy-rock-dove, whose insights are the epitome of transformative fandom at work. I'd look for their comments after I read every chapter to see what their takes were on this or that element of the story, and every single time I would go "!!!!! I didn't even realize!!!" or "OOOOOOOH I hadn't thought of that!!" It was like being in a lecture hall and always whipping your head around when one of your classmates raised their hand, because you knew they were going to say something fascinating that you hadn't considered before.
Aside from one of my own comments, Dove's comments make up the entirety of this section (for which I owe you my life--your long-form responses to fics are a gift to this world) but GOSH was it also so much fun going through the comments section while typesetting and seeing all the keyboard smashing, yelling, and crying from the other commenters. Communal nature of storytelling and ongoing meaning-making of fanfiction, babey!
And finally for Chapter Heading Art: Process: once again Dove coming in clutch with some wonderful insights into the design of each of the chapter heading art pieces! This kind of stuff is honestly my favorite: meta about art for a fic which is, in turn, a transformation of an existing story (not even to mention that The Sandman is its own kind of fanfiction of existing mythologies and histories)--I just!! Think it's all really, really neat :'D (for more coherent/polished thoughts on this pls see my introduction asjdfkls)
ART
The art gallery!!! A million thanks to @fishfingersandscarves, @honeyseller, @jazzpsych, @doctor-rainbowfoxey, and (HI AGAIN DOVE) @fancy-rock-dove for granting me permission to include all of your beautiful pieces!
As usual for artworks in my binds, I printed each piece out on specialty photo paper to really make the colors pop, then sewed each page separately to the text block! Behold, everyone's beautiful beautiful pieces!
The art gallery also satisfies the certain "oooh shiny" part of my brain that always activates when I see pictures in a book, so am also very fond of this section :3
CONSTRUCTION
And now on to the nitty gritty stuff! I used the German Bradel binding technique again, my second time using it. Even though it's more complicated than the case bind, I really love how it gives you the full board space for the cover designs (~it's free real estate~). Keep it a secret but I kiiiiiiind of made a small goof in the last few steps (I did the turn-ins a step too early and so had to paste an extra sheet of cardstock to secure the spine to the boards, whoopsie), but it's a pretty small difference, aesthetically speaking, so it wasn't the end of the world XD
Edges are once again fake gilded, but this time I tried something new with the colors! I did two layers of acrylic paint--one watered down shade of red for the base, then one metallic gold on top of that. I really like the red/gold effect! I'll have to keep experimenting with this kind of layering:
ALSO. Y'ALL! I think I'm finally getting the hang of endbands!!! Many thanks to the folks at Renegade who hosted all the endband workshops last month--I'm still working through them, but even the few sessions I've seen have been TREMENDOUSLY helpful. I learned that tension is Very Important, as well as thread thickness, so I tried doubling my thread and keeping a Very Close Eye on how I was holding the threads while doing the beads. And behold! I still have a ways to go (and one day I would LOVE to do the fancier designs), but I'm v happy with the progress I've made so far!
And finally the covers!! ARCHIVAL MOD PODGE MY BELOVED. I printed on the same matte presentation paper that I used for the art, then did several coats of archival matte mod podge + a pass of gloss mod podge over the title strip to make it ~shiny~. Then once those had dried and I'd adhered them to the boards, I sprayed two layers of matte clear acrylic sealer (also mod podge!) to finish it off. I had some issues with the paper tearing when I handled it before it was fully dry, but luckily the blemishes were small enough that it was easy to do spot corrections with my black acrylic paint. And now I know to be more patient next time LOL
(some non-photoshoot shots that show the shine a little better!)
FINAL THOUGHTS
I had a lot of thoughts while I was binding this book--about Sandman fandom, about Dreamling fandom, about the Odyssey, about storytelling, about fanbinding, about Binderary, about Renegade, about my friends--but really what came to mind the most was gratitude!
Simply put, I'm so grateful to everyone I've met both in this fandom and throughout the years I've been active online--this is SO fun, y'all. It's so much fun to love stories together--to talk about them, to write them, and of course to bind them! I hope I've adequately conveyed that gratitude.
But of course, this book would not exist without the wonderful words of @moorishflower. Heather, thank you so, SO much for sharing your stories, thoughts, and time with us--it is always a happier, better day when I get an email notif from you and when I see you on my dash. I love your work so much, and I'm so happy I finally get to put it on my shelf! So thank you so much again, for everything <3
and OKAY THAT'S IT FROM ME FOLKS!!!!! Binderary 2023 is officially a wrap! I had SUCH a blast--will probably write up a reflection post on it uhhhh after I take a very long nap ajslkdfjslk _(:3」∠)_
So I really love 00q as a pairing - when done right it's absolute perfection. After reading Oh Mercy I Implore, I knew I had to bind it.
This is the third book of binderary for me - I still have 10 more books to go!
More photos under the cut.
Statistics:
149,791 words || 475 pages
Body text: Liberation Serif, 11 points
Titling/chapter font: Bestaline Sans
I've been meaning to outline my design process for how I decide to do books which I'll probably outline in another post.
Cover done in Neenah Illusio Laser in Cambric, headbands done in 2 colour silk, stitchery on spine using dark gold linen thread, and completed with Cricut Gold Foil HTV.
Next up for me is finishing the Hannibal bind - a bit of snafu with buying precut bookboard in the wrong direction means I have quarto books in my future.
Just finished my first fic for @renegadepublishing’s binderary!!! Today on the chopping block, this is about a stuffed bird, by @theminecraftbee!! I’ll be honest I started this project completely on a whim while waiting for paper to arrive, but I’m so so proud of the results.
This fic was a present for my wonderful roommate, @majestic-ruiqing, since I know it’s one of her favorites and wanted to do something nice for her!
The cover art was done by my friend @tea-with-veth, who sent me some art that she drew a while back so that I could use it.
For the technical side, I actually leaned how to chisel a textblock correctly!! So this book has some of the nicest edges I’ve ever done. Not to mention, this was my first time doing splattered edges, which turned out very nice. Also my first time making paperless bookcloth!
You can read the original work here:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Last summer I was lucky enough to get an ARC of Anna Marie McLemore's queer trans gatsby retelling, Self Made Boys. The cover was fairly bland in comparison to the published cover so giving this baby a rebind was one of my first binderary projects!
I of course didn't want to lose the original cover with the "exclusive" sticker on it so I made a little pocket in the back to keep it in.
The only thing its missing now is the title on the spine which I will hopefully be printing once I have access to a cricut at my local library and maybe some cute corner protectors.
Do you remember when I went very quiet last year and then posted a ton of books out of nowhere? So unusual and memorable, I know. But it's binderary again, and both a need for speed and simple vanity compel me to achieve the tier that's affectionately named for me! 28 books in 28 days, bonches. Or, no, because last year I did thirty and I will literally be sorcerer's stone dudley at me if I don't at least match. So we're doing 30+. Going by my own arbitrary rules, I have harvested no text, done no prep. Including prep for what I'm gonna bind, lmaooo. Extending the arbitrary rules, I can work with text I've already collected, BUT, i will have to wipe all my formatting and begin anew. Also my brain was melted into paste by work and I forgot what day it was, so I am closing out my day three like so:
There should be 15 books in that stack, but after taking the picture I counted 14, womp womp. I assume a tiny one is still sandwiched between comic books. I wi find that lost sheep.... after I sleep. My sleep schedule is so broken right now.
That covers some shorter fics and some low-hanging fruit. Now that I feel VERY confident about my timelines, I'm going to start stirring some Big Boys into the mix. I think I've pinned down.... 4+3+1+1=9 definite other candidates, so then I have to thoughtfully ponder my bookmarks and my cnovel reading history. Then I have to think, lmao. I'm closing in on an actual weekend, looking forward to seeing how much I can get done without a massively disruptive schedule. My secondary goal is to see how quickly I can hit that 28 book mark, and I'm feeling good. Some of the tiny books should be cased in tomorrow, for sure.
Grantaire is earnest in this, and it’s heartbreaking. Enjolras can’t look away. This is just a rehearsal. Grantaire is still wearing skinny jeans. They have lights and phones and textual analysis and thousands of years of history between now and then and yet–
When Grantaire speaks, the distance collapses.
(Grantaire as Hamlet.)
Title: Middle Ages Deco
Headers/Accents: Letter Gothic Standard
Body text: Adobe Caslon Pro
Case title: Goudy Initialen
38,667 words | 224 pages
Binderary book 1: a long-favourite EXR fic. I love wild Les Mis AUs and I love Shakespeare and this is all of that in such a lovely lovely form. Stage manager Enjolras is inspired. Also, I've been frothing at the mouth to use my special blackletter fonts and go suuuper overboard designing and this was Perfect for that purpose.
More pictures/design/process under the cut.
Design and Construction
Case: Flat-back case binding with bradel board covers and spine. The spine cloth is Hollander's pearl linen in charcoal grey. The painted titles were done in Amsterdam acrylic ink in silver, with a pair of scissors because I don't own a painting brush and likely never will. The cover papers are printed on 80gsm white printer paper and glued with a regular Elmer's glue stick and PVA on the turn-ins, and the whole case is sprayed with workable fixatif to (hopefully) preserve it longer-term.
Covers: The front and back covers were designed in Photoshop. The centre image is a William Morris pattern, and the top and bottom little circles are Renaissance printer's ornaments (pngs by the lovely @helle-bored of Renegade Bindery) that I vectorized in Illustrator (Illustrator and I were sworn enemies until this month. Now we're forced friends. Like enemies to lovers).
Insides: Endpapers are a William Morris pattern recoloured in Photoshop to be a richer green and red, obv, for EXR. Printed with inkjet on 80gsm printer paper and glued to gold cardstock, and sewn into the textblock. Endbands are pre-sewn from Hollanders, dyed gold with acrylic ink to match the endpapers.
Typesetting
Typeset was done in InDesign. This is a one-shot with scene breaks, so to match the theatre theme of the piece I replaced the horizontal line breaks with flagged scene numbers. I tried to strike a balance in the typesetting between classic Shakespearean aesthetic with the blackletter drop caps and cover fonts versus what you might see in a theatre script book with the monospace accents. The title spread uses a transparent decorative frame, again from Helle's collection; the large box in the middle with the title was part of the original frame and then I duplicated and resized it for the author name and my imprint.
We All Do It, or, the Mistakes Section
I somehow managed to print the cover papers nine inches tall and didn't see a problem with it until they came off the printer. Truly who knows how that happened.
I was working on the case at two in the morning and cut the spine cloth the wrong length three separate times...earned the measure once cut twice badge big time for that one.
The endpapers were an ordeal and a half for real. What I learned: print them too big and glue the cardstock to the back, then trim the paper to size, not the other way around otherwise you'll end up with big ugly gaps where the trimming was a few millimeters off. Whoops.
And...more pictures
I'm particularly pleased with how the covers here came out so here's closeups. Also, the arc on the spine that you can see in the endband on the last one is really pleasing to me lol I fought a war trying to get the flatback hinge calculations right.
