One of the largest projects I've been working on is this typeset and book version of 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, one of my very favorite video games. (Which later became the first game in the Zero Escape franchise.)
The game is a visual novel and escape room game combo with multiple routes and endings leading to a true ending. So this version is structured like a Choose-your-own-Adventure book where you flip to different pages depending on your choices.
I also made it possible to skip all the less linear escape/puzzle sequences because they don't read very cohesively. But they do contain a lot of funny or revealing lines so I didn't want to eliminate them entirely.
I should also mention one of the reasons for doing this is that I wanted to preserve the original text of the game from the Nintendo DS version from 2010. When it was remastered/ported to PC and Switch a lot of the dialogue was rewritten very much for the worse. As well as making the novel sections optional, which destroys a lot of the point and atmosphere of the game.
The book is a full leather casebind, with stenciled titles. The leather was honestly a little too thick and required a lot of paring, which is terrifying because any slip could ruin it. And the final satin finish I put on made a lot of the leather flaws look worse and more obvious, which is annoying. It was my first time doing faux raised bands on the spine, and they came out nice.
My printer decided to fuck with me while printing this one and the color alignment is off. This is my second attempt at printing it and it's better than the first but still not great. But I wasn't gonna waste so much paper again.
And no, I'm not planning on doing the sequels. I can't imagine trying to deal with VLR's 28 endings when doing 6 was this challenging and annoying. And the sequels are perfectly represented by their existing playable versions, unlike 999.
My magnum opus, the jewel of my Binderary round-up, the result of four months of hard work (that is to say, a lot of force applied over distance), the project affectionately known as The Motherfuckers (because it was rather unclear if I was going to finish these books or if they were going to be the end of me).
Force over Distance by cleanwhiteroom. It is currently also on AO3.
I was first introduced to this incredible story by a dear friend, who first sold me on actually watching SGU, and then said that they remember this fic since like 2011, which is always a promising sign. I went digging and found out I was in luck - the story was being rewritten and reuploaded on the author's blog. The next two weeks are described by the same friend as "one of the scariest moments in our cohabitation" as I'd spent literally every waking moment injecting the story directly into my eyeballs, and let me tell you, I'd not been doing a lot of sleeping at that time.
Then I gathered up my courage and reached out to CWR re: my burning desire to bind this story. And the rest, well. Let's dig into it, shall we?
This was my first time typesetting 540k words. Considering I tend to prefer larger font sizes for increased legibility, it was immediately obvious that this was going to be a multivolume project. I settled on three, as it's the relationship between three individuals that forms the core of the story.
I also knew I wanted to keep the typeset in black and white, but play around with light and dark a lot. So I did. One of the first design idea I actually had was the way I wanted to handle projected speech. Mental link between Young, Rush and Destiny is THE most vital part of the story, and I wanted to make it immediatly obvious. I also wanted to be able to take one glance at the page and tell how much of the action is actually just two guys staring each other down :) Hence the blackout effect of thoughts being represented as light over darkness.
I also wanted to preserve as much of my reading experience as possible. So I saved all the chapter quotes/summaries in the TOC, and hid the chapter content warnings in the frame of the gate that marks the beginning of each chapter. For most of the chapter the warnings stay the same, so after a while you stop really noticing them, but then you open a new chapter and see that the familiar shape of the words has changed, and get this UH-OH feeling. Which, I think is very much how it works in my design, because when the warnings change there's usually another line of text added.
For flashbacks and dream sequences I switched from italics to a lighter shade of gray. I woudn't say it's more legible per say, but it's in keeping with the overall light/dark theme.
There are instances of people using handwritten notes in the story. I collected more than a dozen of assorted handwriting fonts, with each character having their own "handwriting". So when, for example, someone begins writing in someone else's hand, you immediately know it.
The most insane, labor-intensive part of the typeset, however, was the way I decided to handle the Ancient translations. CWR's gone through the trouble of setting up hover-to-discover for it, which gives you a very different reading experience than, say, having the translations in the endnotes. So, naturally, I said to myself that I want to replicate that, and footnotes just won't do the trick. So. Every instance of Ancient in the text has an underlay of light gray Ancient script. And an OVERLAY of paper vellum with the translation printed in blue. Now, not to toot my own horn too much, but if looks SICK AS FUCK. You also MAYBE SHOULD NOT LIVE LIKE THIS. For the two copies of this work I had to cut up 10 sheets of vellum into strips, and then spent from 20 minutes to an hour per volume tipping the strips in their proper places. I then had to wear kinetic tape on both my hands to help with the joint pain. (It was worth it.)
Now for the title spread. It is also paper vellum that you see as soon as you turn the first page (the half-title), and see it covering the title of the book and author's name. And then you turn it. And the shields sing the matter wave of Destiny through the black. And yeah, I think that's very, very clever of me, actually.
Then, of course, were the endpapers. All 12 of them are unique abstract paintings done on black cardstock by hand with brush pens and correction tape, I scanned a sample of each set for posterity. All of them are my interpretations of characters' midscapes. For volume 1 I went with the fire wind of Rush's thoughts. Volume 2 was for Young, and I went for the reverse blackout poetry effect (because for all the mental talking they do, the unprojected thoughts are opaque to their counterparts) and all the loops, hairpins and blocks he does. Volume 3 is for the combination - Rush's fire wind, changing its color to match the circuitry pattern of Destiny's AI.
The rest, in comparison, is easy. All volumes are stitched with 3 strands of embroidery floss, a combination of black, blue and silvery-gray. The French double-core endbands are sewn in the same color scheme (though with a different shade of blue and gray switched for white for added contrast). The edges are painted and splattered to look like space.
The covers feature my (signature at this point, I guess) half-cloth river pattern, with the base being dark blue linen and the printed parts being Spitzer telescope images of the W51 star forge, Jack-O'-Lantern Nebula and the Eagle Nebula (courtesy of NASA), waxed by hand for added sheen. The spines are foiled in silver with a foil quill.
Each set is 5 pound of solid hand-crafted book, with one set being my personal copy, and the other sent as a gift to the author.
And that's it, folks! This has been an incredible project to work on, and I'm very proud of what I achieved with it.
A year and a half ago, I made a post about @renegadepublishing launching their code of conduct. I’m pleased to report the community has been thriving, and is abuzz with even more growth!
Over the past year and a half:
The Discord size has doubled.
The membership has skyrocketed to nearly 200 members.
Our events have also doubled in participation!
We’ve started four brand new events!
We’ve launched 12 satellite servers with 414 members!
All this, and yet, there’s more to come! I’m pleased to announce yet another massive undertaking has finally come to fruition…
THE RENEGADE BOOKBINDING GUILD WEBSITE!
Renegade has grown so much and still remains such an incredible, vibrant community, and this step forward will only enable us to do so much more. There is still more work to be done, but it’s absolutely amazing how far we’ve come. I can’t wait to keep building this community with all the wonderful people in it! 🎉
We’re currently kicking off Binderary 2024 with a bang, with 34 workshops planned for the month of February, all completely free and community-run!
If you’re waiting for a sign, this is it! Come join us, and start your fanbinding journey!*
Summary:
Past, present, future, Steve knows Bucky Barnes. It’s why he recognized him when he found him in that alley in April of 1942, even though Bucky was older, stronger, wearier; he called himself The Asset, and had a metal fucking arm. He flinched when Steve tried to touch him, and when Steve told him he loved him, his first response was to ask why.
The Asset was only with Steve in 1942 for a few days, but it’s enough to change the course of Steve’s life forever; the journey to becoming Captain America is coloured with urgency, with an undercurrent of fear and determination that in the end he just can’t manage to hide from everyone — But it was all for nothing. Steve saves Bucky from Zola, just to lose him on the train. Their second chance, wasted.
Seventy years later, Steve wakes up in the twenty-first century, and he doesn’t know whether to be heartbroken or hopeful when some of the things Bucky revealed to him in 1942 start falling into place.
Specs:
Square back bradel, red edges, marbled patterned endpapers and endbands, A6, with slipcase.
A gripping read from @potterspink, undoubtedly one of my all time favorites. I’ve revisited this fic over and over again and it is no less satisfying to read each time!
On the process:
I knew I wanted to base the design of this binding around a matchbox, and decided to go with Diamond matches. Really liked how it turned out, especially with the striker design on the spine of the book. Had a lot of fun bringing in elements of the story into the slipcase design too, and the slipcase construction was so much simpler and easier than I expected!
I’m quite pleased with the matches marking parts one to three as well, adding a little pop of red that ties everything together. I’m binding three editions of this fic for Binderary so check out the paperback & collector's edition for a more in depth look at the typeset!
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi finds himself mated to Anakin Skywalker. Things are only slightly better because of it.
My biggest project of Binderary was this bind of Igneous, Molten, and Volcanic by zimriya. I read these fics last year and they basically took over my brain. I'm in love with the comparison between Obi-Wan's pov and Anakin's pov of their relationship.
This is definitely the most creative I have gotten with my covers so far! I'm still very new to this but I really wanted to try something special and different with this one. 3 fics, 3 stripes on the cover (if we want to get crazy with symbolism, I'm thinking black=igneous, red=molten, and yellow=volcanic). The paper on the front called out to me for this fic for obvious reasons. This is the second and biggest text block I've ever sewn together (12 signatures) and I think I'm getting better at it. I had fun typesetting the fic and including the age and location marks at the start of each section. Decorating the side was an interesting challenge. I initially used a gold foil quill to trace the text and Jedi symbol on the front but then decided it needed more definition. I tried one of the paint pens recommended in one of the workshops and fell in love. I can't BELIEVE how well the author name came out! The fact that my hand was steady enough to get the outline is crazy.
My darling sibling @dyingslowlybutfasterthanyouare has reminded me that tumblr exists and is a thing that I have so uh... here we go.
This is the fan binding of my favorite barduil fanfic seeking a friend for the end of the world by the very talented @scary-grace! My sibling and I worked on this together, (the first time that they worked on a binding at all, everyone give them a round of applaude for those chapter headings), and it was a lot of fun!
It is also the longest fic I have ever attempted to bind, coming out at nearly 800 pages! Previously the largest I'd done was about 350, so when it was first printed I sort of stared at it in terror and then let it sit on my desk for several months before finally getting started on it.
The fic itself is what I have been affectionately calling a zom-com road trip fake dating au, so I tried to put a lot of road trip elements in the design. The paragraph breaks all show the progress of their journey, with the little car moving forward as they get closer to their destination. And I was very pleased when I found road trip cover paper with the phrases "Do not pass," "stay on path," and "on the menu" included. That last one has me giggling every time I see it. I am very proud of how it turned out and can't wait to post more binds as I make them!!
