This really started over a year ago, with a project started in the Renegade Bindery server: people would format different chapters of My Immortal, without knowing what anyone else was doing, and we would put them together into one file. It was agreed upon that everybody would disregard both good design and good taste.
(If you click on each image, the caption lists who designed the page in question. I couldn’t include them all here, but every page is basically a work of art. Horrible, typographically hellish art.)
After raiding a Joann’s of materials I thought belonged in Hot Topic circa 2005 (before it just became Think Geek II: We Don’t Light Our Store,) I almost immediately tested positive for covid. So I made most of this over the last four days, and with varying levels of coherent thought and common sense. The process is documented in a thread here
Smash or Pass by @thisisadickinson; author’s, friends’, + personal copies.
Lydia Deetz finds a new horror podcast to listen to while she tries to fall asleep. The host has a nice voice. Too bad that's all he's got going for him.
21,591 words | 172 pages | 6 copies
Smash or Pass is one of those fics where immediately after finishing it, you start reading it again. It is so side-achingly funny and over-the-top emotional drama—often at the same time—that you can’t put it down. And it fits the alternate universe setting perfectly! If Alex Brightman had been hired to play a sleazy podcast host, this is exactly how he would have done it.
One of the things I love about Smash or Pass is how cleverly horror movies are incorporated throughout, and what each character does or doesn’t know—or pretend to know—about the genre. I osmosised so much info reading this fic. From Lydia’s artistic sentiment to Betelgeuse’s low-brow focus, it’s a treasure trove of info and clear love poured into Lydia’s lofty essays on the evolution of the genre that BJ disregards on air.
For this bind, I pulled design ideas from Suspiria, one of the most important movies to the plot. Seriously, if you’ve never seen it, the Technicolor in this movie is STUNNING (and it also has a bangin’ soundtrack). I wanted to pay homage to old horror posters with tons of fonts and more modern designs, which I did by starting each chapter with a 2-page spread of one of the iconic horror characters Betelgeuse rated Smash or Pass (spoiler: they’re almost all smash), recolored using different iconic combinations from Suspiria.
Other design elements take inspiration from the podcast where BJ does his reviews + ratings. The cover replaces the bloodied ballerina on Suspiria’s cover with a microphone stand and a cable pooling beneath it. Instead of page numbers, an episode progress bar crosses the bottom of the pages, color-matched to the character spread that starts the chapter. Each chapter also features icons tied to each character (Godzilla’s spikes that glow before using atomic breath, the curling iron Angela uses to kill Judy…) And the bookmark has a pause button on it, which I thought was a perfect fit!
Smash or Pass is a hilarious, hot story that celebrates horror + perfectly captures two classic characters we know and love. Read it on AO3, and thank you Saluvril for writing such a fantastic story!
I am so excited to share my latest book! This is an anthology of my favorite one-shots by mushroomwizzard157 ( @thedragon-and-hisboy )! This author is one of the first I discovered when I got back into HTTYD last year. I immediately fell in love with their work, and I cannot recommend them enough! When I started bookbinding, I knew I had to have their work on my shelf. And I'm really very happy with the result! The artwork is by @mr-business-whump !!
(My usual disclaimer applies: I am still very new to this, so it's far from perfect, but I am definitely learning more with every book! Also, the lighting in my house is atrocious, and I am decidedly not a photographer lol. I don't know how to get rid of those shadows 😭)
I actually have another book I finished before this one that I'll post soon, but I was so excited about my newest project, I just had to share it first!!
After about 6 months of only doing paperback book rebinds, my latest fanbind is Thanks for the Memories by @sazzyfics ! This story is incredibly sweet--an amnesia fic set mostly in the South Downs cottage with a loving (if understandably naive) Aziraphale and a deeply emotional, protective Crowley. The plot is so satisfying and enjoyable. Please check it out if you haven't already!
I had a lot of fun with this design. My inspiration for the typography was the bodice-ripper romance classics of the 80s and 90s (a la Kathleen Woodiwiss, Anne Rice, Rosemary Rogers, etc...) I wasn't able to pin down a specific font from any of those covers, so I just eyeballed it until it looked right. The cover image is by William Quatremaine--it took me forever to find an image that was both public domain and not AI generated (😡) but I did eventually happen on a suitable-ish cottage vibe. And the endpaper has this lovely gold foiling detail that I tried to capture in the fading afternoon light of my front porch.
Technical details ➡️
Book cloth: Allure bookcloth in coral from Hollander’s
Endpapers: Venetian Florentine print from Hollander’s
still need your teeth around my organs by @damienthepious
My 2024 tiny books bang book (beautifully typeset by @just-a-pollicle) has cousins! I completed a copy as a gift for the author and one for myself just ahead of the 2025 bang.
The author copy features endpapers and an oxford hollow hand marbled by me.
My copy has the same floral endpapers as the first edition of this book.
I didn't get a good photo of it on any of them, but the southeast flora and fauna paper is double sided, there is a small stripe of the geometric yellow side on the back covers.
Using clear contact paper to transfer the vinyl made a world of difference in improving stencil quality.
(long post, sorry for the bad pics, my phone sucks, the colors are butchered here)
First of all, a thank you to all the authors I've reached out to regarding this project. They've all been very nice to me and I hope they think this book looks good. I tried to make something on par with the amazing fics they wrote, and that was a high task.
The fanfictions collected here are (in no particular order):
The ties that bind, Radiate, recognize one silent call, And if you, my pets, learn to listen and You, me and the devil makes three by GodivaDevice
It's not fair. by CRUXSADO
Speaking of Rats and Kayfabe by Ungefug
In Love There Is Pain by Reeby10
Your body, a slaughterhouse by ConcreteCreature
The Softest Brick Wall and the Risky Fuel series by Eggshellseas
A Different Time, Thursday, Wednesday and The Fake by Hereforwords
You make me violent by Davidfincher
And I don't care, you've got your tongue against my neck by Raspberrypez
Mark On You by Wheat From Chaff
The altar is your hips by Peakvincent
Hating you at yesterday by Dogstigmatism
I couldn't get in touch with some of you, I hope that if you come across this, you don't mind my doing it.
The project: A year ago, I saw a gif of the CM Punk/MJF dog collar match on tumblr and I discovered wrestling. That's the first match I watched, and I fell in love with the wrestlers and their story. I went on to read many fics about them and the quality of writing in this fandom blew my mind. So I wanted to collect my favorite here for easier re-reading, and it was an occasion to work with a satiny fabric for the cover to mimick wrestling gear.
The bind: This was quite a complex project for me, I learned a lot and had to use my bookbinding skills (such as they are) to the max. For the cover, I replicated Punk and Max's gear during the dog collar match. See the inspo pics and the full cover:
Not too bad! A hurdle or two: the fabric has lines that couldn't be smoothed out completely, you can see them here. It's literally lines, this cloth has been ironed smooth. If I'd worked with real spandex it wouldn't have happened I think, but I'm not there yet, so I stuck to cheap satin. Also, when I added the burberry ribbon to the cover, I realized PVA glue wouldn't do the job, so I had to superglue them, and a little glue seeped through on the top there. What can you do. By the way, burberry ribbons?? I had to buy it from a small online shop that sells doll making supplies, it was hard to find.
While we're on the technical stuff, the massive new thing I tried here was chisel trimming the edges to get a smooth result. And it worked, after a lot of training and hours and hours of hand-destroying work. I'm really happy with how straight and smooth the edges turned out. Fun fact: I printed, folded, sewed and trimmed this book a first time, then because the result wasn't good enough, I used that textblock to train with the chisel, and then I started over and printed a second book, the one that you see here.
I chose green for the endpapers and endbands. I love me some green. Have some details:
Guys, believe me, this book is prettier in person and the colors are more vibrant. Damn phone camera.
Now something I find exciting: the typesetting!
The fun thing with wrestling is that it's very visual, so I can incorporate more pictures than I usually do in my books, and my new printer gives good results. There are pictures of the dog collar match and other pics of Punk and Max scattered throughout the book. I tried to put them in relevant places.
I made a little cover page for the Risky Fuel series. All individual fic have an intro page with all the info (author, rating, word count, tags, etc.) and a QR code to the fic on AO3.
Overall I kept it pretty simple, I didn't want to overcrowd it with decorations. This is for reading, after all. Here's what a normal text page looks like (the book has 460 pages btw):
I'm very satisfied with the evenness of the margins on all sides. The first word in Old English font is a callback to MJF's logo and Punk's "straight edge" tattoo.
Nitpicking: I think this is it with straight spines for me. Every time I try to do one, I have issues, it never turns out perfect, and it bugs me. The result here looks good, and the book lies flat as it should, but in person I see the imperfections and I hate them.
I'm a rounded spine guy and that's what I'm going to keep doing, even though they have their limitations (the only one I can think of right now is that you can't do a color split on a rounded spine because it will crease where the cloths meet, which I can live without).
In the end, I'm very happy I bound this book, because I'm going to be able to enjoy reading these fics cosy in bed for a long time. They're so good, guys, go read them!
Fonts: Cover page: Damage Plan and Old English. Text: Leelawadee. Fic titles: Built titling rg. All free with Windows or on Dafont.
Materials: Grey board 2mm thick, online-bought polyester "satin", Heat'n'Bond Ultra Hold, tissue paper, white copy paper 80gsm, synthethic ready-made bookmark and endbands, endpaper from Schmedt.
Feel free to ask me more about materials and fonts (or whatever), it won’t bother me at all to tell you what I used, I just can’t think of anything else right now.
Finished working on this fun birthday present for @speaching and I’m obsessed with how it turned out! Bookbinding is such a fun hobby, I really can’t explain how satisfying it is to create an idea and then get to have your favorite stories in your hands with your own work and love put into it. 10/10 hobby, would recommend! The art on the dust jacket is by @ mohishko on Instagram! They were very kind to let me use it for this project and I feel like it ties the whole thing together 😌
Please do not buy or sell fanfiction! This was all made entirely by hand for the purpose of gifting to a friend, it is illegal to buy or sell fanfiction 🖤
