I call this one The Bina Collection, and it is a surprise for @binart that was SUCH a long time coming.
Bina, I don't know if you remember, but I hope you won't hate me for not warning you ahead of this post!
A bit of context because as usual, I can't help yapping about my process.
By now, my huge Call Me Beep Me Excel typeset debacle is well known, but basically: I fell into the VLD fandom completely by accident at the beginning of October 2025. After this (tragic) event (for my sanity), I spent some time going from one AU to another, until I stumbled upon Bina's art.
SRPA was my first foray into canon-compliant VLD fancreations, and it was everything I wished for in a post-canon work. It also impacted me as what I consider a creative tour de force: I found Bina so strong for having completed such a massive story in spite of everything, from art to writing. I know many who would have given up.
As it turned out, SRPA was my 1000th bookmark on AO3. So, naturally, I had to bookbind it. Which is how I found myself asking for permission... in October 2025.
Yes, that's seven months ago. Stuff™ Happened. It's been hard to keep track.
And after Bina answered my enthusiastic (and very shy) request with an even more enthusiastic message, and told me her wish to have a tangible copy of her art, I thought...
Hey, I loved BPJ. Why not do BPJ too?
And then, as mentioned, Stuff™.
So I thought, you know, sometimes it's important to have reminders of our accomplishments, things that we can be proud of, things that brought joy to both us and the people around.
The Bina Collection was born.
I wanted to keep a coherent visual design for all, something to sort-of remind the good old sci-fi book collections I loved when I was a teen. I went for simple bradel binds, with suede bookcloth (with titles printed on it) for the backs. The covers are black paper, the titles are heat foiled with my laminated machine, and the illustrations are printed and laminated directly on the black paper. Making those was an adventure and a half, but I'm so happy with the result.
The font for the title is the NASA-like font Nasalization: it was the closest I found to the font Bina used for her own title pages!
And since I wanted a harmonised design, I went with my favourite lion pattern. Yes, the one I've already used twice. It's just so good.
This post is already quite long: I'm adding a cut here, you'll find all the details book-by-book beneath it.
Let's start with the one that started it all: SRPA - Space Rangers Partners' Adventures.
I did my best to gather all the comic pages from Bina's Tumblr and set them on black page to try and have a uniform background. After printing, I sewed using a black linen thread so that it wouldn't be too visible. An unfortunate guillotine calibration made it so you can still see the (unavoidable) white margins on some pages, but overall, the black pages succeed in "keeping everything together."
For the written part of the story, I typeset on Affinity Publisher, with the main font used being DilleniaUPC because I like typesetting with serif fonts, but I wanted something that looked more... modern? than good old Times New. I don't know, I liked the vibes.
Chapters are not numbered, but each has its own header with the illustrations Bina specifically made for them.
And as you can see, because I can't help it, I typeset the text messages differently. I love this kind of details.
Now, let's move on to my second favourite story, the one that gave me a taste for Langst: BPJ - Blue Paladin's Journey.
For this one, I knew I wanted to use my absolute favourite format, that I already used for Ikimaru's comics and my two lyrics collections, the vertical A4 folio. It makes SUCH FUN BOOKS.
Even if, as you can see, I miscalculated for this one and sort-of forgot that it wasn't as wide as the others; hence the cover being too close to the right side... Shhh. It was a conscious design choice, of course.
For the inside, I did the exact same thing as I did for SRPA: I gathered all the frames from Bina's Tumblr and arranged them on a black background. Let's be honest, it took forever, but it was very, very rewarding. I am so happy and proud to have a copy of BPJ (even if, let's be real, this format can be a pain because it doesn't fit on my bookshelves.)
Now let's move on to DTOK - Doomed Timeline Older!Keith Does Time Travel To Save Lance (And Also The Universe Less Importantly).
The doomed timeline may be tragic, and Lance is obviously suffering (...and Keith by extension), BUT it's still so incredibly funny to me. Coran and his stun laser are priceless.
This one is quite short compared to the others, and looking back, I shouldn't have done a bradel bind for it: a single-signature might have been enough. It still looks nice like this.
Same process as the two above: gathering the pages from Tumblr, black background, black linen thread. Simple, efficient. Nothing too fancy for a nice read.
And let's conclude with the story that ended up being my favourite, because of the taste for Langst I ended up developing thanks to Bina: WAHPCR - What A Healing Pod Can't Repair.
I don't think I can recommend this story enough, and yet, at first, I didn't plan to bind it. I was stuck: it was published earlier, and the links to images were broken, and Bina said that she found the art did not match her style anymore.
BUT, as mentioned: it is my favourite. And if I was doing an actual Bina Collection, this story should be a part of it. And I've already mentioned multiple times that archiving was important to me... So I confess. I fished out the illustrations from Tumblr, and included them in the typeset. If anything, it was a way to show all the work, the evolution, and the love poured into all these stories.
The title page has an illustration from Bina's Tumblr which, if I understood well, is not directly linked to WAHPCR. I didn't want to leave the title page without an illustration (I was still trying to keep a coherent visual design, remember!) and I found it fitting...
The font for the body of text is, once more, DilleniaUPC (following the same rationale as SRPA) and the chapter headers use the font Nasalization again, as well as free assets from PNGegg that I had actually used a year ago for my VRAINS anniversary notebooks and that I love. I'm so glad I had the opportunity to use them for a totally different project.
And... that's it!
It was an ambitious project, and in all honesty, I almost gave up on it after having Affinity Publisher crash on me too many times due to my laptop being old and so many images eating up all its memory. And then when I had to reprint the covers multiple times because I messed up with the foil. And then when—you know what, it doesn't matter, because I kept going even if it took me MONTHS. It meant a lot to me to complete this collection, and I'm glad I did.
(Me for Binderary: I'm never working on seven books at once again
Me for the Bina Collection: you know I'm sure I can do six books at once. 🙃)
So thank you so much, @binart, for all the work you've put into this, for everything you've given and keep giving to this fandom (hiatus or not) and for being so enthusiastic when I asked for permission to bind SRPA. Again, I hope you don't hate me for going a little overboard.
This project was a big adventure, and I'm so happy I could complete it.
As for everyone else, I can only encourage you to follow Bina, to read her stories on Tapas, on AO3, to maybe commission her, and most importantly: to shower her with love.
(By the way, Bina, all of these above? They are your copies. Let me know if you'd like more photos/a video flipping through the pages. And while shipping from France is terribly tricky for me right now, I'll be moving to the other side of the Atlantic in less than a year, so... Take as much care as you can and hold on till you can have them in hand? 💖)
