A princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs
Full cloth binding, backed with french grove and paper onlays, coloured edge and french double core endands.
The typeset was part of Renegade's Tiny Books Bang event last year, but it took me forever to get enough distance to come up with my own cover instead of copying the wonderful bind that was exchanged in the event.
This wonderful typeset was provided by @tinwhiskerpress
A few months ago @mourningmountainsbindery contacted me to let me know they'd bound "Off Duty" through "Shifting Priorities" from my ongoing No-Order 66, good government and recovery-focused Codywan "When Duty is Done" series-- would I like a copy?
Would I like a copy!?!
Look at this absolute beauty, which arrived late last week and which I've been gazing at and touching gently like the most precious new kitten.
This is such a beautifully crafted book, from the handpainted endpapers and exterior edges to the colors for sewing the binding-- which opens to lie flat in a way so many mass-produced books don't anymore. The color combinations are perfect, and the stylized combination of the Jedi Crest and Cody's suns' rays is amazing. It's even in my favorite font, Garamond!
It was my utter delight to make this for you! Thank you for putting your words into the world for us, and especially for putting Obi Wan and Cody in the world the way you did!
The Boy! Is! Finished!
A bit of a disaster as a build but I'm pleased with it. The 2mm excise on the boards was not nearly enough for that spacing at the flap but ehh. And I forgot to use two layers of mesh for the eye sockets- so the silver film deformation is p noticeable. Minor issues that I'll take to my grave, Absolutely, but Hard Ehh. It's a bit of a test run for the next book so lessons half-learned.
Edit: Oh, yeah. I should prolly add the source material har har.
My latest project finally completed despite Helene’s interference. The amazing Terminus by @emotional-support-demon-crowley (BraveLight) is a wonderful human au featuring astronaut Aziraphale and Crowley at Mission Control. So tender and yearning, just absolutely beautiful.
🕯️ This is my first binding of a public domain work! It’s based on the first edition of Marina Tsvetaeva’s first collection, The Evening Album.
🕯️ The binding is an A6 Bradel, with linen spine and corners, and Pepin Press William Morris paper on the cover.
🕯️ The trickiest part was typesetting a collection using pre-Revolution Russian orthography as, while there are fonts with the necessary glyphs, most aren’t coded properly, so every ѣ is pasted on by hand.
Fandom: The Avengers (Marvel) – All Media Types
Ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Start Date: 4/12/24
End Date: 5/2/24
Pages: 433
On my list of fics to bind, Maybe Tomorrow was the one I saw the most clearly in my head before I started. I had an idea in my mind immediately - knew what I wanted the cover to look like, knew the chapter headers - the vision for this bitch was so clear the entire time I was working on it.
The fic is a an Annie retelling. I wanted the cover to combined a playbill vibe - pulling the city scape from some of the covers - and the Gatsby vibe. The Empire state building was my main inspiration - it combines those two thing brilliantly.
I could not find a skyline of New York that I like. So I made one. This cover is built out of MANY small squares that are masked behind other squares. There are…so many individual paces of this cover. It took me WAY to long, but I this was one of those times where I knew exactly what I wanted this to look like, and I did it.
Ok, let me nerd out for a second. Specifically I wanted the sun burst on the front - and on the top of the spine - here to look like some of the old art deco elevators floor indicators. The hollow gold really fucking pulls the whole cover together. The Broadway font, the hollow gold vinyl - honestly, this was my favorite cover. It's the most themed, that's for sure - and also the most detailed.
End pages are that lovely art deco arch. Commit to the bit. Can tell that the binding tape is a little thick/the end paper is a little to thin - so you can see them ghosting just slightly. Still, the shiny gold fans were fucking perfect.
Ok, moving on. The typeset for this chunky boy is also lovely. Every chapter has different top header frames. The Broadway style font for the headers and the drop caps are all gold.
This was my first try imbedding images into the chapters as well, relating them to whatever is going on in the fic.
Including the shot of my splash page too. I've started to define this a lot more now, but this was the first time I think I detailed this page this much.
This is one of my fucking favorite fics. I love everything about it - the plot, the character writing, the mood. Scifigrl47 was the first writer I tripped over on my way into the Steve/Tony fandom….fucking, what? Ten years ago? It's a pleasure to read their fics, always, and I'm ecstatic to have it on my shelf now.
If you somehow haven't read this fic, you're welcome.
The first time I saw this, I cried.
The idea that something I wrote gets to live on as a physical object that is this beautiful, this well crafted, made me cry.
The idea that it was loved enough to become REAL, with such care and effort and artistry, is so humbling.
Thank you. For making it, and letting me know it's out there, hopefully worth the time you spent on it. I'll forever be grateful.
Another one I typeset, uh, in January 2023. But it's done! This was an experiment in using the cricut (off-brand) hot foil attachment on leather: it worked really well for small designs, so I thought, why not fly a little higher. Five hours and six sheets of foil later, I was spitting out saltwater. But I decided that the flakiness worked for the design, so I stuck with it. (I tried a second version and added glaire between the foil layers, but the spots that got missed in that one looked worse to me because of how solid the rest was.)
These past months I’ve not been dead, but rather multitasking (making author’s copies of books I’ve bound previously to send a box of them to the US, experiencing a severe depressive episode, and also, working on this!). And now: Behold, the best fucking thing I’ve made in my life so far! ✨
These two books are basically step-fanfiction, or maybe fanfiction times two, seeing as it's the story (co-athored by my darling spouse and I) featuring NPCs from our long and passionate TTRPG campaign (played in the setting of Tessa Gratton’s United States of Asgard). Do not be fooled by the books’ papery appearance, they are primarily made from my heart’s blood and tears.
Welcome to 1951 is a fantastic series by @prairiedawn, in which the worlds of Star Trek and MASH cross over. Someone on the Renegade Bookbinding Guild discord server recommended the first story, "Meatball Surgery Shouldn't be Green" a few months ago, and the title was enough to make me try it. I devoured the whole series in the course of a few days and immediately knew I wanted to bind it. The character voices are perfect and the plot is gripping.
The book is bound in off-white leather, decorations in acrylic paint, stenciled on. The endpapers I made myself with acrylic paint as well, following a method Roger Green describes over on his bookbinding instagram page.
The edges are sprinkled with yet more acrylic paint, and the endbands are five color silk. I will say--the process for binding these two books was absolutely cursed. I had sewn, glued, trimmed, and painted the edges of one volume before I realized that a huge chunk of the middle of the book was somehow missing and hadn't printed? I had to start over. And the leather wouldn't pare properly, and my first cover design plan failed miserably because I couldn't do inlays, and then the second design plan ALSO failed miserably because the paint didn't stick properly. It took trying a couple of different techniques (mostly failures) until I eventually got it to work... only to realize I had a spelling mistake on the cover and had to redo it AGAIN. But in the end, I finally got it to all come together and I'm pretty happy with how these turned. out.
Just when I thought my hobbies couldn’t get any more niche 😂
The most time-consuming part of the process was typesetting, and the hardest part was figuring out where the heck to acquire bookbinding materials. The actual bookbinding process was not that difficult (it helped that I cannibalized an old book for its hardcover case), though it’ll require some more practice.
Dust jacket design by me, interior artwork by @lucife56 and @mariascorzelliart ❤️
(Now I’m off to typeset The Golds.)
I chose A Darker Blue by @skiitter as my contribution for a white elephant exchange we did at a meetup with binder friends in Berlin this weekend- because simply more people need to read this masterpiece! It is one of my absolute favourite Dramione fanfics and I was thinking for a long time how I could best transport the very poetic, moody and cabin-by-the-sea vibe of this story into a bind. In the end I decided to try something completely new and opted for a handpainted cover.
Did I have any idea what I was getting myself into? No. Did I curse myself in-between? Oh yes. But in the end I really love how it came out, especially the back cover. And acrylic paint is such a great flexible medium for a cover, so I will certainly do it again 👌🏻The incredibly beautiful typeset is by my dear friend @curies_curiosities who kindly let me use it for this bind.
A darker blue by skitter can be read on Ao3.
Bound for personal use only. Keep fanfiction free!
Selected and lightly edited Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling. Bound in Neenah soft touch fake leather (used to be for sale through Hollanders, but no longer), with hot foil decorations.
Last two for @renegadeguild’s FanFic Writers Appreciation Day! For the wonderful writing duo of @theladydrgn and @sylwritesstuff editions of their lovely Always You. Omegaverse au where Aziraphale and Crowley are best friends as children, then loose track of each other before finding each other again. “Vaguely 18th century” is one of the tags. It’s a beautiful what-if take of their fabulous story It’s a Nautical Feeling, which started my bookbinding adventure.
E, 117,835
second ffwad bind @renegadeguild! love doing a surprise bonus mini book, love a cat transformation fic. Curl Up in My Heart and Let Me Keep You by @letmetellyouaboutmyfeels, one copy for me, one for the author (i kept the millimeter binding). letter sextodecimo, just under 2x3 inches, 144 pages.
progress pics under the cut!
These itsy-bitsy A7 books are three copies of white queen, red heart and snow white, blood red by @ofgeography
One copy was for me, one was send as a gift to the author, and one is for Goose @imaginariumpress who is generously helping me with actually delivering author’s copies for Fanfiction Writer’s Appreciation Day this year.
🩸 The color scheme was right there in the prompt, so here are the bloody tiny books.
🩸 The covers are white cotton hand dyed/painted with red ink; the same ink was used to paint the edges (I wanted at least some bleed, and ink does that);
🩸 Title pages feature the dark forest and the dwarf caverns;
🩸 The fancy drop caps and the page numbers are bleeding. I really love this effect for vampire stories, it’s so extra!
🩸 But probably not as extra as typesetting the entire book in blackletter, but it felt appropriate for the dark fairy tale vibe the stories got going on.
I had a lot of fun with this project, and I really recommend checking out the stories if you somehow haven’t already!
when i say i screamed when this came in the mail!!!!!!! every time you guys make something like this for me i have to lie down on the floor for 32 hours with an icepack on my head because i'm so overwhelmed by emotion.
Vampire AU. In 1902 London, Fenris's flight from his former master leads him straight to the city streets—and the night's creatures who walk them. After a chance meeting with one who calls herself Hawke, Fenris's escape is curtailed as he finds his fortunes entangled with her own, forcing them both to face old fears and old scars as he attempts to win his freedom at last—with or without Hawke's help. For the 2012 Dragon Age Big Bang.
Happy Fan Fic Writer's Appreciation Day, one and all! This is the second of my two concurrent binding projects: a decadently gothic bind for a deliciously gothic vampire AU. As soon as I finished reading Ever Rise, I knew that I wanted to bind it. It's such a fun and inventive AU with great worldbuilding and really on point characterization, and the Renegade Bindery's FFWAD celebration provided the perfect opportunity for me to do so.
Excerpts from the typeset (including illustrations!) below the cut.
@kolutshanpress approached me about binding this fic several months ago, which was cool enough, but when she offered to send me a second copy of my own I just about fell off the chair. Right now, actually having a copy of this text in my actual hand, seeing things I wrote in actual printed word, has made this one of the coolest, most thoughtful, most incredible gifts I've ever received. The illustrations are incredible and so apropos to their scenes, including the Big Bang art pieces from @frikadeller; the epigraphs are set beautifully enough to twinge my wee Sayers-loving heart; and even seeing my dedication to @jadesabre301 in printed text honestly made me tear up. I wish I could take pictures of every part of this that touched me, but then it would just be the entire book page by page.
I really cannot get over how professionally and how beautifully this has been bound. There are even multiple places where gorgeous QR codes link back to my AO3 and the fic itself, as well as to supplementary illustrations. It's just the most professional, high quality, empirically most awesome thing that's ever happened to anything I've written, and I wish I could find the words to express my gratitude at your generosity and kindness in letting me have a second copy of my very own. This is honestly a treasure and I will protect it forever. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
It was my pleasure 💕 Genuinely, your enthusiasm and excitement have made this bind so rewarding to work on. You're an excellent writer, and I'm so beyond pleased to have been able put a copy of that excellent writing onto your bookshelf.
Another year, another Fanfiction Writers Appreciation Day!!!! If you are a writer of fanfic, please know just how appreciated you are!! Fandom would be such a different space without your creativity and labors of love. 💜
Holidays are all about making traditions, and the bookbinding friends with @renegadeguild once again came together to bind copies of fics for their authors as a show of our appreciation. This year I had the absolute joy of binding Emergency Help Wanted by the wonderful @piyo-13 and even got to collaborate with her on some of the design elements! It's a Modern AU Jiang Cheng/Lan Xichen fic that starts with a "help wanted" ad.
EMERGENCY HELP WANTED
I lied when I got my job. I told them I had a kid so I could leave early from work to pick him up from daycare, take him to doctor's appointments, and occasionally miss a day when he's sick. Long story short, I'm in too deep. I didn't think it through. Looking to rent a kid for bring your child to work day. Must be a boy ages four to six, longish dark hair, likes soccer. Must also be artistic as the macaroni noodle paintings I made seem a little advanced for his age. Also, I will pay extra for someone willing to play the role of husband when dropping him off. He's a prosecuting attorney who often brings his work home. Message me for further details. Serious inquiries only.
Ok. So. I may have gone a little feral with this one. Online "help wanted" ad spiraled into loading wheel scene dividers, spiraled into fake Google search result headers, spiraled into FULLY committing to those authentic looking text messages. In full color. (There are so many. I typeset in MS Word. It was SO worth it, but god what a struggle at some points.) And don't forget the "recent searches" title page! Or the computer cutout on the cover! (It's bluescreening, just like Lan Xichen through this entire fic!) Also that cover/title page image that I just kept adding details to. (It's supposed to be Lan Xichen's desk, so it simply didn't feel right until it had sticky notes on the computer, #1 dad on the mug, scissors and measuring tape, scribbles on the sticky notes) Did I have a ton of fun designing this one? Perhaps. Couldn't say. Maybe just a tad. (This is a lie I had an ABSOLUTE BLAST!)
Historically, I've waited until I finish at least the typeset before reaching out to the author, but not so with this one! I got the idea for the fake google search results from Piyo's authors notes, teasing the contents of the next chapter. But! Those didn't start until about chapter 4! So I reached out and asked if we could collaborate and I'm forever glad I did! Not only does this have teasers for each chapter, I also got to bounce design ideas off of her, including what shade of blue and purple for the text messages. Because my friends, that is a serious matter and changed SEVERAL times throughout the process.
Also shoutout to all my Renegade friends who gave input and encouragement over the past year while I worked on this (what endpages to use? how to make this shade of green perfectly Nie Huaisang? how do we feel about this text message design? or how about this one?) - I love you all dearly and appreciate you so much for putting up with my nonsense at all times.
Binding details below the cut!
And because I had so much fun with the chapter headers and other details:
DO YOU GUYS SEE THIS!!!!!!!!!! i'm still yelling, i spent some time last night actually reading my own fic and having to stop and giggle every five seconds because IT IS REAL. it is now a PHYSICAL BOOK THAT EXISTS. and also staring at it in awe because this is such a GORGEOUS bind, the pictures really do NOT do it justice...
LIKE THE COVER!!!! is the most perfect bookcloth colour for xicheng and the BLUESCREENING COMPUTER FHDHDIDJDDJ??? all of xichen's little work accoutrements...
god and i wish i could fully capture the beauty of the endpapers, the blues are mesmerizing. and then Comma shared a bunch of pictures from the inside which look a lot better than my pictures so take a moment here to scroll back up and look at all of the incredible typesetting work they did, because between the chapter titles (which are SO funny with the search boxes oh my god, GENIUS idea) and the full colour and formatted text messages (it's so readable! i could cry!) and the INVITE and the loading section breaks, she deserves a gigantic round of applause
AND!!!! Comma HAD A LITTLE SURPRISE FOR ME--
IT'S ILLUSTRATED!!!!! there's some 5 illustrations packed in there. flipping through this was such a joy and i'm sure as i actually take my time to read (it's a REAL BOOK!!!) i'll discover even more fun things :')
all this to say, thank you again, Comma, for such an incredible gift!! this writer feels very appreciated ♡♡♡
