HERO! by Crude_Mood @crude-mood
Fandom: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | My Hero Academia
All Might discovers a young Izuku Midoriya in AFO's base and ends up with custody of the young boy upon rescuing him. Izuku hides his quirk in fear that he would be perceived as villainous and makes friends along his journey to become a hero. All Might does his best to raise a child and learns what it means to be a great dad.
FORMAT: Letter folio, flatback casebinding, french link stitch, no tapes
FONTS: Helvetica Now Display (used for comic page numbers), EB Garamond, Noto Serif JP (both used in frontmatter and backmatter with AO3 and author info.)
MATERIALS: 140gsm/37lb inkjet Double Sided Brochure Paper Glossy (8.5"x11"), 80pt binder's board (~2mm), 30/3 size waxed linen thread, yellow and light blue cardstock, Verona bookcloth: Hot Toffee, We R Memory Keepers Foil Pen with gold foil.
PROGRAMS USED: Affinity Publisher, Bookbinder-JS
TIMELINE OF SHAME:
Retrieved from AO3, and typeset: April 8-13, 2025.
Printed and bound: October 3-4, 2025.
Cover decorated, and posted to Tumblr: July 1, 2026.
I love Dad!Might, and I adore Crude's art! So pretty! So dynamic! Basically, I am one with the heart-eyes emoji, and the heart-eyes emoji is me.
I bound this comic while attending an outdoor event. A family member was getting an award, so I came along to support/celebrate. I needed something to keep myself sufficiently occupied without being anti-social, so binding a book it was!
It had been a while since I'd bound anything, and HERO! was both something I really enjoyed and wanted to keep, and also short enough to hopefully kickstart myself back into Making Things.
Regarding the typeset: Page numbers were added to the comic. Found a font that fit the vibe, then added a polygon with a slight gradient and outline to ground it on the page. Backmatter includes links and QR codes to the story on Tumblr and Twitter, and to the author/artist's carrd, as well as the usual page with all of the AO3 information.
Regarding the imposition: For the first time, I used the PDF Markup setting to add marks for sewing. Very handy. It made punching the holes quick and easy — no thought, measurements, or punching templetes/jigs required. Something that was much appreciated for this bind-it-on-the-go project.
Regarding the printing: Wrangling the printer took a while (and quite a few test prints), but the glossy inkjet paper worked great! To balance quality and expediency, I printed on 'Better' quality instead of 'Best'. This meant the subtle background hatching details were lost in the printing, coming out solid black.
Regarding the decoration: I chose yellow endpapers and spine for All Might, and based the light blue covers and foil design off of the blue All Might t-shirt.
Took such a long time to get around to finishing the bind. I didn't take the hot foil pen with me that day, then in the intervening time it was lost in the shuffle of reorganizing the craft room and workshop. We're currently going through a heatwave, so, overheated and at loose ends, I sought refuge in the cool basement for a few hours. Foil pen: found; Cover: completed; creative malaise: conquered. I have Made A Thing!