#2024 bind

Maybe Tomorrow by @scifigrl47

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.

Exit Light by Dragonflies_and_Katydids (@dragonflies-and-katydids)

Fandom: Dragon Age: Inquisition

Ship: Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus/Cullen Rutherford

Start Date: 9/13/24

End Date: 9/30/24

Pages: 225

First book bind I'm actually giving to another human. This fic is one of my best friend's favorites - and I found I really liked it too.

Crazy how purple the book cloth looks in photos. It's a DARK navy in person, so the tower and the title POP - but the lightning looks CRAZY cool. It's reflective - the effect is much easier to see in the standing spine photo

The tower is a HUGE theme in this fic - and a good chunk of the story revolves around the fight to not climb up to the top of it and find an alternative way down. I kept that theme for the whole book. The author had quotes at the beginning of every chapter, so those I've pulled out and formatted within the stonework for each chapter headers.

The header for the chapter with the climax of the story is the only header where you see the top of the wall…

Bondage is also a bit of a theme in the fic, ho ho, so there are a few knots and ropes for the page breaks.

Trim for this fucking book was fire. Headbands were also ON FUCKIING POINT.

This book has a sister - it's less attractive, darker sister - for my personal library. I'm so glad I did a trial run. With how small I originally cut everything, the scale of the entire cover was so off that i needed to redo it. AND it cut really horribly because of how small (and complicated) the image was. The color change and the castle angle updated for the real cover is - in my opinion - a great fucking improvement.

Noted to me for next time - this font, dude? Again? REalLy??

A collection of fics all written by Areiton (@areiton)

let me hear (your battle cry) | chains around my daemons | monsters of sea & sky | inspired | muse

Fandom: Marvel

Ship: Steve Rogers / Tony Stark

Start Date: 10/07/24

End Date: 11/25/24

Pages: 355

First Archive Anthology book. This is a collection of 5 of my favorite Arei Stony fics. They are all also from 2021, which I did not mean to do but just so happen to realize as I was typesetting. I wanted to start this proof of concept project with someone who I A) knew and B) would be cool with me using their fics as a test.

So, the cover. She's beautiful. For the AA series, I want the covers to be the uniform - so every Stony book will copy this cover type, but the colors will shift to blue and white for Vol 2, and then back to red and gold for Vol 3. I sketched out the Iron Man that I wanted myself and made an SVG for the first time, leave me alone, adding the swoosh marks to him and to Steve's shield. I wanted a simple, classic looking font for a universal text title. This book series wont have quotes on the back so instead I have a full spread of the graphic. Tony's the icon on the spine this time - and I think he looks great~

Ah! The side shot. I used my guillotine for the first time - so the chop on this bitch is CHRISP. Headband is gold and handstitched. The whole side profile? Crispy like fall leaves.

Title page shots. A TOC (that I only notices was a little low after I had printed both copies) with a new and customized copyright page. I looked at a bunch of pages in the Renegade Bindery discord and compiled something that felt right AND specific to this project going forward.

Typesetting this was not…bad. It did take a while while I worked out fonts and overall ideas, but ones I had them I was able to fly through. There are quite a few here, so lets take a peak...

I kept Let me hear a little simple - with more medieval drop caps and banner headers. This fic is the only one with a nontypical drop caps - but with how simple the titles were I wanted a little bit more. I also - as per my standard - did this fic first, and then started to dig down and get more complicated the further in I got.

Chains has a little more flavor - each chapter has a splash of color. Originally I had hyper detailed headers for this fic, but they just look like SO MUCH, and I couldn't figure out a way to make them look uniform with the different daemons I was showcasing. Scaling back with a flash of color, but not to much, feels much better for this fic. Also realized that I need to figure out how to trim to what my printer considerers a 'full page'.

mos&s has a little more character for the headers, where I pull peace out from each chapter to add to the title. This chapter header - and the last one - are my favorite. I used hand drawn lines to highlight under each chapter title, and pulled a color for the splash image to match with both that line and the matching line breaks in the chapters.

inspired is told from Tony's point of view - so I kept the chapter titles black and white, with harder linework and a focused idea from in each of the chapters.

In contrast, muse is told from Steve's POV - so every chapter header is an explosion of color. They're all based on a variety of art mediums - spray paint, stamp art, charcoal, oil pints, anything I could find that I remember ever doing myself. I also colored each of the drop caps a contrasting color to what the header art is.

All in all, I'm very happy with how this came out. This is the blueprint I'll use for any of my Anthology books going forward. I already have at least three more in mind for Stony specifically, and then a collection of Raven Boys and Good Omens ones that are not long enough to be a book by themselves but I still want THEM ON MY SHELVES.

Thrust Issues by @sineala

Fandom: Marvel (Comics)

Ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark

Start Date: 3/31/24

End Date: 4/11/24

Pages: 314

Oh sweet Thrust Issues. Look at this cover. This was another one that I knew INSTANTLY what I wanted to do. Only had a few sections of the vinyl fight with me here, and I learned how adding to much glue when I'm making the casing can bleed through the book cloth and stain it. Ugh.

Name of the game for this bind was: Simply bold. Clean lines, consistent headers, nothing TO much. It was a challenge to see how quickly I could get the book set and bound. The answer is a week and a half.

Ugh the spine - she's also beautiful. This was also the first time i uses substantial davy board for the cover - so this is my first book with that lovely groove on the cover.

The inside pages are also simple - heavy on the lines lines lines, and one of my favorite actual lines from the fic. My end paper that you can just see here is VERY boring - what I had in my craft stock. Reminder to myself: Next version? Make your own end papers.

Typeset! Also simple. The headers build out a heart, with each chapter stacking more and more lines. Kept the stutter text like on the cover for the chapter names, pulled out the numbers and made the drop caps OVERSIZED. Simple, clean, statements that don't distract from this fucking masterwork of idiots-to-lovers fic.

Last shot I have is of the butt. This is the last time I used pre-made headbands. Also shows how loose the casing was - that gap between the spines? HUGE. A CAVERN. AND I didn't trim the pages. I was to afraid after I had FUCKED up All thats said's pages.

All in all, this I think that this bind was a tipping point. Having property sized cover boards really did it, and seeing how quick I could bind a fic was also helpful.

Thrust Issues is a peace of angsty art - and, In my opinion, a necessary Stony read. Sineala is a huge inspiration - one of my gateway Stony authors, and happened to be the one to point me toward better resources to bind books. Her kindness, creativity, and patience knows no bounds - and I'm happy that she was so open and kind with allowing me to transform her work. Go follow her and follow her and read her stuff.

Every Marine a Wolfbrother by Dira Sudis

Fandom: Generation Kill

Main Ship: Brad Colbert/Nate Fick

Start date: 2/10/24

End Date: 5/26/24

Pages: 430

My first anthology. This is a collection of fics from Dira that I read….back when I was working in New York, so at least 6 years ago. I fell into this fic coming off a mad dash of reading everything under the sun related to A Companion to Wolves, which I found because of a Stony fic.

Built the iconography based off the marine corp logo and a queen wolf. The crown of starts was a stroke of late night inspiration that pays off REAL well. The flat mat black on this book cloth? Fire.

Anyway, I have never watched the show. Literary this was all the knowledge about Generation Kill I ever had before I started reading in this fandom. My inspiration came from the memo pads reporters use - so I wanted that flip notebook flare.

First TOC. This water damaged, gold fleck, hard used notebook idea also carries through the whole bind. We commit to a bit in this house.

The font here for the header, as well as for all of the drop caps and chapter tiles, is based off the Generation Kill show font. I wanted to treat the separate fics as chapters, and I liked the idea of keeping the tag lines for each part of the series here too. Credit pages is…probably a little much, but I also like all the info for all the fics separated.

Chapter headers are flecked with ink. Section brakes are a WIDE verity of hand-drawn lines and slashes.

End papers are a notebook grid paper style - my personal favorite - and portions of the book have grid paper hazed into the background of the pages. And there are wolves in the typeset, sprinkled around. So. Many. Wolves.

Chapter breaks got their own graphics. The colors match the whatever soldier/wolf the chapter is about. Yes, there was a chart. No, I cant remember all the wolves colors now - but Bo is gray and Frost is blue.

Final shot is my very sad first headband. And a great example of what happens if you don't trim your paper edges with the chisel flat and even - you get a visible arch on the foredge. You can see the rough cut of it on the TOC page too. I think this was my first time chisel trimming period, so...not bad.

America Isn't Chicken by Amuly (@everybodyilovedies)

Started: 5/27/24

Finished: 6/15/24

Pages: 330

Fandom: Marvel 616 - Steve/Tony

Ah, this COVER. Its SO SPARKLY. I found this vinyl first and then immediately knew how I wanted to use it. Its got glitter in it, so it did make laying the cover out quite a task. I had a few versions of the cover in my head, and pulled the scope of it back SIGNIFICANTLY - but I think this is perfect for this fic.

I did have to fussy cut every red peace out and iron them on individually. Never again l o l.

Typeset for this was very simple. Header bands and a complementary drop caps color - red and blue. I also matched the page breaks to whoever's POV, as well as alternating page number graphics. Simple and clean.

Headbands. I...I don't want to talk about the headbands.

This was also the first time i figured out how to do the fucking cover boards. It took QUITE a while, and i still don't get it right half the time - but the crease and the spine and the board with? Started cooking here.

If you haven't read this fucking classic Stony fic, I recommend. The pure idiots to lovers here is mouthwatering, mixed with the classic good 616 comic content - i hope ya'll hop over and read this. Thanks to the lovely Dr Amuly for being cool about me binding their work <3

Zero's Book Binding - Two-Point Perspective

Two-Point Perspective by @festiveferret

Fandom: Marvel - MCU

Ship: Steve/Tony

Start Date: 7/22/24

End Date: 8/18/24

Pages: 263

Yes, we're going backwards in my binding timeline - but I do love all my children, so I'll be posting them here too!

Two-Point was my first attempt at a 3-piece bradel cover. Should have watched a few more tutorials for how to do one before winging it and just doing what I thought would work - but in the end I think at least the cover and how it's attached is...fine. Cover art the this one is pretty fire, imo, both the front and back.

Here's the spine - which is the most disappointing part of this whole bind. Totally my fault. With trying to keep the color consistent I kept the gray for half the spine - should have used the blue vinyl from the cover instead. So it's VERY hard to read in photos, and a little muddy in person.

This is how we learn...anyway!

The typset for this simple - with an architect vibe. The headers get more and more complex the further into the story it goes. I really LOVE the drop caps for this one too.

Also added in the letter Steve gets from the National Omega Servies at the front of the book - you know, for a treat. I want to make it look as typed up and general looking as possible - and hand filled out where the most important information would be. Just, you know, who your bonded's number was. No big deal.

Keeping the architect drafting vibe, i did a customs little info plate with the fic info in it....