#bob brown

Strangest

Dracula Lives #10: The Blood Book

by Steve Gerber; Bob Brown; Crusty Bunkers and Karen Mantlo (?)

(Source GCD)

I tried a few things with this book and a few things didn't pan out. I decided, fairly early, on the gag of red waxed cheese and that meant leather- with which I am less than a novice. But I wanted it so...

The bite mark was made with a two inch wide scalloped hole punch, positioned as carefully as I could without making a jig. Thus the wobble in the line. I might try something like this with the laser cutter in the future when scorched paper would be more appropriate.

And- look at that iffy wrapping job on the cover! Circles are the worst.

(These collectively mean everything I own is covered in red bits or yellow crescent moons.)

My poor printer is also showing the edge of its capabilities, vis à vis image reproduction. I'm lucky the original artist, Eric Blegvad, has such a loose pen-n-ink vibe; it hides a lot of the artifacting. Anything more structured and it'd be unacceptable.

Speaking of structure, I was going to try a split board bind, given this fella was going to be thick. That meant shouldering but my standing press broke AS I was attempting to make the shoulders. Instead of waiting like a smart and reasonable and not panicking person, I ditched the oxford hollow I was Gonna make and tightbacked the spine. I figure this should give better support than not and more clearly allowed the cute tapes to be seen. But the block shows obvious signs of abuse. No good.

You can also see I did a terrible job on the internal hinge/turn-in. I tried to trim the 'excess' (tightback spine, recall) but I over-trimed the leather and needed to patch little sections. Looks a wreck but, you know, apparently I wanted this.