#the mutandaverse

Despite not having any proper presses, I aspired to create a book with a rounded and backed spine. And although the overall result is a little squished, the mushroom shape of the spine is enough for me to call this project somewhat of a success!

For the cover, I wanted the reader to be able to 'peek' into the Mutandaverse, hence the cutting of a 'window' to which the setting showcases itself. I'll talk about the image later, but I like how the juxtaposition of the skyscrapers and the suited African man entices the eyes.

For this bind, I wanted the setting of the Mutandaverse to permeate through the entire book, pages, text, and all. As such, I went to great lengths to convey the anthology's vibes in design and form. For one, I scoured font sites to find a typeface that evokes a Black Panther-ish vibe: both modernist yet also African in feeling.

Instead of using Arabic numerals, I wanted the very numbers of the stories to evoke the Afrofuturist/post-apocalypse feel, so I eschewed using Arabic numbers and instead looked to Sub-Saharan scripts for inspiration. All 9 stories in the bind are marked using the Njoya script, from Cameroon.

As the stories of The Mutandaverse are scattered throughout the internet in various forums and archives, I wanted the reader to be able to trace them digitally. So I opted to have a story header that incorporates QR codes: one to the original story and the other to a version that's saved in the Internet Archive. Each story header comes complete with an Njoya story number and a header picture that is different for every story!

Finally, I wanted to use art by Sub-Saharan artists for the endpapers. Jonathan used the artworks of Ikiré Jones from Nigeria as a basis for some of his fiction, and it is those that I print and use as endpapers. Out of all the artists, Ikiré Jones' truly evoke the messy feel of what it's like to live in a universe where starships and skyscrapers mix with slums and street culture.