Oct 2012

The Orb: 24 Hour Comic Cover

This post describes printing the type for the cover of The Orb, a 24 hour comic I’m making into a limited edition book. The interior will be printed digitally. You can see it here.

I’m going to start with a shot of the final type layout compared to a paste-up of the proof so it’s easier to envision the process. These show the covers trimmed and folded (it’s easier to see the fold on the white paste-up; it bisects the rear wheel). The type on the paste-up was printed as a group and then cut out and affixed to the proof to plan the composition. The typography on the green cover is nearly in its final position.

orb_pasteup_comparison

I neglected to take any shots of the woodcut being printed, so imagine that it has already occurred: a stack of covers awaits the second run for the type. Before removing the block from the press, I recorded measurements from the edges of the press bed to the approximate positions of the individual sections of type, based on my paste-up. I removed the block and all of the furniture, then placed the type sections according to the measurements I had taken. This shows the press bed, with the title on the left and the back cover text on the right. THE ORB is still secured with string in this picture.

orb_typelayout

From here, I added furniture to fill the space and quoins to lock the form. The press was inked and changes were made based on where the type actually printed. Eventually, the design was finalized and I focused on printing aesthetics. Here is the press bed as it appeared for printing. You may notice the lack of ink on the rollers and type. This is because, as usual, once I got involved in printing I forgot to take more shots and had to take one later, after the press was cleaned.

orb_typelockup

Here is the untrimmed cover. There are two unusual things about this sheet: it bleeds on two sides (left, bottom), and the right edge has a very small margin for grippers. The paper I wanted came in three sizes that would fit in our guillotine cutter, one of which was too small. The largest of the three was double the second size, which just meant more work trimming it down. The middle size left me a choice of easily getting one cover out of each sheet, with lots of waste/offcut, or being more precise and getting two. Obviously, I chose two. This meant squeezing the block as close to the grippers as possible and dealing with the bleeds. The bleeds weren’t a problem because the paper is thick enough that the areas of the block outside the paper were spaced away from the tympan enough so as not to print onto it.

This shot is a little washed out. The color and intensity is more accurately displayed in the first picture.

orb_cover

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