Book photo is in my collection thread.
Book photo is in my collection thread.
It's a wonderful looking book. The team sure went all out on this one.
My Collection
https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ction-MikeDuke
My Suntup Flikr page
https://www.flickr.com/people/190710085@N03/
Does anyone happen to know if the next book to be announced is supposed to have an AGE? I was super bummed that there was no AGE for Neuromancer.
No, it doesn't look like it will - according to this blog post - https://suntup.press/news/announceme...eptember-2020/
'chaos, mr. who, that is our mode and modus'
It's a little bit confusing though, the announcement schedule blog post doesn't state a live video but according to the schedule on the website there is one plus a teaser.Originally Posted by JeremyM
So which one is correct?
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A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies
Paul must have added that. Because I don’t think it was there before.It's a little bit confusing though, the announcement schedule blog post doesn't state a live video but according to the schedule on the website there is one plus a teaser.
So which one is correct?
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Yeah, i originally thought it was removed from the schedule after the last FB live feed but this morning i noticed that it had returned on there.Paul must have added that. Because I don’t think it was there before.It's a little bit confusing though, the announcement schedule blog post doesn't state a live video but according to the schedule on the website there is one plus a teaser.
So which one is correct?
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Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my CPH1919 using Tapatalk
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies
Suntup Press
Sorry for the confusion. There will be a FB live and teaser video for this month’s announcement. There wasn’t going to be but I changed my mind.
There may be updates or changes that happen after the quarterly schedule goes out, so the best place to look for the most up to date information is that schedule page.
Yes, i figured it was something like that. No harm done off course haha
Just wanted to know for sure, marked it on my calendar and i'll be there when you go live on the 16th. 👍🏻
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies
The Status page and Announcement page are the first things I check every morning. Sad, I know. But that's my life.
My Collection
https://www.thedarktower.org/palaver...ction-MikeDuke
My Suntup Flikr page
https://www.flickr.com/people/190710085@N03/
your not the only one!
The life of a collector. Both a blessing and a curse. (mostly a blessing though)
It was hell's season, and the air smelled of burning children
has the feature that tells you how many copies remain been removed from the Suntup site?
I cant tell how many AEs of LTROI are left
Wanted
CD Carrie Portfolio 719
Dark Tower S/N LE's 171 or 203
ANY Stephen King S/N LE #171 or 719
A Storm of Swords #218 or 346
Ancillary Justice #455
American Gods (+ SC Reader copy) #624
Michael Whelan original art
DT VII: Michael Whelan Remarque
there are 202 let the right one in age's left, i got that number by clicking the tiny 'up' arrow until it wouldnt go any higher, it stopped at 202, did the same for 1984 and that time it stopped at 124, the way you find out what is left hs changed, but you can still find out how many are left.
It shows for Brother but not 1984 or Let The Right One In.
Ended up getting a third AGE of LTROI from Lividian Publications. Figured why not and I won’t have to pay for it until next April.
A hound will die for you, but never lie to you. And he'll look you straight in the face.
My Collection
I couldn't resist it either, not a third one though but a second copy. 🙃
A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies
Hello everybody! Guess what? We’re going to do something awesome together today! “What is it?”, you may ask, though probably you already scanned down and seen some of the pictures and are reading this precisely because you have a perfect idea of what we’re going to. But I’m going to pretend you haven’t!
What we’re going to do is look at and talk about one of the most anticipated releases of 2020: the lettered edition of Red Dragon from Suntup Editions. The “looking at” is courtesy of ym2000, one of the best photographers of fine press editions (as is evidenced by the fact that he takes many of the photographs that are featured on the actual Suntup Editions website). The “talking about” is my realm, and it’s both lengthy and long-winded and definitely meant for my pleasure so I make absolutely no apologies (except for maybe some apologies).
Before I dive into the book, I want to note that a lot of feedback that came from our last collaboration was along the lines of either (a) “I have this book and I appreciate it more now”, or (b) “I don’t have this book but it was nice to experience it from afar”. Both of these are very nice sentiments and we definitely appreciate them! So given the widespread love that the numbered Red Dragon got, and really leaning into (b) here, we decided to do an in-depth look at a book that only a small handful of people will get to experience in person. Which is a shame! Because boy is it a spectacular book. But also the way the book-collecting world works! Lettered editions are ultra-limited by nature, and even if they were produced in greater numbers they would still be prohibitively expensive for a lot of folks, due simply to the higher baseline cost of the materials and the hand-made nature, which doesn’t scale up to achieve the same economies of scale as mass-produced publications do. But enough of this for now – there are lots of ongoing discussions about this – onto the book!
As always, we’ll start with the outside and work our way in
The most “outside” part of a Suntup book is the enclosure. I almost said “typical Suntup book” but then I double-checked and every single book in every single edition has an enclosure. Wow! Not only is this a fine feat of engineering, given the wide variety of books produced so far, but a testament to the perseverance of the design team. Every book has an enclosure, and every enclosure is thoughtfully designed to enhance the book. This isn’t a small thing! I could write a whole essay about just the variety and design of enclosures here (and probably will). But to focus on the enclosure at hand: BOY IS IT BIG.
Here's a shot next to the numbered edition:
And here are the case/book spines:
Design-wise, I think is a case (no pun intended) of realizing that you have something good on your hands and stretching it further. What do I mean by this? Well, the numbered Red Dragon is a very beautiful book, made with excellent iridescent Japanese cloth. The lettered edition traycase utilizes this very same cloth! Here’s a shot of the numbered edition, to give you an idea:
And, like the numbered edition, there’s a black leather spine label. The lettered edition is inset a little, and is gold instead of red, but the fantastic title font (a beautiful serif font) is still present. The spine label is organized a little differently because of the size, and features the Red Dragon mahjong symbol, something that we’re going to repeatedly come back to, and is quite the perfect design touch, given its place in the book. The edges of the traycase are black, which is a good choice because the red cloth is all the color we need here and so the edges give it a clean look that doesn’t take attention away from the main stars.
In fact, the second main star of the traycase is also next place we’re going to see the Red Dragon tile: the clasp.
Owners of Misery will recognize this style of clasp, which is potentially helpful in keeping the case closed but is mostly decorative (in part because this is a well-designed traycase that hugs the book just right and is unlikely to slip open by itself anyway). This is white acrylic and with a little yellowing would look very similar to bone. I do have a slight issue here (gasp!), and it’s that the clasp (like Misery) is on the front of the book. This is a much better presentation than if it were on the fore-edge, and clearly presentation is the (correct) motivation here. However, it does make it a tad difficult to shelf this book. You need a small gap in between it and the next one, and if you forget about why you need that gap and try to replace whatever book you are storing to the right of this one, you will hit the clasp. The obvious counterpoint to this is that if you are lucky enough to have this book on your shelf you give it all the damn space that it needs and shut up about it! So I will.
Onward, to the interior of the traycase! The front, back , and spine of the interior are a smooth, black suede cloth.
Not only is this another good design choice – classy, and not detracting in any way from the majesty of the book it holds, but it serves a bit of a utilitarian purpose: keeping the leather safe. This leather has a lot of depth in parts (and whether that part is the spine or the front board differs between books, which is excellent), and you don’t want that depth crushed over time! Suede is a perfect choice here – it’s soft enough that while the leather “scales” will leave slight indentations, the small amount of cushion provided should stop the scales from losing depth over time due to handling. And yes, this is absolutely a book you want to handle!
Now – to the main design feature: the boards. The Red Dragon dragonskin boards!
DO YOU SEE?
And with slightly different lighting:
DO YOU SEE?
Not only is this just a perfect design choice, it’s also a throwback to the earliest pre-Suntup days of Dragon Rebound Editions. As many have seen (and if you have not, go to the Dragon Rebound site and check it out), there were two versions of the first rebind, The Eyes of the Dragon. The more common variant is green embossed cowhide, meant to evoke a dragon. But the embossing is shallow, and while it has a beautiful texture, it’s not very deep. The much less common variant is black caiman skin. This has a wonderful texture as well as some nice depth, but the pattern and quality are less even. The boards on Red Dragon are a great example of how bookmakers learn from each other and, sometimes more importantly, build on their own previous work. Here we have both the perfect color and, more importantly, an incredible and unmatched texture, which utilizes embossed cowhide (a variety known as hornback, after the alligator hide texture) to give the binder more precise control over the pattern and the quality.
The scales are beautiful – flawless, soft, and deep. It has a “give” to it, which to me is one of the hallmarks of a high quality leather (along with softness – nice leather is soft, not hard, even when you dye or pattern it).
And there appear to be at least two binding styles – one with the ridges centered on the front boards, and one with the ridges centered on the spine. This is very thoughtful bookbinding! Often with fine leather (an expensive material) the goal is to make as many books out of as few cuts of leather as possible. Thus the position of the natural grain, or the pattern (if there is one), is often not identical between books, and sometimes there are copies that look prettier, or less pretty, because of it. In this case the choice appeared to be whether to center it on the spine, or on the front board, and cutting be damned. Almost certainly it required more skins to complete the same number of books, because the pattern dictated the positioning, as opposed to trying to fit as many books into as few hides as possible. While the grand overall design of these boards is superb, it’s the cumulative effect of things like this that makes Suntup Editions one of the more “thoughtful” publishers in terms of design and execution. It adds a layer on top of “great” that distinguishes “publishers with fantastic ideas” from “publishers with fantastic ideas and drive to execute those ideas as perfectly as possible in every book” – a key distinction that you very much want in a lettered production of this caliber.
Last stop on the outside – the top. Here we have deep red rust-colored headbands. Which blend perfectly with the boards and endpapers (coming up – oh man)! I like the monotone as opposed to multicolor here, as there’s no reason to introduce a second color. And same with the choice to forego a topstain – there is already so much going on with the boards that it’s unnecessary, bordering on distracting, to have a topstain.
Shall we actually open up the book now? Yes, let’s!
The first thing: endpapers. I was VERY curious about the endpapers here. Something understated, maybe monotone, that won’t take away from the main attraction (the boards, clearly)? Something more extravagant – not anything that would compete with the boards, of course – but maybe with a pattern, or handmade?
And what did I get – an incredible, pleasant, surprise!!
I am a H-U-G-E fan of hand marbled papers, almost to a fault. In my mind, there was nothing that could ever be lost by using hand marbled papers as endpapers, and everyone who didn’t use them, should have! I still feel this way, but dialed back maybe 20%. The publisher that cured me of this – Suntup Editions, of course. First of all, with some of the incredible patterned papers we have seen over the years (Misery, anyone). Second, with as much as can be going on with the boards of these books, I do now understand how marbled endpapers can be seen as competing with other design elements of the book. So, given just the exquisite production of these boards, the main attraction, the stars of the show, I never would have expected hand marbled papers. Going back to the Suntup site, it clearly says “endsheets are hand marbled” but man am I super glad that I either didn’t process that, or forgot about it, because I was floored by these sheets!
The color is spot-on: oranges and whites, interesting but appropriately subdued. The pattern is an old one, called “bouquet” or “peacock”, and apparently involves the use of a double-toothed comb. It’s slightly “fiery”, though not like the endpapers from the DRE Eyes of the Dragon, which would definitely have been too much here. I think the white is really necessary to tone them down to the point where they don’t compete with the boards, but complement them, which they do – absolutely perfectly. These endpapers are the supporting actor whose presence is nice in and of itself but who has the extra talent of making the star shine brighter than he or she would have otherwise. A superb choice!
Again, let’s take a short detour and look at some shots of the numbered edition endpapers, which are also very nice! A totally different palette here: green, dark blue, red, white, and just the slightest touch of a yellowy gold.
The numbered boards are a different hue from the more ruby-red of the lettered edition – they’re darker and shot through with some gray – so these (mostly) darker endpaper colors, especially the green, suit the numbered much better than the lighter orange in the lettered.
Now - into the book we go
Obviously the biggest component here is the paper itself! It’s really quite amazing how thin or thick a book can end up based on the paper used. This is a decently-sized novel – roughly 350 pages in the first edition. Here it’s a bit longer, due to the interior design, art, etc., clocking in at just under 400 pages. But the Suntup editions are substantially thicker because of the excellent paper. Likewise with the numbered vs the lettered: same design, same layout, but much thicker due to the difference between Mohawk Superfine and Mohawk Fine Strathmore Pastelle. I have to admit, of all the “book stuff” I’ve picked up, paper is the hardest. I know there are certain buzzwords here that indicate quality and maybe after like 10 more of these reviews I’ll have something better to say than: this paper is good. The lettered paper is thicker and nicer and textured and everything on the inside of this book looks better because of it.
The title page:
Wound Man:
ALL THE GORGEOUS MOWRY ART, UUUUUUUUUNNNNNNNGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH (in a good way, not a “being on fire” a la Lounds way)
The way the paper soaks up the ink, the way the texture of the paper adds to the art – wow:
And the two-color printing! This can seem like such a small thing but can really bring every page to life. To have a chapter heading, or mid-chapter break, or accent in another color can really draw you into the story in an unexpected way! To have a thoughtful printing of an important symbol – next level stuff:
Lastly, finally, after this absolute tour-de-force, we end with the limitation page. This is nice both because of the design, but also because of something completely out of the control of the press: the signature. I DO NOT LIKE a bad signature. Scribbles. Some wavy lines. C’mon authors: give us something nice! With the top billing here going to JRR Tolkien, a nice early Stephen King, and plenty of other very thoughtful signers, and the bottom billing going to any number of scribblers like Josh Malerman, Matt Mahurin, and many others who should also be shamed here for their absolutely lazy signatures (but I can’t list them all), Harris is in the top 1% and Mowry maybe the top 10%. The Harris sig is just an absolute beauty. You can even tell that he uses a nice (fountain?) pen. I mean – wow.
Well – that’s all for now. Not much left to say!
For everyone who made it through all of the words, or even most of them: thanks for hanging in there and I hope you enjoyed this! For those who just enjoyed the pictures – I can’t blame you, they’re damn fine examples of the photographic art.
Thanks for reading!
Exquisite - thanks for sharing!
Stunning! Thanks for sharing these wonderful pics and description!
“If you don't know what you want," the doorman said, "you end up with a lot you don't.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Looking for SubPress Lettered::
Angel's Game and Prisoner of Heaven (Zafon)
Ilium (Simmons)
Absolutely stunning !
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CLUB STEPHEN KING (french website about STEPHEN KING, since 1992) : on : Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
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Agreed. Yegor's photography is beyond reproach.
You don't know my kind.....You don't my mind.....Dark necessities are part of my design.....
Thank you Mr Tim and Yegor !!
Can’t wait to see a Lettered copy in person
One thing you didn't mention, the SMELL. The Lettered has the most intense leather smell I have ever experienced on a book. It remains on your fingers after you have handled it and whilst I'm not aware I have any particular personal leather fetish, I find it absolutely gorgeous.
Just one more sense that is overwhelmed by a Suntup production!
"A real limited edition, far from being an expensive autograph stapled to a novel, is a treasure. And like all treasures do, it transforms the responsible owner into a caretaker, and being a caretaker of something as fragile and easily destroyed as ideas and images is not a bad thing but a good one...and so is the re-evaluation of what books are and what they do that necessarily follows." - Stephen King
In case anyone is looking - $700 or best offer
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson SIGNED by ARTIST New Suntup Press Limited 1/250
After I looked at it, got an offer from the seller for $675, so they're at least willing to go that low.
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