July 2023

I put the case for the Roman edition down on the floor with other books ready to repack and couldn’t resist taking a photo. Did I say it was an oversized book? 

In a couple of days we’ll be showing the Frozen Hell books from Arete Editions! Two years in the making. The complex stitching and tabbing of the plates to allow a gutter free experience of the books took way longer than we ever imagined. Meanwhile here are some of Greg’s black and white relief printed illustrations for the story of FROZEN HELL!

Frozen Hell running sheet passed by Alfie.

More sketches and preliminary drawings by Greg Manchess for his paintings for FROZEN HELL. His work and passion on creating the mood for the book drove us all to push a little further in the making the actual book, he is an inspiring artist to collaborate with and the paintings and black and white illustrations are by an artist at the very top of his game. The Roman Edition contains a portfolio with a window mounted one of these unique drawings.

Each book of the FROZEN HELL Roman edition contains a portfolio with a window mounted original art by Greg Manchess of one of his pencil drawings for the copious plates he has painted, someone will be the owner of one of these stunning images! Over the next couple of weeks we’ll be putting up selections… and showing his art skills and work that went into the paintings for the book.

Greg at work! Greg sent us clips of him painting, in the last shot you can see the size of the original of one of the plates that come in the climax of the story. Our Roman Edition of FROZEN HELL has the plate nearly the same size as his original! The painting gives an idea of the scale of the book…

HELL is coming soon! Paranoia permeates through the science substation. Lost in the wilds of the artic, cut off from the rest of the world they have found a Thing, an alien from another world, frozen since before recorded time, let loose by being defrosted.

We are going to present the original unedited newly found story of The Thing. Rich in art by Greg Manchess. Here is another example of Greg’s process of one of the plates that show the men’s fear and paranoia! Here you can see his development to find the right angle and composition.

We do most of Arete’s books using the very old craft tradition of metal type, when that comes into Phil Abel’s studio is then put together to make each line and each page. You can see some of the process in the stories below. But here is film of Phil proof testing each page for FROZEN HELL!

When you can’t trust who is an alien and who is human, paranoia prevails.

One of the many plates from our new Frozen Hell book coming very soon!

We always wanted a sense of the acute paranoia that prevails as the first realisation that anyone amongst the team could be the alien. Greg perfectly captures the sense of fear and anger that everyone has:

Back from working on Frozen Hell! The books extraordinary production has all been finalised and is being shot in preparation for the launch which is coming very soon. It has, as all craft does, taken much longer than we anticipated. We have always wanted to create art led books, with both Lyra and Arete, and create books which push the usual boundaries in both letterpress (our Coraline has proved that we can make contemporary design work with letterpress techniques that are very old) and book making (Frozen Hell has tabbing and foldouts that have proven very complex, all done to present the art in a stunning fashion .The Roman edition, our version of the classic Lettered Editions, is HUGE! The foldout plates are nearly a metre long or three feet wide, when opened!! Virtually the size of the originals. The Here is an art drop, not of the scale of the foldouts it’s single page plate but….it’s…

THE THING! FROM ANOTHER PLANET!

You can see Greg’s development of the idea and painting, I do love being able to see his creation as he makes the oil painting, something I get to look at and thought I’d share with you.