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.
Preliminary pencil for the finding of the saucer, the plate that is the frontis painting.Drawing for the four page foldout!McReady.The THING!
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.
The finished paintingGreg started with a wide shot however we both felt it needed a more intimate close upThe first sketch after the decision to go close was a double page spread, the rhythm of the books visual flow meant we wanted a single page plate
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:
Finished painting, Greg wanted the paintings to have white negative space, an almost unfinished feel, so the printing would make the painting ‘sit’ on the paper.Originally we thought that we’d use a graphic device, three panels, to show the splits between the men, only to see that it just wasn’t needed.
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.
I got my copy of the portfolio edition of Words of Fire, fantastically dedicated to me by Neil and Bill, wow, I am so pleased with the way it came out, thanks Rich! When Rich was putting the materials together he wanted a cloth bound cover for the book and a suedel-lined slipcase, when they were made he found that the cloth and the suedel rubbed and made the movement of the portfolio out of the case stiff. He added a ribbon which, when you pull it, negated the stiffness and it flows out like water! The lucky ones who got the portfolio and lovely handmade prints of each poem and the unique, 1 of 40, signed silkscreen prints by Bill will be getting them next week, they start shipping out Monday! I can’t post a video at the same time as the photos, Facebook won’t let me, unless I do it from a phone, so I have loaded a vid showing the action of the new ribbon in the comments.
Printed pages of Coraline by @neilhimself to be bound and published by @lyrasbooks. The illustrations are by @rovinacai and the monochrome ones are printed letterpress with the type. The ones in full colour were digitally printed beforehand by @hurtwoodbooks.
Art! This is one of my favourite paintings from Frozen Hell, it is the frontispiece image of McReady and some of the team seeing the frozen UFO imbedded in ice. It captures the creepy set up that was missing when the editor cut out the first 20% of the story to make ‘Who Goes There?’. I pulled some images from a shot that Greg gave me (which I’ll edit later) of a small movie of him painting. The Thing awaits.
