The small press that Therese Littleton and I run, Payseur & Schmidt, released Cosmocopia, a project by Paul DiFilippo and Jim Woodring. Basically, Paul has written a short novel that is an homage to Woodring, Richard Powers, Frank Frazetta, and David Lindsay, and Jim has created artwork to visually bring the novel alive. Jim came up with the idea to have a jigsaw puzzle, which fits perfectly in the Payseur & Schmidt aesthetic. I designed the book and the packaging and Lance and Beth at Thingmakers manufactured the whole thing. I have to say that I was pretty surprised at how awesome they looked when I first saw a finished copy. It's nice to work with quality content!!!
As with all the Payseur & Schmidt material, I try to hit that balance between something that looks polished and professional, and something that feels a bit DIY, hand-made and punk rock. The goal is to not worry about perfection, to take risks, to not worry about if something sells, and to just DO IT. Oh, and a recent goal for me is to try and make everything out of biodegradable materials, as much as possible. Ever since I read The World Without Us by Alan Weisman and learned about the floating mound of plastic the size of Texas in the north Pacific, I'm anti-plastic.
Buy a copy today at our Payseur & Schmidt website!
What's in the set:
Sample spread (showing chapter heads that orient perpendicular to the rest of the text block):
Gratuitous and unnecessary multi-page title (spreads shown):
Bound-in bullshit postcard (I was hoping that it would be reminiscent of those postcards you'd see in a crappy old paperback. Text by Therese Littleton.)
