Book-Size Follow-Up, Patron Cameos, and The Worst Journey

This week:

• Some follow-up on last week's discussion about book-printing sizes. (Thank you so much to everyone who shared their thoughts!)
• DD was originally designed to be printed at traditional floppy-comic size.
• Patron cameos!
• If you like DD, I think you will like this graphic novel that is now available to buy.

BOOK SIZES FOLLOW-UP

After last week's post, I was shocked—shocked! I tell you—how many people had enthusiasm for the First Second signature size. But I guess that makes sense. I get requests from people saying "I wish this were bigger," but since the First Second editions do exist, of course I wouldn't get emails saying "I wish these books were available in a smaller, easier-to-hold format."

(TANGENT: this reminded me of the logical fallacy of "Survivorship Bias," even though it's not exactly the same thing. If you haven't heard of it, go read up on it, because it's fascinating and useful.)

In last week's post I deliberately avoided mentioning my Ideal Printing Scenario because I'm not sure how possible it will be, for a variety of reasons. Or because I don't want to speak its name for fear of frightening it off. But what the heck…

The Ideal Printing Scenario is this:
1) I offer a crowdfunding campaign to print PRACTICAL DEFENCE at a larger size with as many nice trimmings as the campaign will support.
2) Additionally, our lovely friends at First Second also publish the book for a broader market, printed at their usual size.
Voila! Everyone has access to the style of book they prefer.

There are tons of things for me to think about and investigate around this whole issue, so I'm not coming to any conclusions immediately. Thank you again for your input! It reminded me to consider some aspects I had not previously considered.

LEGIBILITY AND THE ORIGINAL DD PRINT SIZE

I guess I thought legibility was a solved problem, so thank you for the reminder to reconsider it.

Thinking back on it, all my original page designs assumed the book would be printed at the same size as the FLIGHT ANTHOLOGY books—basically the same as floppy-comic trade paperbacks. I chose my type size to suit that.

When I started working with First Second and had to shrink the art down to fit their print size, I did a bunch of tests to see what was the smallest type size I could get away with. Since I had laid out my pages assuming a larger print size, if we just shrunk everything down, the text would be really small.

I got the books out to see how they compare. Looks like for First Second I increased the type size so that it would be about the same printed size as the earlier design, and the balloons had to expand as a result.

^ LEFT, the earlier, larger Secret Edition. RIGHT, the later, smaller First Second edition. Balloons have expanded!

^ Everything got re-lettered. (Secret Edition LEFT, FS edition RIGHT.)

^ FS edition LEFT, Secret Edition RIGHT. In some cases, re-lettering the book allowed me to fix some poor choices, like this balloon in the Secret Edition which I made inexplicably small.

^ FS edition LEFT, Secret Edition RIGHT. If you look in places like, say, dad's leg or Selim's headwear, you can see the effect of having to expand the bubbles and boxes for the FS edition. It's certainly nothing to throw a fit about, but is definitely a thing that's better to plan for at the start than to have to fix later.

^ The text size in the FS edition. That capital D is about 2mm tall.

^ The text size in the Secret Edition. The same capital D is roughly the same size, if not a bit smaller. I was surprised to discover this! It means that as originally designed, the text would have been basically as easy or difficult to read, regardless of the print size.

SO WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR PRACTICAL DEFENCE??? 

Good news, I think? I am currently designing PRACTICAL DEFENCE to the same template and text size as the previous First Second DD editions, which means…

• if First Second publishes PRACTICAL DEFENCE at their signature size, it will be a similar reading experience to previous DD books.
• AND! If I print a larger edition, I have the flexibility to adjust the type for improved legibility AND can maybe give the art and page layout more breathing room. Best of both worlds!

Thank you kindly to everyone who commented expressing legibility concerns. I needed that reminder.

TL;DR: regardless of print size, I was designing for the smallest type size I could comfortably get away with. The caveat is that I think I might have better-than-20/20-vision. When I start planning to print a larger version of PRACTICAL DEFENCE, I will keep your feedback in mind and design accordingly.

CAMEOS!

If you're a patron at either of the two Travelling Companion tiers, I should have already contacted you about your cameo in Chapter Three or Four. If you haven't heard from me (either by email or using Patreon's messaging system), please get in touch.

Below, a few of the cameos that have appeared so far! They have been a lot of fun to include.

THE WORST JOURNEY IN THE WORLD

Long-time friend Sarah Airriess has been long-time working on a graphic novel telling of the story of the 1910 Scott polar expedition. If you enjoy DD, I feel preeetty confident that you will like what Sarah has made, and I'm happy to say that you can now order the first volume!

The book is just gorgeous. More than that, though, I am hard-pressed to imagine any way that any person could pour more care into a project. Sarah's love and commitment to this subject and its characters feel uniquely passionate to me. In service to this book, dear readers, SHE WENT TO THE SOUTH POLE.

Find out much more over at the book's website, and/or join Sarah on her Patreon campaign, which is continually rewarding. If you want to meet someone who is dedicated to her craft and to bringing the history of her subject to life, you'll like what you find.

Stranded on a barren, icy island in the South Pacific and loving it,
TC