What you’re seeing there is the first BCB book in existence. Kinda looks like a manual for something, don’t it? Nope, it hasn’t gone on sale yet. That’s just a mere test book to see how the quality would look like. How does it feel in the hands of the organizer? Well, here’s a quote from Oliver Bareham once again:
It’s surprisingly big and thick! (that’s what Paulo said) Plus this version is about 50 pages short of what the real one will be. The one I have is 260mm. This is not going to work with $4 large letter postage.
I’m not allowed to show you the cover, unfortunately. It was an old idea that I got Veronica to do a quick sketch for, and she’s embarrassed about the sketch part.
I’m mostly happy with the quality, the paper is kind of blindingly bright though. I’m disappointed in the printing of the cover, it seems like it was done on a consumer laserjet—sure, it’s glossy, but it fucks up gradients and looks cheap up close. The interior, which I submitted at 300dpi because I had trouble compressing the PDF otherwise, really doesn’t look that great and needs 600dpi to work, I think. Also, while it’s to be expected, the summer vacation and newer chapters look so much better than the box comics.
I’ll continue testing – the next book will be a 30-page short one, testing different level and dpi options for the nicest interior pages.
Here’s hoping it comes out right!
You can read more info and progress on the book over at the Official Bittersweet Candy Bowl forum.
