Limited Edition Fine Press Books.
Since 2012, Angel Bomb has been creating letterpress artist books and has published five to date. Two have received funding assistance through artist grants including a Jerome Book Arts Grant from the MN Center for Book Arts for publication of The Airship and an Artist Initiative Grant from the MN State Arts Board for American Manifesto.
I feel honored to have received these awards as it shows strong support from the arts community and belief in my work. American Manifesto was also the recipient of a MN AIGA Design Award in 2014. I have also been a Master Printer for two highly sought-after Winter Books published by MN Center for Book Arts: every-blest-thing-seeing-eye (2016) and The War Between the Water and the Road (2014).
My limited edition version of John W. Campbell’s short story, Who Goes There? which was the story that inspired The Thing movies is now live on Kickstarter. I am also working on a book to chronicle my time spent sailing in the Arctic around Svalbard, Norway in the fall of 2019 as well as a book on toxic masculinity in America. There are lots of projects in the works, so please stay tuned!
Who Goes There?
This classic tale of terror and paranoia was first published in the August 1938 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. Written by John W. Campbell and published under the pen name Don A. Stuart; the story is about a group of scientists at an Antarctic outpost who discover a magnetic anomaly and investigate. They discover a spaceship, buried in the ice for millennia as well as an unfortunate passenger that crawled free and froze. The scientists bring the body back for examination and then the horror begins.
A film adaptation made popular by John Carpenter in 1982 titled The Thing brought this story to a new generation. It’s an amazing tale of a shapeshifting alien creature and humans under pressure to eradicate it before it subsumes them all and spreads to the rest of mankind.
This incredible story is now live on Kickstarter! Please take a moment to show your support for small presses and bookmakers. Two beautiful editions are available as well as prints from the story.
2020, A Fiasco
This unique artist book had a binding that is a hand-painted resin sculpture of a dumpster. It is filled with letterpress printed die-cut garbage along with a shredded Bill of Rights. The lids are removable and along with the garbage you also get a sculpted flag remnant and dog poo to make the shitshow that was last year complete.
After last year, in which everything that could go wrong, did, I felt the need to create a piece that commemorates our failings as a society but hopefully encourages everyone to do better—to BE better.
When people of color are murdered on our streets by the very people enlisted and entrusted to protect them; when a pandemic is treated nonchalantly, framed as an illness that "will just disappear" one day; when kids illegally acquire guns and kill people in another state under the guise of self-protection—all of these points to a society gone horribly wrong.
The Miskatonic Papers
This book, inspired by the cosmic horror of H.P. Lovecraft and set in the mythos he created, is about an expedition from Miskatonic University to the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1907. The party finds way more than they bargain for and it begins to effect them in ways they don’t fully grasp.
This is my largest and most ambitious book to date! It features over 50 different letterpress pieces including a handwritten journal, several drawings, telegrams, letters and even a resin cast artifact; all aged and weathered to appear 100 years old.
The Airship
The Airship is a science fiction story and first in a trilogy of digitally enhanced letterpress graphic novels. It draws a literary analogy between the dichotomy of using modern day digital design tools to create works that are produced on vintage analog equipment. In this story, set in a fictional past, one of the characters is transported to another dimension in space and time. It utilizes aspects of multiverse theory in a fictional setting to explain a portion of the storyline.
American Manifesto
With a tip of the hat to printers and activists of the past, American Manifesto calls the United States citizens to action on a number of national concerns—our country’s health, leadership, and environment, to name a few. This book was devised as a piece of activist artwork; utilizing my vintage presses as they were originally intended: to make important information readily accessible to the masses. This piece took nearly nine months to research and fact check.
Mister F
A retelling of the classic tale, Frankenstein. This artful mini-book was created to vend from a vintage cigarette machine. A unique format was chosen to engage viewers with an analog machine from our past that many of a younger generation have never seen. My goal with the Vend-O-Mat is to eventually share its many vending slots with other artists to have an interesting and unique selection of art available for people to interact with and purchase.