Writer who stumbled into typesetting and the occasional cover wrap. Founder of King Shot Press, a micropublisher of radical literature. Currently in Portland, but also sometimes Athens and elsewhere.
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JUNE 10 2021: Book Design Part 2
This is one of four variant editions of the limited reissue of my first novel, Long Lost Dog Of It. I wrote this book between 2012-2014, under influence of neon noir like Only God Forgives, Lost Highway, Collateral, Enter the Void; books like Wise Blood, American Tabloid, Antwerp, V; erotic films like Andrew Blake's Dollhouse and Paris Chic. I think there’s also some Cormac McCarthy/DFW influence in there too. If you enjoy that weird kinda shit, maybe you’ll dig it, who knows.
As far as this particular design goes, it’s the only non-Matthew Revert cover to any of my work. I never thought I’d design something for myself, let alone that it’d see print. It was intimidating to have something of mine next to three killer designs by him. I decided on something minimalist that reflects the book’s tone. The idea of a fracture behind a machine gun seemed fitting, after a few variations. I thought a lot about the back of Ryan Gosling’s scorpion jacket in the movie adaptation of James Sallis’ Drive while working on it. I also wanted the back cover to feel like the opening credits sequence of a film. I think it turned out pretty okay.
This is one of four variant editions of the limited reissue of my first novel, Long Lost Dog Of It. I wrote this book between 2012-2014, under influence of neon noir like Only God Forgives, Lost Highway, Collateral, Enter the Void; books like Wise Blood, American Tabloid, Antwerp, V; erotic films like Andrew Blake's Dollhouse and Paris Chic. I think there’s also some Cormac McCarthy/DFW influence in there too. If you enjoy that weird kinda shit, maybe you’ll dig it, who knows.
As far as this particular design goes, it’s the only non-Matthew Revert cover to any of my work. I never thought I’d design something for myself, let alone that it’d see print. It was intimidating to have something of mine next to three killer designs by him. I decided on something minimalist that reflects the book’s tone. The idea of a fracture behind a machine gun seemed fitting, after a few variations. I thought a lot about the back of Ryan Gosling’s scorpion jacket in the movie adaptation of James Sallis’ Drive while working on it. I also wanted the back cover to feel like the opening credits sequence of a film. I think it turned out pretty okay.
And here are Matthew Revert’s designs for the other three covers:
