Turning Book Pages into Art

Book Page Art started when founders Jen and Kristy discovered a box of books that were discarded and placed on the curb to be thrown away. They were determined to do something with the books and brought them home in order to give them a new life as art!

I personally discovered them at the 2022 New York Comicbook Convention, where they occupied a booth opposite the booth where I was working (Heroes in Action). During our down times during NYCC (which weren’t many) I was drawn to their booth in order to check out their very cool product.

What Jen and Kristy have done is take pages from books that are old, torn, tattered, and/or getting thrown away, and give them new life by creating original art on weathered old book pages. According to Book Page Art’s web page, they work at matching their page artwork and quotes to the books that correlate with them. “We take special care that artwork represents the book that the pages are from.” Needless to say, the specific book page on which the art appears (either a quote from the book, or some art relevant to the book itself) will often vary from the pages shown in photos on the site.

Given that they use all possible pages from each book to create their art, each page is uniquely different. Also, the art is done directly on the pages of the upcycled books and never photocopies of pages. Customers can either choose from pre-existing pages and art or they can request a specific page or passage from a book, creating a custom order, which is also possible (assuming the book and/or page is available). Anyone wishing to place a custom order should directly contact them directly).  

Because books vary in size so too does the art, thus they mount each page onto a black mat backing that is 8 x 10, so that it fits perfectly into an 8 x 10 frame. All art is shipped in a protective casing with a sturdy cardboard mat in order to protect it from bending in the mail. In the unlikely event that the art is damaged in the shipping process customers should contact Book Page Art directly.

The art page that I discovered which best suited my state of mind was a page from The Alchemist (a book, I admittedly (sadly) never actually read, but I did acquire a copy soon afterwards and it is now sitting by my bedside). I immediately fell in love with this page and the quote as it most assuredly described the current state of my life, as I find myself in a relationship with a woman I’ve known and have been friends with for several years. After a number of failed relationships (for each of us) we have found a cojoined life for both of us with each other. Hence the quote seemed spot on as far as we were both concerned.

 The art is now on display in our Livingroom, just above the fireplace. Because while the gift was from me to my love, it accurately describes how we each feel about each other.

“I love you because the entire universe conspired to help me find you”

NY ComicCon 2012

So, last weekend (as I write this) I attended the New York Comic Con and well, not only did I have a greet weekend (I hung out with a couple of new-found friends Bill Baker & Joel Meadows (Publisher/Editor of Tripwire Magazine). Turns out we were three Journalists, comicbook fans, and cinephiles having something of a great weekend together. Anyway, here are just some of the pics that I took over the weekend.

First up are The Avengers and some Patriotic Babes

This was the only Spider-Woman I saw

Spidey recently turned 50, and this is the birthday card that Marvel got him.

It was signed by numerous Spidey-Fans, with the hope of getting it into the Guinness Book of World Records (and of course, I signed it too!).

Naturally enough there were also a bunch of Spideys on hand (this one brought a friend)

This one stopped by Fay Felix’s Bronx Heroes Con table

Then he had to fight off none other than Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin!

Eventually though Spidey was apparently defeated by...who is this, Zero of the GI Joes?

Lastly, there was at least one Scarlet Spider (Ben Reilly) on hand to carry on!

And of course an Ultimate Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

This pic is from my buddy Ray Felix’s booth at the NY Comic Con. Ray publishes Bronx Heroes 2,0 and produces the Bronx Heroes Con.

It’s all about the Book!

OK kids, here it is, I’ve just fired off the fourth (and my final) chapter to a special book project to which I’m contributing. The Book is for Dynamite Entertainment, and is due to be published this October (Hopefully in time for NYCC!).

My editor just informed me that while there will be some (minor) tweaks that will be required,  I’m the first of the team of writers that has turned in all of their contracted chapters.

How cool is that?

Now, it’s Agent Unknown time!

Comicbooks published by my friends

Back in October, when I was attending the New York Comic Con I acquired several comics, some of them were produced by some very good friends of mine. I'm just now getting around to posting about it (sorry guys, life sometimes gets in the way).

In No particular order, here they are:

Andrea Grant’s Minx is continuing the tale of a a woman who walks the in-between spaces between the “real” world and the dreamscape that is just a shadow and a whisper beyond the veil of what we see.

By her own admission, Andrea has been working this comic for some 10 years, and has, over the past few years, issued a number of iterations of this comic as it has evolved. It is lyrical, engaging, and totally original. Andrea is a wonderful renascence talent that simply commands the space around her.

Check out her comic, you will be amazed.

A second comic that deserves your attention is Hell’s Blood #3, by Hector Rodriguez, and published by Guild Works Production.

Hector is just another average teen living in a small town in Massachusetts, However his whole life changes one day when his grandmother dies and he himself is relentlessly pursued by horrific monsters that are generally only seen in our nightmares. Soon, Hector finds himself fighting for his very life against an army of hell-spawned creatures that are led by a magma-spitting, fire-haired werewolf who threatens to bring about man's darkest fear to a terrible reality the return to Earth the demon known as Olosi (Satan) himself!

Hector is not only the artist who illustrated this powerful story but the storyteller himself. This issue (as was issue #2) was scripted by Chris Buchner. As each issue has been published, you can not only see the improvements to Hector’s art, but the story itself grows and deepens as we are drawn further and further into the world of Hell’s Blood.

In addition to this issue (and the first two), GWP has issued a combined copy of both of the first two issues in a single package. We strongly urge you all to pick up all iterations.

All of which brings us to a pair of stellar comics from our very good friends over at Atlas Unleashed. The Adversary #3 (by the incomparable Jim Webb) and Crimson Rose by Mark Mazz, Grey Williamson, and N. Steven Harris.

Webb’s Adversary which continues the story of a demoness who has managed to overthrow the reigns of her demonic lord and master (Beelzebub). These days she fights the demons she used to serve. While serving the minions of Hell she was one of its top warriors, now  she battles on the side of Heaven.

In this second issue she goes up against a demon named Belial who has possessed  a fallen priest, in order to lure Adversary out in the open in order to kill her. Only, things don’t go quite the way Belial (or Adversary) planned. It is a fun book to read, and this chapter delves deeper into the character of Adversary.  Jim is a delightful storyteller, making this book a Must Buy for readers.

Next up from Atlas Unleashed, is a preview con book entitled Crimson Rose. The comic that AU presented at NYCC is a fully-rendered penciled version of the comic without dialogue. While this may sound like “not quite” a comicbook, don’t think like that. Grey’s fully-detailed pencils are powerful and are fully-capable of telling a story without the need of dialogue.

Further, by presenting the pencils in this fashion, AU has given us the unique opportunity to see how intense and through Grey’s pencils actually are. Plus it certainly whets our appetite for the completed package.

Personally, we can hardly wait.

Also of note for this issue is the powerful cover by our good friend Chris Torris. We have to admit a personal bias towards Chris’s work as he was the penciler for our own relaunch of our own comic, Agent Unknown (Renegade Press) — the first story of which appeared in CAG #7, and the follow up is slated to appear under the AU umbrella. Any way, Crimson Rose looks like a very interesting book, and we are looking forward to the full version.

well, these were just a few of the comics we acquired at NYCC, and over the next several weeks as we approcah the end of the year, we will be posting about the other, so stay tuned.

Con Girls, NYCC 2010 Variety

OK, Kids, as promised, here are the Con Girls I spotted this past NYCC:

 

Avatar Girls

 Bat Girl

Black Canary?

Black Cat, Posion Ivy & Friend

Mary Marvel

 

Booth Girl

Princess Leia & Friend

Princess Leia (again)

Psylock?

Supergirl

(another) Supergirl & Wonder Woman

More from NYCC

Here are a couple of items that I forgot to post yesterday that I acquired at NYCC.

 Here is a T-Shirt from the film Reds (plus I got into a free screening of the film as well).

Here is a cool “Blank” toy figure from Shocker Toys.

 Not entirely sure what this shotgun shell is to (it says “Kill the Dead” on the side), but it was kinda cool.

I also scored like a 2" stack of DC comics, along with an equally tall stack of comics from a number of other publishers. I’ve waded through about half of the whole stack now, but it is slow going (and in the mean time I’m falling behind on my regular comic reading).

Tomorrow I promise pics of some hot con girls!

Swag from NYCC...

Well, it has been a while since the NY ComiCon, and while I have been remiss in posting about my experiences and the like I wanted to spend the next couple of posts displaying pics from the event. First up, I have some nifty-cool swag that I scored that I want to share with you all.

This is a giveaway breath mint package for Comedy Central's new show, Neic Swardson's Pretend Time

 

Several Marvel & DC buttons

 Promo Matches,

A slide puzzle

Cards for the Bruce Willis/DC Comics-based movie Red (good flick, by the way).

More will follow (Including Con Girls)