It’s the time loop book! The one where characters break history so hard that the actual panels disintegrate around them! Which leaves me working on how to replicate the “transparent pixels” effect with…a printed paperback cover.
This started with a “mini mockups where I tinker with layout possibilities” post on Patreon.
And it’s ended up with these two basic variants:
I tried a couple different versions of the “cracks in reality” effect, ending up with this sharp zigzag effect for the edges. Couldn’t get the more detailed, rough-edged version I used in the strip to look good.
Maybe I’ll see if I can work out a “torn paper edges” effect before the actual printing? Maybe not. (Any updates about this, I’ll post directly on the Volume 6 crowdfunding campaign.)
As for the basic color scheme, though — that could go either way!
Which one do you like better, readers? Light mode, or dark mode?
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9 Comments
I prefer dark mode
Agree
+1
+2
The dark one definitely looks more like a crack in reality to me. Light mode mostly just looks like an abstract visual effect, but with the dark background one gets a sense of depth that suggests this is actually an image of something that’s happening in context.
This. Maybe if light mode had more texture variance, literal or otherwise.(If those bits were printed on unvarnished paper would it look better or like total ass?)
Closest thing I can think of is if I put some extra spot gloss over the “real world” parts, the way I did with the figures on the BICP paperbacks. Or maybe flip it around, since “no spot gloss” is the default from the real-world art on previous books?
Comments have a heavy preference for just going with dark mode, though!
The *really* fancy option would be if the cover had an actual physical cutout, with the Future Thorn scene on an interior page behind it. But cutout covers are so fragile, they just don’t last long 🙁
The dark mode looks better to me. The dark background contrasts very sharply with the light foreground, which fits Future Thorn’s whole Thing of being out of place, or time as the case may be.
I like light mode! Looks more like the page being torn away to me.
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