Salem’s Lot – Stephen King

Over three years ago, I began to search for a page block to Salems’ Lot with the prints. Not an easy task. I wanted to do my own King book. My good friend David Williamson found them for me… then to choose a binder. Well Rich Tong from Lyra’s Books was just making a splash with his upcoming Stardust and we became friendly. I asked him to undertake the most high end book he could possibly make. I said it’s going to be something never done before. He agreed. He was down and up for the task. I then contacted Dave Christensen who did the original cover in the 1st Edition of the book to totally re-create the exact artwork and to have the piece bound in. He agreed and was excited to do so. Then I wanted the newest / hottest artist today working in the King artwork world. Well we all know who that is! I asked Francois Vaillancourt to do my favourite scene as well to be bound in. He was also excited.

The attention to detail here was important. It was my passion project. It consumed me for months on end how to make this bigger and better than anything before it. I had to have a King signature and my very good friend Paul Suntup was able to help me there. It’s bound into the book with raised bubble glass to protect it. The marbling is done by hand out of Paper Wilds by Freya Scott. I also had David get me a high res scan of the letter King sent to Jerad praising his work. Rich had the idea to inset it into the solander box in gold leaf. I also contacted my mate Simon Mason to get me a very high res scan of the Marsten House from Jerry’s prints and what you see bound into the box is etched glass with the house in blood to really bring the fire. You really can feel and sense this process in person. I had never seen etched glass used on a book and Rich’s answer is always “let’s try!!”