The Farouche Assemblage

If you read this blog closely, you will have noticed a few mentions of Matt Hughes, particularly including my mention of being startled at finding out there was a Hughes chapbook forthcoming from a publisher I had previously never heard of.

Well, you can be sure I’ll be paying a lot more attention to Payseur And Schmidt from now on. The book arrived this week, and it’s as wonderfully designed a chapbook as I’ve ever seen. I’m sure the story (which I actually won’t get around to reading for about another hour or so) is going to be great–I’m a pretty big Hughes fan, despite my often using the relatively dismissive “Jack Vance cover band” short hand when discussing him–but let me show you the production:

Here’s the front cover, which features a wrap-around closure, suggesting a formal “folder” type presentation. The wrap-around bit is baroquely adorned with images, and is custom cut into an irregular shape that follows the art. The formal-yet-baroque presentation lines up nicely with the decadent Vancean future that Hughes writes in:

Here’s a little more of the front, showing the title, which lives under the “flap” of the closure:

And, before we go inside the cover, I should show you the back, which has the publisher’s marks, in a style that aligns perfectly with the front cover and the rest of packaging.

Now, here’s my favourite bit of the presentation: the limitation page. This is where they’ve really gone above and beyond. First take a look:

It’s probably not obvious from the photo, but that horizontal band that contains the signature is not printed on, but is pasted in. The red ink seal is then stamped over both the pasted strip and the page. This limitation detail, with it’s feel of super-technology meeting long-outdated bureaucratic formalism, is the perfect touch for Hughes’ work.

It’s this combination of the publisher/designer’s work and Hughes’ that really makes the package special. Hell, take a look at this introduction bit that precedes the story:

LETTER OF AUTHENTICATION

Let it be known, by these texts present, that the artifact known as The Farouche Assemblage has been comprehensively examined by the undersigned, a qualified baccalaureate of the Institute now incumbent in the post of Second Sub-curator of the Grand Connaissarium of the Archon Terfel III. I do find and so attest that the artefact is indisputably the work of the artist Hassol Humbergruff, and that it is a product of the period known as the Unanticipated Flowering that was the final phase of his tragically truncated career.

I do also categorically and comprehensively deny the calumnious allegations of certain persons whom I shall not dignify by the mention of their names, that the work has even the remotest connection with the machinations of that notorious forger and fraudster, Luff Imbry. I do further deny and, indeed, do expectorate copiously upon, the insinuation that my distinguished office would countenance the receipt of illicit favors or unledgered contributions from the said Imbry. The specific charge that I was observed to have dined with him at his club, Quirks, on several raucous occasions is a foul lie, as is the addendum that after the final feast I required to be assisted home by a footman, being too drink-fuddled to find my own way. If it comes to my notice that any more such slanders have been adduced, my representatives shall seek out the perpetrators and invite them to meet me under the terms of the Retributive Code, the choice of weapons to be theirs.

Signed and sealed, this fourteenth day of the sixth month of the eighth year of the Archonate of Filidor I.

Now that text is pure Hughes, and the seal’s design work complements it perfectly.

You know, before I go read this thing, I’m going to pop over to the P&S catalog and see if there’s something else I can order, just to see what they do with presenting it.