Erik Schmidt
Erik Schmidt

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Paper matters.

You may have seen comments from excited Degenesis fans, talking about how impressive the Roadmap-funded supplements are in print. They are of course loaded with the caliber of art and writing you’d expect from SMV. One aspect of these books that’s hard to convey, however, is the quality of the paper. It sounds like an incidental detail, but it’s not. These books are much lower than the flagship Degenesis hardbound books, but they really do have that same high-quality feel to them.

For purposes of comparison, here’s Volume 6 of Lazarus, produced by Image Comics. The paper is fine – under normal reading conditions the pages are opaque enough that there’s no bleed from the reverse side of the page. The texture is semi-gloss, and overall the book doesn’t feel cheap or flimsy. When compared to Clans of the Frontier, however, the pages look thin indeed. Twenty-four interior pages from Lazarus are roughly half as thick as the 24 interior pages of Clans of the Frontier. And though it’s impossible to convey visually, the pages of Clans of the Frontier just feel more substantial.

This is an example of the attention to detail that so many fans love about Degenesis. If paper texture and thickness isn’t the sort of thing that gets you fired up, I get it. Not everyone loves to nerd out in the stationery store the way I do. But as with so many physical products, it’s the culmination of lots of details handled with excessive attention that add up to a uniquely enticing result.

It may seem like a small thing, but the type of paper makes a big difference.

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