Game of Thrones pop-up book examined.

Matthew Reinhart's book Game of Thrones arrived this morning and I must admit to being put off by the price. I want the price to be around $18.00 like normal but this book is over twice that. Is it twice as good? It may be. 

I gruff. I grumble. And I justify the purchase by processing it as education and I payed through the nose for that. I bled for that. It wasn't fair. The cost wasn't worth the product and that's how I justify everything I want. Classify it as education. And it is.

I'll show you what I learned by the first pass through this impressive work. A lengthy photo essay follows. Mostly photos with lines I drew to show what I'm on about because there is a lot of confusing angles and the photos are not always so clear. I'm not showing the book, I'm showing some of its mechanisms, sometimes the back of the pages and under the pages.

I'm delighted to see familiar mechanisms used throughout, in fresh and especially imaginative ways I hadn't considered before and that's how I sense Matthew's genius. Anything I discover by goofing he's already taken and expanded beyond what I thought of and it's fun to see him go go go with it. He's quite mad. 

The first thing I notice is double V mechanisms facing each other throughout. 

This first paired V mechanisms lay two bands straight across the central fold, the V scored into the band, rather than a band glued as a V. It's also elevated on both providing a sort of proscenium and stage area. The two columns on each side connecting them rather than content in the center as usual, say a body that stretches out. This is a building that stretches, showing what is inside. The columns collapse along different scores so that they do not conflict when folded shut.

The virtuosity Matthew puts on display here with various forms of this mechanism is astonishing. He uses it to make buildings, bodies, ghosts, and scary faces.

Double Vs facing, their connecting surface stretches out impressively beyond the card

The same thing for some kind of specter.

Difficult to make out, same opposing Vs with houses built behind them.

This time the points of the Vs separated, the tops connected with a sword.

A face instead of a body, The top V pulls up a set of eyes with it.

This is a map, not a book. Were you to read it as a book, page by page and ignore the larger map then you will miss this item that appears in the foldings behind the pages that flip as a book.

The same two V mechanisms facing away from each other instead of pointing to each other forms a clam that shuts when the card or page is opened, here in the form of a pyramid.

Here a castle is built on a band mechanism, a bridge across the central fold. Half the castle's base is built on the bridge. ON the other side, two V mechanisms cross that side's new central fold. 

I learned a new way to do a really cool dragon.  (And a wicked crow)

I learned significant pieces of facing needn't be solidly attached to anything, full sides of glaciers can just dangle upright by a slot and tab.

Castle displaced and area extended by a broad V.

Castle displaced and area extended by a broad V.

This is the main thing I learned. This ligature of mechanisms is straight up audacious. The castle is a table on a table on a table. Each table is a double table top. The upper top is scored with a V that flips another table.

The table top offers an elevated central fold upon which Matthew places an upright V mechanism. A skirt built around the upright. The natural placement of the upright V is erect when opened, and 90˚ when folded completely collapsed. Mathematically, another top like that will curl around, and it does. When Vs are stacked on central folds of table tops then the stack curls around like a cooked shrimp tail when closed and collapsed. It's fascinating. And tall when opened. And impressive when it jumps up at you.

The wine case insert mechanism to show layers of a castle. It is a minor element to the side and clever use of the mechanism because it must be incomplete or else be way too dense with a stack of slats inside due to the way it's attached and the way it collapses.

This idea of a broad V mechanism that displaces the central fold (by splitting it in two) and provides a platform to extend one side off the page is used throughout the book to build a castle upon and to get it off the central fold. If not, every page would look similar with a building in the middle.  As it is, this book displaces the central fold left and right and forward and back from where it would most easily be. 

This castle built on one side of the V as a new central fold, could as easily be a boat. 

The spine of the book is not the spine of a book. This is an example of removing the problem area to force one's art to work in the physical world. There is no spine. 

A regular pop-up spine is pinched with more compression than the center or the unbound ends so pop-books tend to go wonky on bookshelves. The extra layers of unbound paper is a problem for them closing as books usually close. That problem is avoided with a magnetic flap. Two flaps. 

In this case, this book has no binding at all. It's a map. Reinhhart provided his folding map two loose flaps with magnets that behave reasonably as a book binder. 

The whole thing can flop wide open.

The spine does not clamp down on the book, rather, by magnets, the cover snaps up to the spine. It's clever as h-e-double wizard sticks.