Good afternoon, readers! Today we’re highlighting a couple of Bazaar Bizarre vendors who offer up something a bit different from the usual fair fare. Both of the vendors we’ll tell you about today, Repeat Press and Boston Comics Roundtable will be offering unique, custom art made-to-order on Sunday, and we thought you’d like a heads-up.
Repeat Press is a one-man letterpress printing studio run by Mike Dacey and located in Union Square, Somerville, Massachusetts. Although Repeat Press usually focuses on custom printing jobs, there is something a little different planned for Bazaar Bizarre this year: a traveling letterpress!
The mobile letterpress is a Vandercook No. 2 proof press that Mike bought last year. At 600lbs it’s pretty portable (in the world of letterpress), so he built a chassis for it to roll on large casters, and the mobile letterpress unit was born. The press made its debut at the Bazaar Bizarre summer fair this past August, and was met with a great response from shoppers–so great, in fact, that Mike printed custom posters with vintage type through the afternoon and into the night, aided by the use of a borrowed headlamp once the sun had set.
Mike will be bringing the press to the Bazaar Bizarre this weekend, and shoppers will be able to purchase a poster printed with any text they’d like, hand set in vintage wood type right in front of them. Worried that you’ll get there too late to order one? It’s cool! Mike will be taking orders for posters to be printed back at his studio for folks who don’t NEED a poster that day, or arrive after all the slots have been filled for printing on site.
In the meantime, please check out the video below, created by Paper Fortress, to see Repeat Press in action!
Letterpress Coasters from Paper Fortress on Vimeo.
You can find Repeat Press and the mobile letterpress in the far front left of the Cyclorama on Sunday. See you there!
Photos in this post by Eric Baumann
