Necronomicon Pages 1-5

This is by far my most popular and prolific prop made to date. With quite a few pages having been produced and distributed since their creation around 2003. There are five sets of pages with four pages in each set (and another bonus page that is only available to select customers).

Each page was laid out in Corel Draw. Much of the text was taken from actual occult manuscripts (e.g ancient latin texts, and the writings of Aleister Crowley) which were then set in one of several cryptic fonts. The artwork is a combination of my own creations (mostly geometric line art), medieval woodcuts that I found on the internet (and which have been in the public domain for several hundred years), and original artwork by Bryan Reagan, aka ZARONO, which he sent me copies of and very generously gave me permission to use however I wanted. I can't thank him enough for that. He sells great items on eBay almost constantly. I highly recommend you check them out.

The pages are photocopied on a high quality machine (thanks to my former employer) and then distressed. I use a Dremel tool on the edges to rough them up. Then I soak each page in a bath of tea and instant coffee. I keep the mixture around for ages, so it ends up with lots of authentic slime and mold in it that imparts unique patterns to the pages :) Then they are dried, usually over an air duct or in front of a space heater so that they warp and wrinkle as they dry. Then they are sealed into a cardboard box with about a pound of granulated myrrh gum. I keep them in there for about a week and shake the box up every few hours (whenever I pass by it). This helps to draw out any remaining moisture, giving the pages a dry crisp feel (with a lightly dusty/powdery texture from the gum residue), and replaces the coffee smell with the deep rich earthy smell of myrrh. Mmmm, smells just like you would expect a mummy to smell! Lastly, I burn a few of the edges and then splash on a little Dragon's Blood ink to look like blood splatters.