Section 05
The Album
A different object entirely. Roughly A4, upright, hardbound, forty-eight pages, kept in print and shelved on its spine — four entries on the European album and the trade built around it.
- 05·1
Roughly A4, upright
The European album is a hardbound book of about forty-eight pages, and the format changes what can be published.
- 05·2
Casterman and Dupuis
Two houses, at Tournai and Marcinelle, built the album trade around serialised magazine publication followed by a bound collection.
- 05·3
Forty-eight pages, hardbound
The page count is a printing arithmetic — a multiple of the sheet — not an editorial choice.
- 05·4
Spines on a shelf
A bound album stands on a shelf and is kept, which is a different commercial life from a pamphlet.