Lawrenceville Artist Is Bringing Back The 'Book Curse' on Kickstarter

LAWRENCEVILLE, GA — Tired of losing the books you loan to friends? This Lawrenceville artist understands and wants to help — with a little dark humor thrown in for good measure.

A series of book plates, featuring artist Chris Volion's "whimsical, yet delightfully grim" work, lets you identify yourself as the owner of the book and inscribe your own protective "curse" against anyone who steals it.

According to Volion, ancient scribes would invoke the wrath of the supernatural against anyone who tried to edit, steal or destroy the books, manuscripts, tablets and scrolls they'd spent meticulous hour upon hour crafting.

His Kickstarter campaign, "Book Curse: Ex Libris Bookplates for Vindictive Bibliophiles," has blown well past its meager original goal of $500, raising more than $10,000 so far.

There are three days left in the month-long crowdfunding campaign.

Pledges start at $5 for a single postcard and $12 for a set of 12 bookplates pulled from six different original designs. (Because the campaign has been so successful, they'll actually get more than that, including newly drawn designs thrown in as a bonus).

Packages go all the way up to 198 bookplates for $98 and pieces of Volion's original artwork used in the series for $149 — though, at this writing, only one original piece remained unclaimed.

Volion's fantasy inspired drawings, which have been featured locally in Gwinnett County and Atlanta galleries, include a skull, a fox, a raven and a vulture, as well as an assortment of creatures and characters that aren't quite so easy to immediately describe.

We're not sure they'll really make worms fall from a book thief's lips, as one in-house curse suggests. But we're betting they'll do a pretty good job reminding your forgetful friends where that long-ago borrowed copy of "Harry Potter" really belongs.

Images via Kickstarter