Flong Time, No See — Glenn Fleishman

Launched on Kickstarter on February 24, 2026!

Why did typesetters get paid to compose metal type and then throw it away? How did one New York Times printer stay employed for over 50 years on a “job for life”? Why did newspapers print up to 10 editions a day? Why do we use > as a mark of quotation online? How could you avoid an infestation of type lice in your metal type drawers?

What—what I ask you!—does flong mean?!

The answer to these, and many other questions you never knew you had about the history of printing, will be found in Flong Time, No See. This book brings together work I’ve researched and published over the last seven years, which I will revise and expand for this publication. These are stories about how we made and shared the written word—and what we lost along the way.

While the constant thrum of technological change plays a key, demanding role in these stories, working people stand at the center. The history of printing is the history of labor, and I identify many unsung people to celebrate their professions.

A pressman resting between editions at the New York Times in 1942, leaning on a printed page with glasses pushed up on his cap — Pressman resting between editions at the *New York Times*, 1942 (photo: Marjory Collins)

The stories included are:

The Flong Goodbye: The history of a forgotten material that allowed the evolution of printing, the growth of newspapers, and syndication. Even the name is fun. (Read more about flong below.)
The Typewriter Is Not a Typesetter: A 1919 wildcat typesetting strike led some magazines to conclude that typewriters had finally reached the quality necessary to produce type for printing. They were wrong.
Eradicate the Type Lice: Printers played nasty tricks on apprentices, and only some felt guilty about it later. It was part of a mild hazing process that lasted seemingly for centuries.

A Gasoline Alley comic strip about type lice being coaxed out of a type case — Type lice had to be coaxed out (*Gasoline Alley*)

Bogus! Typesetters were paid to set copy that was thrown away to avoid intrusion on their monopoly. Even the Supreme Court got involved—and said it was legitimate!
Lorem Ipsum Is Garbled: The most reproduced and misunderstood text of the last 40 years doesn’t mean anything. How did it get that way?
Reading the Reprintings: Books hide information about revisions through markings that can obscure the authoritative version of an author’s text or a non-fiction work.

Examples of printing numbering and edition marks found in books — Examples of printing numbering included in books

The Truth Is in the Stars: Newspapers used to publish as many as 10 different editions every day—some still print two, three, more. Learn to read the historic and modern stars, symbols, and text that lets you decipher which edition is which.
Don’t Quote Me on It: Usenet birthed a style of quotation that we continue to use. But it has roots in ancient texts.
Hard as Boilerplate: The literal origin of the term boilerplate reveals how it transformed, quickly, into a metaphor in printing and in legalese.

Newsboys and a newsgirl getting afternoon papers on Park Row, New York, July 1910 — Newsboys and newsgirl getting afternoon papers, Park Row, New York (Lewis Hines, July 1910)

That London Tube typeface? Look again: The typeface in the London Underground isn’t quite what it seems. Even experts get confused.
Piecing Together Color Type: The past is full of color, but how do we take it apart? Understanding an era of colorful, complex wooden type.
Aligning a Rocky Road: Making baselines among fonts the same didn’t take a straight path. Yet, it took centuries to evolve a common one.
You’re as Cold as Type: Learn about the transition from hot-metal to “cold” phototype and CRT type, when lead was finally given the heave-ho.

(This list of stories may expand or change slightly during development.)

The printed edition will be a 352-page paperback in 6×9-inch format (15×23 cm) with a full-color cover and a black-and-white interior. I’ll also make a DRM-free ebook version.

I need your help to make this book! Backing this project lets me research, revise, and expand the articles; pay for editing, proofreading, and an index; license images and take new photos or commission them; design and produce the book; and print in North America, where I can supervise production and arrange for distribution worldwide. I’d love to share these stories with you.

Print and ebook editions of Flong Time, No See will ship in September 2026. Other items will ship on schedules noted in reward tiers and for add-ons.

What the heck is flong?
Why is it in the title?

Flong became my favorite word in 2017 and has remained so every year since. I encountered the term researching how cartoons were syndicated in the era of metal printing, and how newspapers improved their volume of printing by shifting from flat plates to curved ones. Etching metal plates for cartoons was expensive and time-consuming. And how could you wrap a flat page of type around a cylinder? Flong was the answer.

Watch: The era of metal printing on YouTube

A flong was a flexible, paper-based material that could be pushed under force onto metal type, wood headlines, photographs, cartoons, and illustrations, and then used as a mold to produce a nearly exact duplicate of the original using a liquid lead alloy, commonly used in that era.

Front and back of a full-page newspaper flong, showing the impressed text and images on the front and felt backing on the reverse — Front and back of a full-page newspaper flong made through direct contact with great pressure between the flong and the metal form of headlines, photos, body text, and a cartoon. Left: Front of flong; right, back, with felt to build up empty areas, which helped produce a better cast plate.

Because it was flexible, a flong could be bent into a semi-cylindrical shape to be molded into a round plate, which was then clamped onto a newspaper printing press. And because it was easy (and cheap) to mass produce, a cartoon syndicate could make hundreds or thousands of flongs from one zinc plate, etched from a photographic negative of the original artwork, and then send those flongs to newspapers around the United States or world.

As part of this campaign, you can even obtain historic and re-created flong! Read on!

A semi-cylindrical metal printing plate from a 1970s newspaper, showing comic strip panels cast in lead alloy — A semi-cylindrical metal printing plate used on a newspaper in the 1970s to print one of the daily comics pages

Reward tiers

The book is available in print and ebook editions, with a few reward tiers available:

Ebook only
Print edition
Print/ebook bundle
Signed/inscribed print edition plus the ebook*Text for inscription can be of modest length and the message should be appropriate for me to sign to you or someone else.

You can also add more copies of the print edition to any pledge with shipping items.

Flong Time, No See shown as a printed paperback alongside an ebook on a tablet — Print and ebook editions of “Flong Time, No See”

Flong Time, No See printed book with a signed and inscribed title page, alongside an ebook on a tablet — Signed/inscribed print edition with ebook

Underwriting tier: thanks, books, and Peanuts flong

For those who would love to help bring this book into existence and receive a historical printing artifact, the underwriting tier couples my thanks in the print and ebook editions with a rare four-piece set of 1970s Peanuts flong for a Sunday comic—one piece for each of the four process colors used to create the full-color newspaper piece. Only four sets remain from the original cache I acquired. The flongs are accompanied by a small booklet with additional background.

You’ll also receive three bundles of print/ebook editions, signed and inscribed.

Four purple-toned flong plates for a four-color Sunday Peanuts strip, each showing the same comic in different color separations — Four pieces of flong for a four-color Sunday “Peanuts” strip from the 1970s (example shown; the four sets are all different Sunday installments of “Peanuts”)

Exciting book and artifact add-ons

Add-ons in this project include two of my previous books covering related topics:

Six Centuries of Type & Printing: A brisk yet comprehensive history that starts before Gutenberg and continues to the modern day, including the revival of craft letterpress, this 64-page, cloth-covered, foil-stamped hardcover book is both a visual and mental treat. Available in regular and signed versions.*Text for inscription can be of modest length and the message should be appropriate for me to sign to you or someone else.
How Comics Are Made: Changes in printing technology drove modern newspaper comics—or was the popularity of comics the thing that drove newspapers to improve printing? This book covers over 130 years of comic printing history, from the Yellow Kid to Calvin & Hobbes and modern webcomics. Available in regular and signed versions.*Text for inscription can be of modest length and the message should be appropriate for me to sign to you or someone else. (This second edition of the book, previously How Comics Were Made, is hardcover and published by Andrews McMeel Publishing.)

Two books: Six Centuries of Type and Printing in green cloth binding, and How Comics Are Made with colorful comic art cover — Add-ons include regular and signed copies of “Six Centuries of Type & Printing” and “How Comics Are Made”

1-year subscription to True to Glenn’s Type: I publish a premium newsletter, which features a new article or essay on topics like those above at least once a month. You can add a 1-year subscription to your pledge. Subscribers also get updates on projects, discounts, access to live Q&As, and more.

As well as the above, I have printing-related artifacts collected and commissioned over the last few years:

Peanuts flong (one piece): From a cache of 1970s Sunday color flong prepared for a newspaper in Swedish to print Peanuts in English, you can get one or more plates, corresponding to colors, from this historic collection. (If you’d like one of the rare remaining sets of four colors, back at the underwriting tier.)

A single yellow-plate flong for a Sunday Peanuts comic, showing Snoopy and other characters in raised relief — Yellow plate in flong (mold) form of a four-color Sunday *Peanuts* comic from the 1970s

Zippy flong re-creation: Designed and printed with Jessica Spring of Springtide Press, and with the authorization of Bill Griffith, get this unique re-creation of flong of a classic Zippy the Pinhead comic. Printed on handmade paper, the print features the flong re-creation at top, with letterpress printing in the middle (the comic) and at bottom (print details). It comes with a card that has more details.

A Zippy the Pinhead flong re-creation on handmade paper with letterpress printing

About Glenn

One of the last people trained to become a typesetter in the 1980s, I studied graphic design in college and worked on the weekly paper. Throughout my writing, design, and production career, I’ve intertwined type, printing, and explanation, including writing dozens of computer how-to books and thousands of Macworld magazine columns.

I began to write extensively about printing history in 2017 and have created many books and projects since, all funded through Kickstarter, including The Tiny Type Museum and Time Capsule (2019–2022), How Comics Were Made (2024), Six Centuries of Type & Printing (2019, 2025), and London Kerning (2019). (How Comics Were Made appeared in a second edition in 2025 as How Comics Are Made.)

The Tiny Type Museum and Time Capsule: a wooden cabinet with drawers containing historic and newly created printing and type artifacts — The Tiny Type Museum & Time Capsule collected centuries of historic and newly created printing and type artifacts into a single case.

My current line of work is researching and writing about printing history, writing a regular column and occasional features for Six Colors, acting as Executive Editor at Take Control Books (a line of how-to ebooks on mostly Apple-related topics), and writing a monthly newsletter, True to Glenn’s Type. I help authors produce books, too, and project managed Shift Happens for Marcin Wichary, and Our Long National Nightmare for Tom Tomorrow (Dan Perkins).

Glenn Fleishman examining printed sheets of Shift Happens on a printing press in Lewiston, Maine — Glenn Fleishman on press with “Shift Happens,” 2023, in Lewiston, Maine (photo: Marcin Wichary)