Tray, a Lead Graffiti printer, is a member of the 501st Legion, a group of probably 6,000 members worldwide, who portray the nefarious or Dark Side characters of the Star Wars films and other media with some serious costuming effort.

Tray and fellow area colleagues built Emperor Palpatine’s throne and the window behind it for Celebration V (throne), Celebration VI (flat window), and Celebration VII (adding outside dimension to the window), 3 major Star Wars conventions. Today happens to also be the first Saturday in May which is Free Comic Book Day and about 6 of them always dress up for a few hours at Captain Bluehen, a Newark, Delaware, iconic comic book store. Throw into this mix, that today is Ann Lemon’s birthday. Ann is a former and seriously in the top tier of favorite students of Ray’s ever in Visual Communications at the University of Delaware.

Ann wanted to throw herself a birthday party and rented out Lead Graffiti for a Star Wars-related letterpress workshop. The result of the workshop will be a 16-page, hard cover, meander book printed 2 colors, all bound without the use of glue or sewing. You can see the look of the book here.

So, we put up the throne and window, the guys are coming dressed in costume for the start of the workshop.

The photo is of Emperor Lemon on her throne waiting for new apprentices.

This was a dark day for the dark side of the dark arts.