Comic Book Collectors Have Many Issues

Cori's BFF: "Hey Cori, did you hear about Threadcakes??"
Cori: "No, what the heck is a Thread cake?"
BFF: "OMG! You HAVE to go to this website: www.threadcakes.com! IT's a Threadless cake contest!!!"
Cori: "A WHAT?! (pees pants) Are you freaking kidding me? I LOVE Threadless! And I love making cakes with super rad concepts! OMG!"
BFF: "DUH. I know this. That's why I'm your Bestie. Are you gonna make one?"
Cori: "Umm... YES. How could I NOT?"
BFF:"When's the deadline?"
Cori: "In a week."
BFF "OMG!"
Cori: "OMG!"

That's kinda sorta how it started... This past Sunday I spent most of my night at work doing not so much working and a whole LOT of Threadless browsing, scrambling to find not only the most awesome designs, but the ones I thought I could pull off... in theory. After many hours of contemplation, I finally settled on this design.

BFF:" Why are you choosing THAT one? It looks really hard! How are you going to do it?"
Cori: "I'm going to paint a replica of every single tiny comic book and re-create the pattern on top of a book cake."
BFF: "You're (expletive) crazy."

And so it began, I spent the next several days making fondant, baking, and mostly painting, painting, painting. For a few of the steps I enlisted the help of my three year old, Charlie. He just had a birthday nearly a month ago, and he seemed to think that this was another birthday cake for him. He kept asking me for candles. I have a habit of coming up with some grand scheme to tackle for people's birthday cakes- maybe he saw that look in my eye ;)
I decided to try making marshmallow fondant this time, since I'd heard that it was easier and tasted better. Having worked with regular fondant before, I can assure you that marshmallow fondant is just as much of a pain in the tookus as regular fondant! But it does taste better. I baked a 9 X 13 white cake, cut it into two layers, did a small amount of carving, and iced it with buttercream. Once I had it covered with the fondant, I painted the spine of the book black and began working on the miniature comics. I rolled out and cut some fondant squares and mixed food coloring with some really cheap vodka. There were several moments when I looked up at that giant bottle of vodka, and thought perhaps I should just quit and drink it instead... but Led Zeppelin helped me through it.
After a couple days of painting I finally finished the lst comic book. Then I just stared at the cake for a while and wanted to cry, because now I had a big, edible jigsaw puzzle to fit together. After trying once and starting over again, the pieces finally began to come together, and I finally had something pretty cool. I piped on some lettering for the book title, and lo and behold... I had a finished product. I felt some major relief and a great sense of accomplishment, and I my bed was calling my name. But every time I closed my eyes, all I could see were tiny comic books coming to get me! I'm pretty sure I dreamed about Superman and zombies- which was pretty rad.
This morning when Charlie woke up I told him I had finished his cake. He thought that I meant I had eaten it all, and started to get teary eyed! When I explained myself, he got really excited and thought he needed to have some for breakfast. I made him eat some breakfast first, then I let him have some. After all, he'd been waiting for three days! Again, he asked me where his candles were. I had a piece too, despite the fact that I don't like that much sugar in the morning. But I needed to taste all that hard work! I think I'm gonna have to save a few of the little comics... my favorite ones at least. Maybe I'll take the cake to work tonight and let people eat it. After all, they kind of paid me to get started.

Text messages with pics of the finished product:
Cori: "Fin."
BFF:"You are the most fantastic person I know!!! I freaking love it!!!"
Cori:" My kitchen is covered in vodka and powdery white substances."
BFF: "What happens in the kitchen, stays in the kitchen."