Print and fold your own Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe: master of mystery and suspense and short stories. A little gloomy and creepy. And now -- for free! -- you can have a folded paper version of the author, just in time for Halloween.

Actually, you could have as many of him as you want. Illustrator Brian Gubicza has created the print-and-fold Edgar Allan Poe above. It’s a little sophisticated -- the template has no directions, so you’ll have to suss out how to cut and fold and assemble the pieces on your own. But since it’s absolutely free, if you make a mistake you can just print and start again. And once you get it right, you could create whole parades of lil’ Edgar Allan Poes.

To download the PDF, you’ll need to go to this French site; look for the link under the photo that says Download: E.A. Coobie by Goobeetsa. (At this site -- for ‘paper toys’ -- designers create and share blank patters and the illustrations they design for them).

What’s in it for an independent illustrator? Brian Gubicza also has a store on the craft site Etsy. There are fanciful cute paper puppet kits, affordable buttons and digital prints for sale. Some of the designs are based on classic fiction (‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,’ ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ ‘Dracula’); others are based on his nightmarish dreams. Which isn’t all that different from the work from Edgar Allen Poe.

-- Carolyn Kellogg