Bound books

Steve Topper · Post by **Steve Topper** » Fri Mar 12, 2010 9:57 pm

Phoenix8008 wrote:Another question for those that have bound books already: Has anyone tried removing the staples from the spine before sending them off for binding, and if so did you notice any less gutter loss in that book compared to others that still had the staples in them?

I remove the staples. I started doing that while binding my Superman collection. Normal 36 page comics, it is probably unnecessary, but I included 80 Page Giants and 100 Page Super-Spectaculars. Those had staples on the side and needed to be removed or the trimming would have been horrendous.

Now I remove the staples and check the last page to make sure the story isn't continued in some other title. It's a last check prior to sending out to the binder.

Lightning Strike · Post by **Lightning Strike** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 3:43 am

Steve Topper wrote:
Phoenix8008 wrote:Another question for those that have bound books already: Has anyone tried removing the staples from the spine before sending them off for binding, and if so did you notice any less gutter loss in that book compared to others that still had the staples in them?
I remove the staples. I started doing that while binding my Superman collection. Normal 36 page comics, it is probably unnecessary, but I included 80 Page Giants and 100 Page Super-Spectaculars. Those had staples on the side and needed to be removed or the trimming would have been horrendous.

Now I remove the staples and check the last page to make sure the story isn't continued in some other title. It's a last check prior to sending out to the binder.

Yep, always double check everything before you ship them off to get bound

PhoneyBone · Post by **PhoneyBone** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:20 pm

Does anyone have a good JPEG of these dust jackets I can have? LBC now does full color custom covers for a flat $15 but you have to send them the JPEG. I was thinking of doing Archer & Armstrong (full series) and Harbinger (1-25)

PhoneyBone · Post by **PhoneyBone** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:24 pm

And let me show off my first binds. I got them this week

The spine is silver too its just the flash that makes it look white.

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 7:50 pm

Wow. Those look great. From Library Binding?

PhoneyBone · Post by **PhoneyBone** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 8:12 pm

Yeah, the only bad thing is that the first one "collapsed" it looks like the spine is too think for the book. It's because the batman/grendel covers in the middle of the book are really think stock and it caused the middle to shift forward. They said they would try to fix it if I sent it back but its kind of annoying that I have to pay double shipping on something that should have been noticed and fixed there.

I'm starting to suspect that LBC uses the comicbook submissions as projects for the new guy to learn on before promoting them to larger school book and church hymnal accounts.

dholden007 · Post by **dholden007** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:48 pm

PhoneyBone wrote:I'm starting to suspect that LBC uses the comicbook submissions as projects for the new guy to learn on before promoting them to larger school book and church hymnal accounts.

LOL...I thought James the owner did all the comic binding.

PhoneyBone · Post by **PhoneyBone** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:57 pm

I doubt it. It says on the website he oversees production. It seems like a like a multiple person operation. It's a great company and the attention they are paying to comics is great but the work seems to vary from photos I have seen.

dholden007 · Post by **dholden007** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 10:18 pm

PhoneyBone wrote:I doubt it. It says on the website he oversees production. It seems like a like a multiple person operation. It's a great company and the attention they are paying to comics is great but the work seems to vary from photos I have seen.

Hopefully those are isolated, it would be a pain to start sending back books to be corrected, especially if it happens a lot. It does seem like a great company, James responds to E-mails right away ...so far so good.

tmcneil82 · Post by **tmcneil82** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 10:34 pm

The covers look great. I'm surprised they won't cover the shipping to fix the problem, since it's obviously their fault. Oh well, they look cool.

Lightning Strike · Post by **Lightning Strike** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:20 pm

PhoneyBone wrote:Does anyone have a good JPEG of these dust jackets I can have? LBC now does full color custom covers for a flat $15 but you have to send them the JPEG. I was thinking of doing Archer & Armstrong (full series) and Harbinger (1-25)

Yeah, that's a really neat new feature they are offering

Lightning Strike · Post by **Lightning Strike** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:22 pm

Those Grendel book look sweet dude even though the binding is messed up. James is pretty cool. If you call him about it, he might pay for shipping. I've had 23 books bound by them and I haven't had any problems like that.

IanAlexavier · Post by **IanAlexavier** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 12:49 am

Lightning Strike wrote:
PhoneyBone wrote:Does anyone have a good JPEG of these dust jackets I can have? LBC now does full color custom covers for a flat $15 but you have to send them the JPEG. I was thinking of doing Archer & Armstrong (full series) and Harbinger (1-25)
Yeah, that's a really neat new feature they are offering

Anyone have pics of this?

PhoneyBone · Post by **PhoneyBone** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:14 am

I have found pictures of a neat Archer & Armstrong dust jacket but it's a small thumbnail photo. The resolution needs to be bigger for them to make it into a cover.

PhoneyBone · Post by **PhoneyBone** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:22 am

Like this would make an awesome custom cover but I would have to find a higher resolution of the photo.

robb77 · Post by **robb77** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 6:28 am

very cool

IanAlexavier · Post by **IanAlexavier** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:54 am

Steve's work is amazing!

Steve Topper · Post by **Steve Topper** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:13 am

PhoneyBone wrote:Like this would make an awesome custom cover but I would have to find a higher resolution of the photo.

I think I still have a 300dpi version of most of my dust jackets in both JPEG and PSD formats. I'll check my files later and let you know.

Steve Topper · Post by **Steve Topper** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:14 am

PhoneyBone wrote:Like this would make an awesome custom cover but I would have to find a higher resolution of the photo.

I think I still have a 300dpi version of most of my dust jackets in both JPEG and PSD formats. I'll check my files later and let you know.

Phoenix8008 · Post by **Phoenix8008** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:45 am

Woah! So you could have a full picture built into the cover of the book when they bind it now? Does this just apply to the front cover, or both front and back?

If you can do both, I'd love to have the back cover have all the individual covers included be shown on there like Steve does on his dust jackets. I can't wait to see pics of somebody who uses this option to see how it looks!

Steve Topper · Post by **Steve Topper** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 11:30 am

My understanding after I talked to Jim on Thursday was:

You provide the image (JPEG) you want for the front, spine and back and they print the image and apply it to the book in lieu of the traditional buckram. I didn't ask about the end flaps, but I'm assuming you wouldn't need those as it isn't a dustjacket.

I've seen examples from other people's books, but have never done one myself, YET!

Since I have about another 50 or so binding projects planned, I'm going to experiment with this type of binding; I just don't know what exactly or when.

Steve Topper · Post by **Steve Topper** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 11:40 am

I just checked my files. I still have the following dust images available if anybody wants them:

Dust Jacket Image availability:
Archer & Armstrong (PSD)
Armorines (PSD)
Bloodshot - Valiant (PSD)
Bloodshot - Acclaim (PSD)
Doctor Tomorrow (PSD)
Eternal Warrior - 3 different versions (JPEG only for two of them, PSD for one)
Harbinger (PSD)
HARD Corps (PSD)
Magnus - Valiant 3 different versions (PSD)
Magnus - Acclaim (PSD)
Ninjak 2 different versions (PSD)
Quantum & Woody (PSD)
Rai - 2 different versions (PSD)
Secret Weapons (PSD)
Shadowman (PSD)
Solar - 3 different versions (PSD)
Trinity Angels (PSD)
Troublemakers (PSD)
Unity (PSD)
Visitor (PSD)
X-O Manowar - Valiant 3 different versions (PSD)
X-O Manowar - Acclaim (PSD)

Even if you don't have Photoshop, the PSD versions would work as I can easily save the PSD versions as JPEGs. Unfortunately, I can't save the JPEGs as PSD though.

Lightning Strike · Post by **Lightning Strike** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:19 pm

IanAlexavier wrote:
Lightning Strike wrote:
PhoneyBone wrote:Does anyone have a good JPEG of these dust jackets I can have? LBC now does full color custom covers for a flat $15 but you have to send them the JPEG. I was thinking of doing Archer & Armstrong (full series) and Harbinger (1-25)
Yeah, that's a really neat new feature they are offering
Anyone have pics of this?

http://www.librarybinding.com/customcovers.html

Tim · Post by **Tim** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:31 pm

Lightning Strike wrote:
IanAlexavier wrote:
Lightning Strike wrote:
PhoneyBone wrote:Does anyone have a good JPEG of these dust jackets I can have? LBC now does full color custom covers for a flat $15 but you have to send them the JPEG. I was thinking of doing Archer & Armstrong (full series) and Harbinger (1-25)
Yeah, that's a really neat new feature they are offering
Anyone have pics of this?
http://www.librarybinding.com/customcovers.html

Wow...those look really nice.

PhoneyBone · Post by **PhoneyBone** » Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:55 pm

Yeah the backs have the image too. It's like a in school we used to have shiny text books with color images that wrapped around.