Should've Paid More Attention in Sewing Class

Destroying Power Girl comics, day two!
(Day 1 here)


Yesterday I prepared all the signatures for binding. A "signature" is a grouping of pages for binding- a regular comic with staples is a single "signature". If you look at any hardcover book, you'll be able to see the pages grouped into signatures, apparently in lots of 16 pages or so (something like that anyway, I haven't checked personally). With everything set up, it's time to do the actual binding.

To make sense of what I'm actually doing, things will ultimately be bound like so:

Each signature gets sewn around the tapes- this is what we're actually binding to and will be holding the finished book together. 3 tapes is the recommended amount based on the tutorials I've read, but since I'm doing 20 issues all up, I thought I'd add a 4th for extra strength to be on the safe side.

Before getting to the above though, the signatures need to have some holes punched in them.

At the top and bottom of each signature, there needs to be a hole about 1/2" in (this measurement varies depending on what you read, but around about). After that, it's a matter of spacing out the holes depending on how many strips of tape you're using. Open each signature up, lay the middle over something soft to allow a needle through, and get stabbing!

When it comes to sewing, I'm using a strong linen thread designed for carpet repairs etc. Tie a knot in one end, then enter the bottom hole. Note that when it comes to stitching around the tape, you go around them, not into them.

Then it's through the other side.

Once you've finished one signature, place the next one on top. Those extra holes at the top and bottom are where the signatures get sewn together.

Then you sew the 2nd signature around the tapes, exiting the hole at the opposite end, and connecting the next signature (so each new signature gets joined at the opposite end from the last one).

One thing I had trouble with on the first project was keeping everything tight as I went. With the constant opening of the comics as you sew, things have a tendancy to move. Solution: clamp the top signature from the middle, to the workbench. That way you can open it, but nothing moves.

After a few hours (I think I just spent about 3 or 4 on it), you get this:

All it needs now are the covers. Yeah, if only it was that simple ;) That is the major part done though.

Just going back to joining the signatures for a moment- when you reach the end of one, before starting on the next one, you need to tie a knot to the previous join below it:

That way even though only every second signature gets joined directly, they all wind up tied together at each end.

Even though I've now got a funky looking "block" (technical term for all the bound signatures), how it this thing actually going to be strong enough to do anything with? Glue!

If I was a professional, I'd have one of those proper book press things, but since I'm not, I make do with clamps, and lots of them!

Things need to be tightened up, so place the block between some wood and clamp it. Next I'm going to stick some cloth to the spine to really give it some strength.

There needs to be plenty of cloth on each side, since this will be the first point of contact to the covers once they're added. A decent amount of glue for the spine, and then...

After working the glue and cloth in to the spine, clamp it up and leave it to dry overnight. If all goes well, tomorrow I'll be left with a near-indestructable book block.

More to come...

Crazy But Cool

**warning: contains mutilation of comics. Not for the faint hearted**

At one of the conventions a couple of months ago, there was a guy that had a really cool thing for Mike Allred to sign- a bound hardback copy of the entire X-Force/-Statics run. He had a couple of others with him too, and they looked fantastic. His interest in collecting lies in obtaining complete runs, and then getting the comics all professionally bound.

Since then I've thought about it a fair bit. I found an online Valiant community that's basically gone nuts and they've all bound up their collections, producing a handy guide to the various comics you might want to add in to a run to get the full story (ie crossovers with other books). So it's gotten to the point where I really wanted to do this. The local book binder is in the next city over from where I work, and doesn't open on weekends, so that kills that option. Binders in other parts of the country have pretty poor websites, if they have them at all- the most likely looking place to go has a website but no email, and I don't really want to just discuss this over the phone, since I had a bunch of questions and ideas.

In my searches, I came across many websites covering how to bind things yourself (the best one being here). Not really knowing if this was a good idea or not, I decided to try it. I chose to sacrafice the 7-issue run of TAKION by DC. I love it, but if anything went wrong well, it's easily available on ebay for around $5, so no biggie. Suprisingly for a first attempt, it turned out great. I didn't bother taking pics and stuff since I was not entirely sure what I was doing, but with my next project I'll be documenting the steps as I do them. So, on that note, I present:

HOW TO TOTALLY DESTROY YOUR POWER GIRL COLLECTION

With the Gray/Palmiotti/Connor lineup leaving the title with #12, I figured collecting their take on PG would be cool. I decided to add in the 4 issue JSA Classified story, and the 4 issue Terra mini since it's the same creative team and Terra ties in to the PG regular series quite nicely.

First step is to remove the staples.

The pages are all getting sewn together, so they'll only get in the way. Next up is to go through and find those pesky double sided 4 page ad inserts.

These are the easiest types of ads to remove- you can just pull them out and discard them (provided they're not glued in, which annoyingly they sometimes are). If I'm going to the trouble of binding all this, I want to eliminate as many ads as possible.

One thing I found with the first project, is that when you flick though the finished book the back cover of each issue gets in the way of the front cover of the issue following it (either static, or because they're both a bit thicker than the internal pages). This is annoying as it obscures the cover, plus it's another couple of ads I could do without.

I came up with the solution of joining the covers together in pairs- binding loose pages isn't really an option (as far as I know at this stage), so it's a of matter connecting things in a way that will let them be sewn in.

Here I cut off the back cover from #1, leaving a small part to be glued to #2's cover.

Cover #2 I cut off cleanly, so that it could be glued to the inside of the strip from #1.

It does leave a slightly unsightly join on the back, but it's not obstructing any actual content and should be atleast partly hidden in the margin once bound.

The pages for issue #1 then sit in between the two covers. The pages for #2 now have no cover, but this will not be a problem once they are all bound together.

I had to think a fair bit about the next part. DC has a current fixation with inserting previews for other comics. In the old days (that being the 80's for me), such a thing would've been inserted in the middle, and no problem to remove. These days, they're at the end of the story pages, so printed as part of the overall volume. Much more of a problem to remove, since it actually involves cutting them out if you want to get rid of them (which I do!)

They also like to add glue between the last story page of the comic, and the first page of the preview. I have no idea why, since it's all printed exactly the same and bound by staples, but it means there is ripping involved to remove it, which will leave you with a loose story page.

Thankfully, this is offset by the previews being 5 pages long (which equates to 3 sheets, plus the cover). An even number of sheets means everything can be tied together (an odd number and I'd be screwed). The one change that takes place is that the loose page (that was glued) gets bound on the opposite side from how it printed in the comic (conveniently, there's an ad on the back of the page, so it doesn't matter). It's just a matter of trimming off the tatty glued part of the page, since that will now be the outer edge...

...and attatching it to the cover using the same method I did for attatching the two covers previously.

That just leave two more sheets to cut up the same way and glue.

Then they sit between the other two pages to form a little mini-signature (a "signature" being a grouping of pages to be bound. If I wasn't cutting out pages and being clever, then each issue would be a signature on it's own)


Some of this may seem a little confusing, but the reasons for doing various steps should become clearer as things progress. It took a fair while to get my head around all this the first time.

Obviously, if you like your comic collection to be in anything resembling mint condition then you'll recoil in horror at this whole idea. Personally, while I do bag all my comics and look after them, that's primarily so that 20 years from now I don't have to re-buy something I want to read. I'd much rather they be accessible so I can pull them off a bookshelf and flick through them at will, rather than having to dig each issue out of a box and unwrap them before reading. Although having said that, I'm not about to go binding my Silver Surfer vol 1 collection or anything. I'm not quite that crazy.

Stay tuned, I'll be posting at the completion of each step. Up next: sewing everything together.

A product line full of possibilities

I don't generally go for lewd content here, but having the printer at work spit out a label for a 12 " Talking Woody, for $69, is just too damn amusing to ignore.

Once I Was a Comic...But Now I'm a Book About Tigers

Doing some stuff in the book department at work, I came across the above titled book. It's a book about tigers, printed on recycled paper, which may give you an idea about how disturbing this is about to get. Down the side of each page is a little story, an excerpt of which follows...

Hi!

Neat.

They must be Adventure Comics, because they're about to go on an adventure.

Poor thing, it's going to get flipped through by every kid that sees it. Goodbye "mint", hello "fine".

Oh sure, like that would really happen ;)

Yay!

...then 20 years later regretted it and spent a fortune on a CGC copy.

Wait, what? The kid did what?

This is like that movie "From Dusk Til Dawn" that all of a sudden turns into a horror flick halfway though.

Look at the crazy comics, they're STILL SMILING! Perhaps it's better they don't know.

!!!!

For the sake of everyone's sanity, I'm going to leave it there, because who needs to see more of that.

Brush or Pen? Both!

One of the really interesting things at the recent conventions here was the tools the artists were using. 3 of them (Agnes Garbowska, Mike Allred, and Francis Manapul) were using the same ink pen, and I'd never seen it before.

It's a nifty little cross between a brush and a pen, using bristles but running off an ink cartridge. Which of course means you can do everything from detail to thick lines, and vary the weight of a line like you can with a brush, but without the hassle (and mess) of dipping from an ink well.

I wasn't the only one taken with this. The 3 of them combined could probably have sold a couple of dozen of the things, with the number of people asking them what it was they were using. Mike Allred put me on to the above Jetpens website, so I quickly put in an order (side note: don't visit "jetpen.com" by mistake, it is... disturbing). They arrived a couple of days ago (can't get them locally), so today I had a bit of a play, doing this in around 30 minutes:

It's really cool not having to change pens, or to fill in a think line using a thin tip. If your hand's not steady doing the thin lines then it really shows, had the shakes a few times. Doesn't seem like it will take a heck of a lot of practise to get used to though, the above came out pretty good for a first attempt.

Only 6 Months To Go...

Well, that's the current convention season done and dusted.

As with Chchgeddon, I spent way more time than I probably should've with the comic guests, especially Mike and Laura Allred who were super cool. Mike deciding to do sketches (which he doesn't really do anymore) made my friggin week- majorly stoked to get one done, plus it was fun watching him do the others. (see previous post for pics)

I also splashed out on a Madman page:


Even though it took a freaking HOUR waiting in line, meeting Steve Blum and getting a couple of Guyver dvd covers signed was cool. It's my favourite anime, and as it turned out was the first voice job he got, so I think both of us were chuffed to relive the Guyver memories (he was Guyver 3).

There were some nice new stalls to look at this time too, the volume of dealers was a vast improvement on recent years.

Media guest wise, they were a bit hit-or-miss for me. The Star Trek panel with Dominic Keating, John Billingsley and Rene Auberjonois was interesting, the only low point being the inevitable "can I have a hug" question from the audience (such people need to be beaten).
Maybe it's just me, but John Billingsley and Bonita Friedericy together on stage wasn't as amusing as they seemed to think it was, but then I haven't watched them on anything so had nothing invested in it.
James Kyson Lee from Heroes was actually much better then I expected. I'm kind of cold on Heroes these days, but he was interesting enough.
Marion Ramsey (Police Academy) didn't bring anything to the table and was pretty much a waste of space. I didn't see her first panel in Christchurch, but the other 3 times she was on stage, she sang 3 Tina Turner songs. Quite why she thought we wanted to hear that I don't know, although she seemed to get a decent crowd reaction.
Michael Winslow had pretty much the same material as Auckland last year, but he's still cool enough that it wasn't a big deal.
Chaske Spencer (Twilight) didn't draw as big of a crowd as I expected. Considering he was the only guest on the Friday, he spent much of the afternoon at the signing table doing nothing. Maybe it got better for him the other 2 days. His panel showed why it's not so great being in something that attracts a young audience- I only saw a bit of it, but the questions were all painful to hear...

So that was that. I'm not totally sold on Wellington being a big enough event to support a 3 day show. It was kinda cool having the Friday to hit the stalls and buy stuff, and then worry about the guests on the other 2 days, but it's certainly not essential.

Onwards to Auckland in Oct/Nov!

Brief Interlude For Coolness

Currently in the middle of the Wellington Armageddon convention. Will give a bit of a rundown after the final day tomorrow, but for now just wanted to show off a couple of sketches I had done today.

The first is by Agnes Garbowska.

Her stuff's super cute, she has an issue of Spider-Ham coming out from Marvel in the next month or two.

The second sketch, which is what I'm most excited about, is by Mike Allred.

Mike's retired from doing convention sketches, and the previous week at the Christchurch con turned down all requests. This week I guess he was just in the mood for drawing, he got through 4 requests today. Lucky for me I was hanging around early on, since I wound up buying a Madman page (pics to come later). His wife Laura commented in the afternoon that she still couldn't believe he was doing sketches, so that's how rare they are. I love the character to it.