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Alright, let's get on with the show now. Waiting down upon the underworld to smash gangland, come a friend of the unfortunate enemy of criminal. In a serious, all powerful character, a problem to the police, but a crusade of a law. Hey everyone and welcome to the Els World Exchange I am Sal.
And I'm Tiffany. Today we're gonna talk about how to make comics. People have been asking for a third installment of the how to make comics trilogy series, like a mini series underneath the Els World Exchange moniker. Yeah.
So we've been kind of giving you our experience as to how you make comics from our perspective because we've made a significant portion of, like we've made some comics in our day. What about this? You have made comics and- You have helped in a significant way because of your design sensibilities and your understanding of printing and whatnot. I think you are going to say this is the episode that I will be the most helpful for.
This is true. I'll be more silent about this. I'm gonna talk more about my experiences with doing printers. And I think that that's fair because you've actually dealt with comic book printers.
Whereas I have dealt with a lot of just overall printing companies for my various jobs. Exactly. So hopefully I can give you guys a crash course in printing. Now of course there's lots of other resources out there because a lot of things you have to think about before going into this.
But it's something that everyone can make happen in their lives. Once you get to that point because of course we've already talked to you guys about how to start your comic, how to write your script, how you should- Find an artist, find an artist, find an artist, say how you should have someone else read it, go through a couple of drafts, decide if you're gonna draw it, get an artist, pay those page rates, get it all together. And now it's like right now what do I do with it. I'm not gonna put it digitally.
If I want to book in my hands, how am I gonna make that happen? That's right. I guess if we run out of topic we can talk about how to get your book published digitally. Sure.
I mean like- Because you should do that no matter what. Yeah. Yeah. And I have a feeling that the printing element will go pretty quickly because there's only so much you kind of need to know about this.
But otherwise I think you know, you already done your homework, right? You already got your comic script, you got your comic pages already got right? Yeah. You got your pages already on your desktop, you're looking at them, you're like, how am I gonna get these out?
I don't think I'm gonna make another Els World Exchange so I can print things. Yeah. I've been waiting for this episode. I know I said we were gonna do a monthly episode of this series.
But we've been busy. We've been getting more and more stuff out. We've been in a new series that Tiffany's kind of in headlining, which is our playthrough series. We haven't seen it.
Watch it. Yeah. But I'll see you've had a lot of guests. Yes.
That's true. We've been scheduling different guests and they take precedence over that simply because they have schedules to keep and I don't. Yeah. And I appreciate you waiting for me.
Oh, no problem. Yeah. I'm not gonna get somebody else to talk about this. So yeah, let's talk about it.
In my experience, when I was interested in getting my comic done, listen, like when I got those pages from the artist I was working with, that was- Those are some of the most exciting and some of the best, most rewarding period in the comic making process is seeing the stuff you're working on in the actual pages where you're like, Oh my God, it's actually coming together. And then once you have them all together, you feel like, I want to know. Well, I do a significant amount of research into independent printing groups. There were more than when I started doing it than there are now.
I think there used to be one. Do you remember what they were called? Comic Express? I think that's what it was called?
Maybe. With an X, Comic Express. Comic Express was like Kablam. And if you're not familiar with Kablam, K-A, Kablam, Kablam.
And Comic Express were for me the two comic book independent printing companies that I could use that were budgetarily realistic for me. As opposed to like, if I'm printing a book, I'm not printing a run, like I'm an independent comic book publisher. I'm printing a short run that I can use typically to pitch to other comic publishers or to try and see if there's any interest. So if that's the case, I think I printed up like 200, about 100 to 200 copies.
So I was looking at that range. So your options get more and more limited. I've heard of Lulu. That's a thing that existed when I was doing it and they still are here.
They, I've gotten a book printed by them. It is, it's deceptively easy, but also not very cost effective. And ultimately the quality was not what I was expecting. And that's because I know what a comic book feels like every different variety of comic.
So I know what it should look and feel like. And Lulu was not able to deliver on that promise. Comic Express was the one that I always went with because they were a little cheaper than Kablam. The reason for that was because it was a mom and pop outfit that was run by two people in Jersey.
And they had all the professionals of a mom and pop company where if they would screw up they'd want to charge extra and it was just a whole mess. I know that I've gotten proof. Oh, by the way, you usually pay upfront with these guys to get a proof. Usually you pay like five bucks or four bucks or however much your book costs to be printed to get like a proof.
And the proof is just a vert like, it's just the first print of your comic to check to see if there's any problems. Okay, let me, let me put in right there. And that is a huge difference between the printers I've dealt with and the printers that you have dealt with. The printers that I have dealt with, you get a proof because that's what you get.
They just give it to you. And I have been a part of magazine printings. I have been a part of invitation printings. I've been a part of sign printing, banner printing, all kinds of things from business cards all the way up to massive signs that were woodcar or that kind of thing.
I get proofs because the companies I'm dealing with know a lot of money is going to be spent and I have to see a proof. And with that proof, it is my responsibility to make sure that everything is correct on that. If something is incorrect in the proof and I approved it, that's not me. That's your fault.
And the fact is, if you're getting a proof, it means that you have signed a contract and you're working with this group, which means you've already promised or pledged to pay a certain amount of money. So actually, well, no, the proof is literally what it looks like. The proof is literally like, I, all right, so for me, when I'm doing any kind of printing project, I give someone the art. Now, there's two types of proofs, by the way, guys, there's an actual proof of concept, which, or actually, there's multiple types of proofs.
There's a proof of concept where you actually see the item. Here it is. It's what it looks like, whatever. There's a color proof that I've gotten for magazines, which is on incorrect paper.
The paper is totally different than what the paper for the magazines. Is that because it's cheaper? No, it has something to do with essentially what they're just trying to show you what the colors are going to look like in their corrective form. So essentially, they show me this proof and it's like this hard, or this is heavier card stock, and it's my job to go through and make sure all the colors look accurate.
So what they're going to do is when they run this and we'll talk about the types of printing, they're going to match all of that to that proof. Cool, whatever, right? Now, if I think something's wrong with it, they've got to go back and fix it. They have to fix it.
Now, with these smaller groups, I think that's what you'll have to pay for because they don't have the overhead to make that happen. They're going to forward to do that. They're usually used to printing small print runs, and so as such, they need to recoup their losses that way. I know that a local creator in our area worked with a local printer in our area to get his comic published, and he had to deal with all the same problems that I did with printers that were anywhere out of the state or out of the country.
And it was interesting because they were literally like 20 minutes off the road, and he still had the exact same problems that I did. So don't be surprised. Don't think that it's going to be easier or more convenient to work with a local printer. They all have the same problems and issues.
But there is a difference between that because it can be easier to, if you're working with someone local, while often that can cost more, and online print companies can keep their overhead down because they have a larger reach. With a local version, you can go in. You can see stuff, you can go over things with them directly. Which is better.
Yeah, I think that's better often to be able to, because I have a lot of relationships with printers. We communicate, like if I have a question, they will hold up everything until I get my answer. That's the thing. In my experience with comic book printers, the small print guys like Kablam and I did work with Kablam after Comics press went out of business.
Literally, I was working with Comic Press, and despite the fact that they were frustrating and difficult to work with, they were still cheaper than the guys over Kablam, and then they went to business. And it was like, oh my only option is Kablam. And now there are a couple of other different competitors. But for the most part, every time I ever see a, I printed this book, experience is a Kablam printed book.
Yeah. That said, Kablam had the same issues that Comic Press had, and the same issues that I've seen from the local printer. And when I see issues, I mean like, it didn't look, feel, or behave like a normal comic book. No, and there's a simple reason for that.
It has to do with the paperweight. 100%. They use something that's a little bit heavier, which is not what we're used to seeing. And your standard issue that you're going to get.
Now, of course, each comic book company does them differently. I would guess, and this is a guess guy who's like, don't work for DC. But this is probably somewhere between a 60 and 70 pound stock. Okay.
Now, I don't know what that means. That sounds pretty hip. It's not actually. For those who don't know, paper is judged by its weight, essentially.
And what does that mean? In the US, we do it per pound. I think in other areas, I use metric. I think it's per gram.
I'm not sure about that. I'm not 100% on. So someone else who is from over there, let me know. Yeah.
But over here, we do poundage. So, okay. If you took 500 seats with this paper, what would it weigh? That's how you tell per pound.
I see. So the higher the poundage, the heavier the stock. Okay. So comic books, typically, there's some gift to them, right?
That's what Kiblam is missing. Kiblam is missing this ability for your comic to close fully. They step in. And of course, this is also, I think the rest.
I don't know where it would be in there. Like on a shelf. Do you want to see if I can find it? Nah.
Okay. I want to compare them, but I, there's a problem with the Kiblam books is at the center of the book, you'll find that it sits almost more like that. You know what? I have one in the car.
I'll be back. Okay. Oh, it's going to be my chauffeur. Yeah.
You, you, since you're, I'm literally not going to say anything for the next five minutes. Go ahead. Off you go. So, okay.
Let's talk a little more just about paper in general. The paper that they print this on has a gloss to it. The reason it has a gloss is because colors always show up better on a gloss. Typically, photo, you'll see also usually gloss.
You can get a matte print, but the colors are richer in a gloss paper. That's just a variety of finish. Now, I do have other examples here of individual issues that are printed on something different. For examples, got some letters AD.
The exterior has a cover stock and it has a, like, canvas texture to it, but that was what they chose for this. This is almost closer to what a trade is. And a trade paperback is printed very differently than an individual issue, which you'll notice the interiors on this are also glossy. This paper is a little bit thicker.
I can tell just by feeling it. You'll see people who are in the printing industry often touching paper, feeling it. I can definitely feel that this is weighted differently. It's also a different size format, which we'll talk about when we get into formatting your files.
Let's talk about the binding too while I have you guys here. Those comics are bound by Stable. You can see it in there. It's shiny.
It's new. It's there. It's awesome. What it needs to do for this.
Hooray! Most trades are what we call perfect bound. All of the pages are folded and then glued in place, creating this square sort of binding on the end. It's fancy and awesome.
That was also back, so I have to go. Hey, I got it. Now, I don't want it to rail what you were going to say. I was just talking about different binding.
The last binding that I will mention is a lot of hardcover books, whether they be graphic novel or otherwise. There'll be something called, sort of like, a saddle stitching. All of these are different in price. Stable binding is the least expensive.
The price of binding is a little bit more, but it's very lovely. If you're doing an individual issue, you have to worry about it because it will be Stable bound. Now, okay. First of all, when you get your book printed by an independent creator, like an independent publisher like Kiblam, they're all going to look like this.
The reason why there's a huge Kiblam out of the back is to offset cost. Usually, they will give you an option as to where you can put your ads in the book. And if you put the Kiblam ad on the back cover, it's usually the most savings. And of course, it tells you the least egregious place to put an ad.
Oh, yeah, because look at this. You're also pretty much used to it. So at that point, it's not a big deal. So in that case, that's why they're there.
But you can also, of course, if you were interested in printing your own book and you got advertisers from other sources, you could just use their ad and put it into the place of where Kiblam allows you to place ads. Can we see that here? It won't save you money on the printing, but maybe you might be able to offset the printing cost by the amount of money you're given by the outside advertiser. Now, because most people that I had worked with printed their books via some source like this, they all had the same problem with the middle Boeing.
You can even still see that now. Now, here's the thing. They all usually vote out even more egregiously than what is here. This book is like, I want to say five years old and because of this, and because most people have the same experience dealing with this with the Boeing, they all have their own little ideas about how to fix this problem.
And most of them are, let's put a huge amount of weight on the binding so that it flattens it out a little better. Even though if I'm printing a comic book, listen, I don't have to hard press my usual retail copies of any other comic book, why should I have to put up with that? Well, and I see with a variety of reasons. First of all, this comic is only so many pages.
That comic has far more pages in it and again, the stock is different. That's it. Those are the two big things there because of the fact that this is, again, far longer. You can see there.
You can see right, like this is part of the problem here. You have pressed this and in doing so, you can see some cracks along the spine there. So it's kind of like, it's a trade off. This literally is coming to let you get your comic into print.
And that's amazing because it can be difficult to find a printer who can do this on a smaller scale. Now, some of you might be thinking, 100 to 200 doesn't seem like a small scale. For most printers, it is very small. The magazines that I've worked on have been essentially school publications and we were running, and we were still in the small end, and we were doing runs between 4 and 5,000.
And we're still doing a smaller run, essentially. I will tell you that when in terms of printing quantity, the lower the quantity that you're overall producing, the more per piece it will cost you. So the higher quantity that you're creating, the lower it will cost you per individual. Now, in my case, somebody asked how many we had printed this one.
This, by the way, is the first print run of my independent comic series, you know, whatever. But this was the first one and I wanted to get it done, despite the fact that we didn't have a color. So I had a black and white book. This is the cheapest possible version of this issue.
And it still costs, this was a 45 page comic, no ads within, no coloration, which of course we talked about coloring, and everything like that in a previous episode. And it still cost about, I want to say about $3 per issue. So if I wanted to offset any cost, I had to make this, I had to retail this at something over $3. I don't think I got $3 worth of comic out of this thing, but I still have to print out about 200 copies in order to make this worthwhile.
Or to make it exist in the first place. And here's the thing, when you're printing your own book, when you go through the process, you wrote it, you've hashed out a good script, you've found a terrific collaborator, they've produced some incredible art, you've worked with, you've now found a terrific colorist, your whole book is beautiful, it's amazing, it's exactly how you want it, because that's what you should strive for every time you're printing your own book, you have a terrific letter and they're doing an amazing job. Once you've gotten that all done, you're going to not want to wait to have this thing out there, because basically you've been looking at it for the better part of a year or two. So you are going to want to cut corners and wait, or not want to wait to get this thing out there, if you're anything like me.
But my advice in that case is don't do that. And I know that that's obvious, but it's not when you're in that moment when you're in that mindset, but always wait for the best possible quality. You've already waited a year and a half to two years to get the best possible book you can, and then you're going to trip before you hit the finish line, like no, don't do that. Don't put up with low quality, just because you want to see your work in print.
There are ways around that, and we'll get into them because I call it digital publishing. Exactly. But if you were talking specifically about getting your book out there physically, because listen, there's something more impressive, and there's something more satisfying than handing someone your comic book. That's true.
And there's nothing more depressing than handing someone your comic book and knowing in the back of your mind or in your heart of hearts that it's just not as good as it could have been. Never apologize for that kind of like for your product. You should never feel like you need to apologize. Yeah, never, never, if you feel like you're in a position where you're like, here's my book.
Now, here's the thing about it. Before you did that, no. Like you want to prevent that future from ever happening. You don't want to get into a position like that where you're like, you have to stipulate these random things, like these limitations.
Because when you're pitching your book, when you're trying to sell your book to publishers, you're selling yourself and you're selling your ability. You're saying to your publisher that I am capable enough that I can, I can write, I can find an artist like a work with them. You're basically proving like I can be my own publishing house. I don't even need you, but I'm letting you have an opportunity at this comic.
That's what you want to present to them in some way. You don't act like that. But that's kind of like, you want to show them a comic book where they go, should I need that? I need this guy or girl who knows what they're doing enough to make something that's as good and not better than what we're making.
And if you're not there, don't do it. So anyway. Okay, so first of all, I can tell you, this paper is really sucks. It doesn't suck.
It's too thick for the purpose now again. I will say you can't see through it. No, that's one thing. I mean, like here's the thing, you, they may have changed that.
I haven't. I have seen Kabland books since then. They have not changed a damn thing. It's in your thing.
We're not here to like. To rag on any particular printer, unless they're in a business in which case screw comics. But, so, okay, let's talk about, so we see in the back Kabland it says digital printing. What does that mean?
It means something that is very important to know because digital printing has come a long way and is now a sort of viable option for everyone out there to keep costs down, but also to allow you to get a nice product or a decent product. How about this? So there's offset printing and there is digital printing. I'll run over offset really quickly because you probably won't be utilizing that out of the gate here.
Offset printing is done on massive machines. I have been to printing facilities and had the opportunity to see them running when I was there. They had these huge Japanese machines and then they, which were very futuristic and cool looking. And then these huge old school German machines, which look like, I don't even know, they were just fantastic looking.
Offset printing requires plates to be set up for pages for whatever item that you're printing essentially. Those plates are essentially kind of wrapped around a machine and each individual ink is applied to that. So what I'm talking about, well, there's CMYK, which stands for Cyan, Yellow, Magenta and Black. All colors in printing are made up of those unless of course you have to call it a spot color, which is usually the Pantone run, which others have heard of.
Pantone colors essentially are mixtures that are created that will pretty much show up exactly how they should be based on coating of paper, different ink mixtures, different finishes on them, that kind of thing. Yeah. Different papers themselves. So you can add those into that.
This all gets very costly. So if you have CMYK and then you have a spot color, your costs are just going up there because it's another plate they've got to make. What kind of costs are you talking here? So if I had to guess, offset printing first of all is not done in small runs.
They won't do it. Like four to five thousand, you said? Yeah, four to five thousand, they will do. Okay.
They will do that. They'll probably be in the hundreds often not unless you're made of money. Right. Unless you are supplemented or you have like a rich uncle or something.
Exactly. Exactly. In terms of that, for example, a 60 page, 50, 60 page magazine with a run of, let's say, I know, five thousand or so, was going to cost anywhere between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars. Okay.
Now that of course includes all the printing, the cutting, the binding, postage, the whole line. So there's a little extra in there when it comes to postage for us. Yeah. Don't forget by the way that when we're talking about like, oh, like five thousand, two thousand, that's not a lot.
Yeah. When you're in the grand scheme of things, I mean like amazing spiderman sells over 150,000 copies per month. Yeah. Savage Dragon is selling two thousand copies a month.
Exactly. So don't forget like that when it comes to comic books, you know, it might seem like it's not that much, but in fact, like it is. And you're on the hook for, you will be on the hook for selling five, or two to five thousand copies of you. You know, gone door to door like a freaking like a vacuum salesman.
You will know how hard it is to try and sell your independent comic book to comic book retailers, especially when we may be looking at that book coming up. Okay. But that again, when we do that, it is offset, right? So the offset printing, it comes out crisp and beautiful.
And you know, it's a very lovely quality. Yeah. Digital printing used to be like the ugly step headed child, like no book step headed. Red headed, but yeah.
Red headed step child. But it has come a long way. I think personally, I'm not saying they're on par with one another, but digital printing is at a place now where you can create a product that is, it's good. It's fine.
There's no problem with it. Many artists create prints in that way nowadays. It makes it, it makes it really convenient. You know what I mean?
So in terms of your digital printing, you would still technically be using CMYK because the printer will read that and it'll mix it essentially in the machine and print those out. So your color quality will not be as accurate, but it'll still be good. You're still going to get a decent product, especially if you set your files up correctly. That's a big thing.
And it's like, so I mean, I can imagine that by this point, if you listen to the series in the entirety, you're like, oh, so I just shouldn't make them. No, you should. Because I have to wear so many hats. I'm a writer, I'm a creator, I'm an art critique.
I have to discern whether or not good lettering. But listen, if you read comics, if you know comics, then you should have sampled thousands of different versions of everything. And so you should be able to know what you're looking for at this point. Yes.
But that said, you know, get into it. Okay. So when you're setting up your file, always, first of all, pick up your printer at first. Yes.
And talk to them. Because they will have some either they'll have a resource online that shows you exactly what the file type they're looking for or talk to a person. If you're confused by it, reach out to them, try to get a hold of them. I'm not saying that they'll pick up.
I'm not saying they're going to be nice, but do it. For the most part, most printers are very kind. They will be very happy to have like to instruct you from the get go because it's way easier for them to have it become to them as set up and accurate and correct as possible. Then deal with you coming back and being like, I don't want this.
This looks terrible. Why is it blurry? Yeah. Yeah.
That's what it is. You approve the proof whether it be digital or not. And then you've got this product. You're unhappy with it.
You go right to review that says that they're jerks. You know what I mean? They don't want that. Yeah.
So, okay. Let's talk about DPI out of the gate. Okay. That's for inch.
Right. 300 is your friend. Okay. 300 will always be your friend in terms of printing.
300 is the minimum for any sort of standard size item. Let's say, for example, you had a little EdBd, teeny tiny, like picture. Right. Of something.
Of this pin. Right. Okay. I'm going to put this on here.
You can put it on a different page and then I double the size of it. And now it's 150 DPI, my DPI just went down, because I made it bigger. You have to think about those things. So, you want your...
Now of course your artist, when they send you things, will send you stuff that's probably a 300 DPI and probably double the size of what you need, which is perfect because when you set that down, DPI will become even larger and that's fine. Yeah. Look, do you have anything over 300 DPI when you're printing a size like this? It's gonna make a negligible difference.
Right. Really quick aside because I asked, like, why would a printer be like a jackass to you if you were to go to them and ask them questions or want to want their business? If they're a business, shouldn't they want your business? Never mind the fact that everyone's always gone into a store and they store and some point in their lives and the store owner acts like they would rather not make money.
It literally has nothing to do with you. Most often it has nothing to do with the company itself and it has to do often with they don't want to be doing that job that day or they've had a bad day and literally taking it out on you. Or they have a set amount of contracts and while yes we can technically take you on we don't need your help. We don't need your business and if it sounds like you're going to be calling me all the time or asking me questions or just making me do more than my usual standard job and I don't really need to do it in the first place then I really don't want to do it.
And it's by the way this is not saying like this is what printers are like it's just saying like you're going to experience like you're going to experience this no matter what you do at some point in your lives and so I'm just saying like we're just warning you know don't be afraid of that. It's like the fact that like it might happen in any walk of life but don't be afraid of it because these questions need to be answered whether you're afraid of them being a jerk or not. Yeah like just reach out to them find out more than likely you're going to find someone who is kind and helpful and willing to explain stuff to you and don't be ashamed of telling them you're like I don't know what I'm doing and I just want to send you the best possible file. The only thing you want to do is like yeah that.
It's literally your best option to get what you want out of it. So okay so remember 300 DPI perfect place to start don't really go below that because you're not going to like what you get from it let's be honest. If your artist has sent over PDFs make sure that their high resolution PDFs trust me that'll be important if you're making your own PDFs it depends on what it is that you're using. I have used the Adobe suite which is great but it's a costly so if you don't have access to that there are other programs you can use to create PDFs typically PDFs is going to be your best friend.
There are enough programs out there that allow you to create PDFs for free and I'm not talking about even pirating I'm just saying like their little like programs that work where you can like just open your file and then hit print and instead of hitting the printer you can select create PDF instead just there are there are different ways to do it. You can even do it online you can just throw all the files onto a website and they'll do it for you. I see DPI question mark dots per inch that has to do with the number of little EDP pixels. Remember when you look at a comic book you see all those little dots that made up the colors.
Yeah that's kind of it. I mean like those are the dots that I would do with the color. But yeah so of course you want a higher number of those dots in an area than a lower number because you know so anyway so why is PDF important? Well here's the thing let's say for example you create instead a JPEG well a JPEG deteriorates each time it's open saved all that stuff right.
It's fine and a lot of places do like that for certain items but for your comic book that you were so hard on I would not recommend it. So let's say and say you're like I'm going to send them the Photoshop file. So here's the problem with that Adobe does its best to go in between versions but if you go too far down from the current version or the version that you have or too far up things might get screwed up. And I've seen it happen whether they change essentially what functionality is or stuff like that it just becomes a mess.
Same thing if you're using something like InDesign. InDesign is one of the other Adobe products and it's great for laying things out in terms of books and magazines and books and all that stuff right. But so okay. What about PNG?
PNG is okay I use PNG more for digital. I haven't seen too many printing companies who are excited for PNGs. Can you use a PDF please? Yeah and here is why the PDF is great.
You are going to be sending them something that is a combination of images, colors and text. Now here's what's fun about text. If you send someone a Photoshop file or a Word file or an InDesign file or anything like that with text in there. Text that is just literally the letters you typed in and let's say you went out and you found a free font or font that you own or font that you like.
And that's what your letter did all of the lettering in and you send that off and that printer doesn't have that. It's going to convert it to something else and that's what they're going to print. The PDF will take everything you put in there and it will essentially compress it all into these pages and the font won't change. Yay that's awesome.
The other way to get around that is if you're using InDesign. Now I don't think I would, you can technically letter it in design if you wanted to. Lettering in Photoshop is not my favorite either. My opinion illustrator is the place to do that kind of thing or some other program that you might use.
But in InDesign you can do something called a package which essentially takes all of your fonts, all of your images, puts them into a file, creates this massive file called a native file and you can send that off. But for your best bet do the PDF. PDF, let's go for a fact. 300 DPI, PDF.
The other thing you need to think about is your color mode. There's really two different types of color modes. There's RGB which is what you're looking at us right now in. This is RGB color.
Right now this. You're seeing us in RGB. Red, green, blue. That's how digital stuff looks at colors and essentially.
There's a mix of those three colors. Printing forces CMYK regardless of offset or digital. Your printer may or may not assume you're going to send them over a CMYK file. For safety sake, I always send a CMYK file because I don't know if they're going to convert it for me.
You should never assume that they're going to do anything for you. No, especially none. Yeah. Some of the printers that we've worked with, we're doing huge files of things and I always photos in it.
If we miss a file, first of all the programs are used, let us know. Hey, there's an error here because you have an RGB file. If we miss that, the printer will fix it because there's spending a lot of money with them. Don't rely on them to do that.
Send the CMYK. It'll come out better and more accurate to what it is that you're seeing. It'll be very, very close. Okay.
So, yeah. That's a lot to unpack, but I think just refer back to this when you're actually working through it. Also, don't forget, the most important thing is just talk to the printer. You've selected your printer.
When it comes to groups like Compliment Stuff, it's a little easier, but only because you'll have your file, then you'll just literally upload them. Let's talk a little bit about a big issue that I found, which is like bleed. Okay. Because that is something that took me a long time to wrap my head around it.
And it's more important than you think it is because it allows your book to look consistent. Yes. Okay. So, let me, what do I have here that is a really good example of that?
I think this mother panic issue will do. Okay. So you see this book here? You see how right on these pages, you see over here how the color goes all the way up to the edges?
You don't see like a little bit of white underneath. You don't see any white there. That is called a bleed. Your colorist or your artist in general will probably set your files up with that.
Now what that means is the person who did this took this page. And this page here, there was a thing that you don't see out here that probably extends up to a quarter to a half an inch out that has the color all the way out. Now why would you do that? Well, a machine is cutting that it's not a human being.
Even if it was a human being and you cut like me, you're going to have a problem. You're not going to cut things straight. Yeah, we saw a review of, I think it was Geblion where they were complaining that like there was an issue with the bleed and how it wasn't consistent. Right.
And the problem wasn't with Geblion or the printing. It's the fact that like an inhuman monster is printing the book. Yes. And they don't, they're only going by the numbers.
Yes. So you put in half 11 by 11 piece of paper in there and then in half by 11 piece of paper comes out. Yes. These are typically printed on much larger sheets and then those sheets are cut to size.
Now that means that occasionally as it's going through the machine it's going to go, just by a little bit. Now when that happens, one of the sides will then have white. Yeah, you will notice this in some issues. I noticed that quite a bit in like the mid 2000s when you'd have a page and there be text.
And like there, it would look like there's like heavy shadow behind the text and it was just because it was printed like three times or it was moved a little bit. Right. And they weren't using digital at that point. It was recent.
It was like 10 years ago. Something like that indicates that the plates were wrong. Right. But anyway, with the bleed, that was literally just a lot for error essentially on the machine's part.
Now if it's a significant error, the printer should redo it. Right. If it's so significant and like a huge part of your page is cut off on that page, they should redo it. You know, 100% that's their fault and they should have gone and they should have seen that that.
Yeah. And by the way, you're going to be in correspondence with your printer constantly throughout this whole process. Yes. It's great to just be as friendly and as open minded as possible, but never settle for an inferior product.
It's like that's like the mantra. It's like the takeaway for this. By the way, I looked at page 32 and there seems to be an issue with the bleeding. That's what you really need to say.
Right. What do you suggest? Or can we fix this? Just a really quick, you don't have to obsess over it or apologize.
Just say, can we deal with this and then move on? Exactly. And they'll go, yeah, because they deal with all the time. Right.
So that's the thing you can ask your printer. How much of a bleed do they require? Because different printers require different amounts. I've seen quarter of an inch.
I've seen half an inch. Usually it's not more than that on all sides. And then the next question is do they want crop marks? Essentially the crop marks are these little lines that you'll see on like a digital copy.
Like I'm a digital file. Most printers in fact, these guys as well, will give you a page sample. So it's like as long as your book adheres to the sample they gave you, as long as the pages do, then you should be fine. Yeah.
Basically here it is guys. Here's what y'all have to worry about in terms of that part of the file setup. There's the safe area. The safe area is everything that will not be hit by a cut even remotely.
There are your crop marks, your crop area, the cut line for example. That's where they're going to cut it. And then there's that bleed. The bleed again is very important.
Definitely. Definitely if you can, especially if you're doing something that is color, that is a surefire that you don't include that, to have your book not look professional. If the machine miscuts by even like a millimeter, you'll just have a little bit of white up there. It's not going to look like this.
You immediately notice. Yeah, you'll know exactly what happened with that. But again, your printer will let you know what is required for them. I've had printers where sometimes they just want the bleeds.
They don't want the crops. They're going to figure it out. I've had printers which I'm not a fan of for the place I work at who don't want bleeds and crops and it drives me up the wall. Why would they not want those?
Oftentimes I'd ask to do with the fact that what they'll do is they'll take the file and all the stuff. Because here's the thing. They're dealing with a lot of people who made us. Don't care what notice.
Exactly. But for me, I'm like, yeah, just do something that I want to give you. If you think we're torn on it, just see what they want. Just see what they want.
You know what I mean? Find out. And then just adhere to that. And it'll be all the better of an experience.
Yeah. So when you're dealing with your printers, first of all, research them. Find a printer that works for you that does what you're looking for. If you're not sure what they're looking for, email them an ask.
It's also, by the way, if you are getting into the independent comic book producing business, you're going to want to have like a name and you're going to want to have a good contact information, you know, sirens4245 and Yahoo.com. When I cut it, make a real name that works, that looks professional, that presents you in a professional light. And just ask them, just say like, hi, I'm interested in getting my book published, blah, blah, blah, these are the concepts. And don't get into it too deeply, just a very preliminary.
So what I'm interested in doing is how many I'm interested in doing. Do you guys offer this? Yeah. If you're not quite sure.
Because most of them are more than happy to answer that question. Exactly. So there you go. Let's talk really quickly about proofs and how we kind of touched on it.
Yeah, yeah, when you get a preview of what you can expect from a Lord. So like Sal said, some of the online comic book companies will charge you for that proof. And you know, you're going to have that moment where you're like, is it worth it to get? If this is just first time working with them, then 100% of them.
You always want to get a proof because even if you're 100% certain that everything worked out, they're not. Also, just know that, okay, so with the proof, it will hold up the process a little bit because they're going to have to create the proof for you. They're going to have to send you the proof. And then you're going to have to take some time to go through it.
They usually give you certain amount of time that they like to have it back by. But it's worth it. If you've never worked with these guys before, if you're only going off of what others have said about them while that's very helpful, if you have never done this before, it's going to be a worthwhile experience to get that proof and to have the opportunity to go through it and make sure everything you set up was correct. All the hard work that you went into a, creating this book, b, researching the printer and see finally getting the whole file together and sending over actually came together.
There's nothing worse than going through something and realizing something was off. Or a file or a copy. So this thing. Yeah, exactly.
So I would highly recommend that you go for it, essentially. There's a proof, basically, the prototype? It can be, again, it depends on the type of proof. Basically, what's now is saying about some of these companies like Kablam, they will send you pretty much what this will look like.
I know when I first got into it, I went with Lulu and they sent me a proof, which is just what the book will look like. And we got to pick it apart, look through it, make sure everything was good, usually compare it to the digital and make sure everything is kosher. And then they go from there. Yeah, when you're done with that, I'll remind you, because we have to talk about things you don't normally think of when you're printing your book.
Okay. So with the proof, when you're going through it, it is entirely on your shoulders at that point. If you get the proof and you say it's okay and they create something that's exactly a replica of that proof. You're not going to be entitled to free repairs or doovers.
Exactly. If you get the proof and you approve it and the product you get back, it does not match that proof. That's when you can go take that and be like, this is not what you're showing. This is something totally different.
And by the way, that includes spelling errors. It is not a printer's job to let you know if something is misspelled. They will not. They never will.
It's just not what they do. Even if they see it and it's very obviously incorrect, they're not going to tell you. No, it's not their job. They're not looking for those things, which is why it's always good to when we're talking when you're doing the writing and when someone edits your work and make sure that it's like everything is good to go.
When you get through the letter, by the way, there are going to be issues because they're either going to go by what you wrote. It's not going to go by everything written the way you want it to be written. And then check those pages when you get them back from the letter. In terms of paper stock, I saw that as a question in there.
Again, I am guessing what standard comics are printed on. This is simply a guess. The cover is slightly heavier stock usually just because it's holding all the content. But it's probably not by much.
I'm guessing this is somewhere in the 60s, 70s range. And the interiors are probably in the 50s, 60-pound range. Gloss, if you're doing color, go for the gloss, it makes your colors pop. Compare that to something like this.
Like if I got this printed, now you just, what were the numbers you said that you're guessing on? I am guessing. This is a guess, guys, because I don't typically publish or print comics. I'm going to guess the cover is probably 60-pounds, nay-bait, 60-pounds.
Okay. And the interiors feel like they're probably somewhere at 50, 60-pound range. Okay. Maybe that's a guess.
What about the guess? The cabling book. First of all, the cover, I'm not a fan of the cover. The cover feels a little bit heavier, so maybe that's 65, 70.
It's very see-through, it bothers me. And the interiors are probably closer to the cover page on the other comics. So probably, between 16, 70, which is why this book has a hard time closing flat. But again, that's what they choose to print on.
This is almost as thick, if not thicker, than what you find in a trade. Now the reason that that closes so well is because it has that perfect binding. It's set up to close that way. With the stable bound, it struggles with it.
Also, I've noticed that these pages feel more like an older comic page, I suppose, still like a glossier, newer comic page. Yeah, that's probably, I wouldn't say that's a, there's different levels of gloss that you can find. If you, let's say you were doing a totally different print project, right? Like you were doing a lot of things like thousands of copies for, and you're going with a printer in town or whatever.
You could go there and they have print paper samples. You just feel it. Yeah, and you can see I have sets of paper samples that are given to me by printers. They show me various weights, they'll show me various coatings or finishes on that paper.
These are all very important things. In terms also, just, you know, just what this is in general, I wish I had a decent example of it on hand. But I don't, I have something called UV. Yes.
Or high gloss, I usually call it UV coating. Have you ever seen a cover or a business card or whatever that has a particularly shiny area on it? UV spot treatment on it and something that can be set up. If you do that, the printer will explain how that works.
You'd be very careful with that because any sort of shifting either way will mess that up, but it's cool and fun and more expensive. Right. But you always usually don't have to worry about that. At least with your first run.
Nope. So, okay. Any other thoughts before we get into the next thing? I noticed on the back of the barcode, those kinds of things, think about that.
In terms of just this is something to think about early on and like, I don't know if we actually covered it when we talk about finding your artists. If you're not doing a standard complex size, I think it's something like seven or six by ten something. It's not 100% bad. It's something around there.
Think about your, which final product is going to look like. This final product and this final product are very different. Yeah. Right.
You can see that there. It's a little taller. It's a little wider and the artist has to know that. Yeah.
This is not a standard format. We're not comparing the same books. No. But I'm saying that a purpose because if you decide you don't want to go with a standard format, if you have something in your mind's eye that isn't standard, let the artist know.
Make sure you find a printer who can do that too. But you need to decide that early on. And if you are printing your own book and you want, and you're not going for something like this or you're, you know, you just kind of want to be, you're like, I want it to look like a regular comic book. Don't go off the beaten path.
Yeah. You know, you don't want to sell, especially if you're trying to sell yourself your skills in your book. You don't want to make it even harder sell. It's already hard enough to try to sell yourself out of nobody.
You know, because most comic publishers, if they want to work with somebody, they're working with somebody that they know, that they know can produce, why so many creators you see the names keep coming up over and over again. Not necessarily because they're the best for the job, but because they always produce and they always, they're always on time and they're always reliable. Oh, one other thing too, just to think about. I think with folks like Kumblam, if you just send the pages in order, they will put it together for you.
Make sure if you're going with a different printer, you know how they want the layouts to be. Because when you think about this, and this is where it starts to get mind-voggling. So essentially, this is a spread, right? We've got two pages here.
This is right down the middle. Technically, even in the layout, these pages will be right next to each other, right? These, however, this page is technically connected to that page and how this is laid out. If your printer expects you to figure that out, you need to know that.
Otherwise your book's going to be out of order. Most places, hopefully, they'll just take your pages and they'll put them in the order they need them to begin. And these guys will do this. Yes.
So again, that's another great reason to go with someone who is used to doing comic book publishing, because they'll take care of that kind of thing. Especially because if they are more hands-on and they do comic book publishing, they'll tell them upfront, I don't know what I'm doing. So they go more laboriously through the process of doing it. And again, it's fine.
They will appreciate your honesty about the project. And again, we've worked with plenty of printers. And here's the thing. I haven't printed this for a while now, but again, for more office-based stuff.
I'm still finding out and learning things the more products that we do. If we've printed products I've never done before, I'm always like, I want to know everything you can tell me about it. One time I had to get stickers that were raised and engraved, and they were metallic stickers. So I had to learn all about that whole process, what it takes, the whole thing.
But now I know, and I didn't know about that before. And that's okay. I had no problem being like, you guys are the experts, you tell me. Same thing with signs.
I'm like, I don't, you tell me about signs. I'll be happy to give you the art, but you tell me everything I need to know so I can give you what you need. Exactly. By the way, with most of these guys, they'll also have page limitations.