LBC/Waco Comic Bookbindery

[VinceB]

I've come to the conclusion that bagging and boarding comics, while increasing the longevity of my precious periodicals, is ultimately not a good thing. Once bagged, I put 'em in a box and never read them, again. It's like they don't even exist. So, I've decided to try binding some runs (first off: the Kelley Jones Batman run), but I have ZERO experience with any of the companies that specialize in this kind of thing.

Has anyone dealt with the Library Binding company mentioned on the CGS forum or other outfits? I've been to the LBC site, but they don't list any prices...

SO, YOU WANT TO BIND YOUR COMICS....

This thread is very long, so here are some basics to get you started. 

FAQs:
Aziz's page
The Marvel Masterworks Fan Site page
You should be able to answer most of your question with help from these 2 resources.

LIST OF BINDERIES:
This list is not exhaustive, but it's a good starting point: BINDERIES

[Dean S.]

Ohhh....just got a box from the folks at Herring and Robinson.

Uncanny 181 - 199 (including X-Men/Alpha Flight 1-2 & New Mutants SE #1 from the Asgardian Wars that the guys were chatting about a few weeks ago)
Uncanny 521 - 527 (including all the Second Coming event)
One volume containing the current Avengers 1 - 12.1 and New Avengers 1 - 13
Secret Wars (this Shooter/Zeck goodness will get read over the holidays probably)

AND

another volume of Dean Presents holding Neonomicon, Lorna Relic Wrangler, We3, Nemesis, Incredibly Fantastic Adventures of Maureen Dowd, Officer Downe, Incognito: Bad Influences and Last Days of American Crime.

I love binding comics. 

[Kenney]

I wish I had another project to do. 

I'm toying with the idea of binding some fanfic for some friends of mine. They're really big on this one writer, and I think it would be a neat present to give them on their birthday, but then I would have to print pages out and format shit. Is there an easy way to do this that I'm not realizing?

[youngjohn12]

I've been considering doing this too, especially with some of my Valiant products. Most of the guides I have are audience duplicates anyway. Be awesome to have a comprehensive Oneness HC.

[travazz]

I just got back Spider-Island from H&R today.  It's the first time I've done a full custom cover for a book.  I think it turned out great.  I am extremely happy with the results.  It's the entire Spider-Island crossover w/all the extras in chronological order.







For anyone interested this is the mapping that I did for the book.

Prelude
Marvel Spotlight Spider-Island
Daily Bugle Spider-Island
Spider-Man Emergence of Evil Jackal and Hobgoblin 1 (Intro and Outro only)
Spider-Island Deadly Foes 1 Jackal Story
Amazing Spider-Man: Infested
Amazing Spider-Man 666 (Prelude)

Part 1
Amazing Spider-Man 667
Pages 1-14 (MJ Panel "That ain't no way to treat a lady)
Spider-Island: Cloak & Dagger 1 Pages 1-10 (Cloak teleports Avengers to 1 battle)
ASM Pages 15-End
C&D Pages 11-End
Spider-Island: I Love New York 1

Part 2
Amazing Spider-Man 668
Pages 1-11 (And did something as a couple.)
Spider-Island: Deadly Hands of Kung Fu 1
Black Panther 524
Spider-Island: Deadly Foes 1 Hobgoblin Story
Spider-Island: Amazing Spider-Girl 1
Spider-Island: Amazing Spider-Girl 2 Pages 1-3 (Time to build a hunting party.) This is the front of this page
ASM Pages 12-13 (We must contain this until a cure can be found! And I promise you, Manhattan,)
Spider-Island: Amazing Spider-Girl 2 Pages 4-End Page 4 is the back of page 3
Spider-Island: Amazing Spider-Girl 3
ASM 14-19 (Venom "Ours is all Army!")
Venom 6 Pages 1-7 (Venom "You should be proud.")
Spider-Island: Avengers 1 (Ms. Marvel back from Battle at Bryant Park)
Venom 6 Pages 8-End
ASM Pages 20-End

Part 3
Amazing Spider-Man 669 (Part 3)
Spider-Island: Cloak & Dagger 2
Spider-Island: Cloak & Dagger 3
Spider-Island: Deadly Hands of Kung Fu 2
Spider-Island: Heroes For Hire 1
Spider-Island: Spider-Woman 1

Part 4
Amazing Spider-Man 670
ASM Pages 1-9 (Anti Venom "I knew it! I knew there was a reason for this!")
Venom 7 Pages 1-3 (A miracle! --My son! Can you help my son?!"
ASM Pages 10-11 ("--I've got a plan!)
Herc 7
Herc 8
ASM Pages 12-13
Venom 7 Pages 4-7 ("Doing my best to get there, Betty")
ASM Pages 14-17 ("You're really cutting it close.")
Venom Pages 8-17 ("Just this one last time.")
ASM Pages 18-19 ("Of course, lead the way. I'm here)
Venom Pages 18-End
ASM Pages 20-End

Part 5
Amazing Spider-Man 671
Venom 8

Part 6
Amazing Spider-Man 672
ASM Pages 1-12 (MJ "Hmm. My turn. I know just the spot.")
Spider-Island Deadly Hands of Kung Fu 3
ASM Pages 13-End

Epilogue
Amazing Spider-Man 673

Bonus
Spectacular Spider-Man Vol 2 15-20

[Andrew Tom]

That's pretty awesome Travazz.  Well done.

[Kamakazi010654]

That's pretty awesome Travazz.  Well done.

100% agreed.

I'm not one to slobber at comics but that back cover is...happiness...inducing

[Ken.W]

Looking good there, Travazz 

[Dean S.]

Hey Travazz, that looks great.  My hat is always off to folks who actually pull the issues apart for crossovers to get everything into the right order. 

I ALWAYS struggle with what to include and how to order things on crossovers and I kinda go back and forth between being a completist and only including the good parts.  Like, I just sent the Mutant Massacre issues from around Uncanny 211 or so in to be bound.  There were all kinds of tie ins, but I decided I didn't really care about the time that Daredevil fought Sabertooth and that if I reread the story, I'd probably skip that part.

But, sometimes the tie-ins are awesome OR they feature a great artist who is otherwise underrepresented in my bindings. 

That was a LOT of work mapping that out.  Respect!

[scoundrel3000]

How do you guys do custom  covers?  Does the bindery do them and you just explain what you want? 

[bean6344]

How do you guys do custom  covers?  Does the bindery do them and you just explain what you want?  

Check out this link.  
http://www.herringandrobinsonbookbinders.com/html/custom_covers.html
My concern was always the question about how to know how thick book will be.   H&R sew the book for you and then send you the dimensions.   This takes the guessing game out of the equation.  


So I have stripped ads and back covers from Scout and Scout: War Shaman for 1 bound volume.  I am also going to strip 2001: A Space Odyssey and Machine Man also for a single bound volume.   I will probably keep most of the ads from 2001 and Machine Man due to the historic attraction I have for them.

I hope to send this first batch out this week.

Bean

[Christopher Stark]

Check out this link.  
http://www.herringandrobinsonbookbinders.com/html/custom_covers.html
My concern was always the question about how to know how thick book will be.   H&R sew the book for you and then send you the dimensions.   This takes the guessing game out of the equation.  


So I have stripped ads and back covers from Scout and Scout: War Shaman for 1 bound volume.  I am also going to strip 2001: A Space Odyssey and Machine Man also for a single bound volume.   I will probably keep most of the ads from 2001 and Machine Man due to the historic attraction I have for them.

I hope to send this first batch out this week.

Bean

I'm doing a stripping test right now with JLA Elite.  I'm tossing them anyway so I'd rather practice for when I do real projects and see how easy/hard it is.

[Ken.W]

When I started out on the Binding trail, my first couple of books were really no-frills .. just a spine title, and that's about it. After those 2, though .. I went kinda ker-azy with Zinco stamps and laminated covers etc.

Well .. I decided to revisit those first 2 books and do my own dust jackets ..

Here's the front for my custom 'Vision And Scarlet Witch'..

Here's the back ..

Spine ..

Inside front flap ..

Inside back flap ..

My other book is a compendium of Sentry stories, but I guess there's not a lot of love for him out there, so I'll spare the pics 

[bean6344]

Kevin Nowlan!   

I would love to see the Sentry cover treatment.

Bean

[Jeppe]

I would love to see the Sentry cover treatment.

Me too!

[Ken.W]

 

Here we go ..

This one's a bit blurred ..

Sorry, this one's a bit blurred; too ..

[Christopher Stark]

So I did my practice run and was wondering...
Do you guys pull the staples out before sending?  I only seem to have cut out a lot of stuff from the back without any removal of actual interior stuff.
Also, how many issues have you guys put together?  I was thinking of 20 or so being the maximum.  What's a good size overall?

[Ken.W]

No need to take the staples out yourself, the bindery will do that automatically as part of the production process. I usually go for 25 books per volume, but I "have" bound the complete 'Avengers: The Initiative' as one solid run. The book looks great .. just like the super-thick omnibus a la Simonson's 'Thor'.

[travazz]

I normally try to keep in between 20-25 issues normally.  It really depends on how many double side ads, letter pages, and back covers I remove.  My latest Savage Dragon I just sent off actually has 30 issues, 145-174 because I am only binding the stories and not the ads.

[travazz]

I have a new set of books that came in, it's Larry Hama's Wolverine run.  It has all the issues that Hama did on Wolverine from 31-118.  Each of the books has a custom title page, that is signed by Hama.  At the end of March I plan on getting a Wolverine sketch in the first book from Hama.  He'll be at Gem City Comicon.

[Dean S.]

So I did my practice run and was wondering...
Do you guys pull the staples out before sending?  I only seem to have cut out a lot of stuff from the back without any removal of actual interior stuff.
Also, how many issues have you guys put together?  I was thinking of 20 or so being the maximum.  What's a good size overall?

To echo the other folks, you don't need to take the staples out.  The only times I do so is when I'm taking off a wraparound cover. 

How many issues I put together varies.  Early on, I adopted a layout for the volumes with the text going horizontally across the spine.  So....I can't get them too thin or you run out of space.  With modern comics, I tend to find anything under 20 issues to be a little too thin.  25-ish does seem to be a sweet spot.  I don't think I've ever done more than 30 in a volume.

One thing to keep in mind is that bronze age comics are bulkier to bind.  I think the stock is thicker.  Maybe they had more ads too?  Regardless....anytime I bind anything from the 70's I find that 20 is about the max.