Custom Bound Comics

One project that I've been working on over the past few months is getting some of my Batman comics bound, in custom hardcover books.

My childhood collection of single issues encompasses about 6 years worth Batman, across many titles, and that has been supplemented by additional purchases of back issues in the years since. All told, I probably had a small stack of a couple hundred issues in total.

The problem is, most of these issues have been sitting, individually bagged and boarded, in various stacks. This is for their protection - I'm mostly concerned about them becoming torn and tattered, though the bagging also protects them from sunlight and humidity.

But unlike most collectors, I enjoy Batman comics for their stories and artwork - not for their inherent "collector's value." So in order to enjoy my collection, I have to pull out of my issues out of taped bags to read them, one at a time. This is especially annoying when reading multi-part story arcs across several issues.

That means:

-Slowly prying the tape off of a bagged comic
-Slipping the book out
-Placing the bag on a table so it doesn't get taped shut in a bad position
-Reading the book
-Opening the taped bag again
-Trying to slip the book back in the tight-fitting bag, without getting the tape on the book or bending the book
-Taping the bag back shut
-Repeating every step above once for each issue in the storyline

Needless to say, I found myself just avoiding the process altogether and never going back to read through my books.

And while Marvel seems to reprint everything in graphic novel form, DC (which publishes Batman) has only just started reprinting their single issues in graphic novel form in the last few years - and they seem to have no interest in going back to reprint their older stuff from the past few decades.

So I decided to try getting some of my books bound, which is the perfect solution to my problem. It lets me just pull my comics off the shelf for a quick, easy, straightforward read-through, like any other graphic novel. It also keeps my comics sturdy and protected, so they don't get torn or tattered. And the overall presentation is very attractive.

The only downside is that your single issues won't be left intact - they'll be trimmed on the left (to remove stapes) and then glued, and usually they're trimmed on the other edges as well (to make sure the edges are uniform like any other book). If you're a collector who wants the books intact for "collector's value," then this isn't going to be a very attractive option for you. But if you're like me and just want to read your old books, without any concern for resale value, then that shouldn't matter. (And some of these custom bound books can also sell for hundreds of dollars, just because the presentation is so nice and unique!)

Here was my first experiment, binding the Moench-Jones-Beatty run of Batman, including my very first comic book.



There are two volumes, collecting about 35 issues in total. You can usually fit up to 20 or even 25 issues in a single bound volume, but I didn't want any of my books to be too thick - better to err on the side of caution, for a more comfortable reading experience.







As you can see, the front and back covers and spine are printed in full-color, from a design I created. I matched "Batman" title logos to the title logos used during that era (and they're different on each volume because they switched logos in the middle of the original run). I used some cover art from the original issues for the front and back artwork, and I wrote the blurb myself.

A lot of the artwork for the cover designs needed retouching and seamless manipulation, to remove things like extraneous titles and names on the covers of the original issues. I certainly gained a new-found appreciation for just how easy it is to manipulate and edit photographs to make things appear that weren't there before (or disappear entirely!).

You can just read the issues without interruption, moving from the end of one story to the cover and beginning of the next.





When binding comics, you have a little bit of "gutter loss" - because the books are trimmed and glued in the center, you can lose a little bit of artwork or text in the inner edges of your pages. But I found the "gutter loss" was minimal and not really any more noticeable than reading a normal, unbound single issue anyway (much less an officially reprinted graphic novel). And it can be reduced even further by binding fewer issues per volume, for slimmer books.

Here are some gorgeous two-page spreads, when "gutter loss" would be most important to avoid. As you can, "gutter loss" is barely noticeable.

Batman, Killer Croc, and Swamp Thing:



Man-Bat flies:



Batman stands up to The Spectre in a vertical spread:



Special covers, like this gatefold fold-out cover, are also left intact and can be enjoyed as they were originally meant to be:



At the end of each volume, I decided to include the letter columns - a slice of the history of comic fandom, before the days of the internet and BBSes. I still remember the content of some of those letters, back from reading them in elementary school:



I enjoy back matter material in my graphic novels. An inside look into the production and design process for the story and book, they can include preliminary sketches, scripts, or essays about the work in question. They're a bit like the "extra features" on a DVD. So I included a reprinted retrospective essay about the Moench-Jones-Kelley Batman run at the back of my second book:



Like any professionally published book, they also include a title page and a table of contents:





One other advantage of binding is the ability to remove annoying ad material. I tore out all the double-paged ads and back covers, for a smoother reading experience featuring fewer interruptions. That lets you stay in the story longer, without being pulled back into reality like someone texting on their phone in a movie theater. I even re-arranged some pages where possible, to clump irremovable ads together (so there were fewer total clumps and fewer interruptions, with longer lengths of continuous story material).

Here's an example of just how many pages I was able to excise entirely from the 35 issues bound above. The ad material is the stack on the left:



As you can see, it would've almost been enough to bind another volume entirely!

After the first two books were received, I sent five more in, having learned from a few cover design mistakes (though as you can see, there's still room for further improvement).











"New Gotham" describes the period in Gotham City just after it had been rebuilt after the "No Man's Land," when Gotham had been abandoned by the United States Federal Government for a year after a massive earthquake destroyed the city.

The above books collect the first part of Greg Rucka's first run on "Detective Comics," one of my favorite runs. Informed by his background as a crime writer, he writes an excellent, gritty, realistic take on Batman, who relies on his detective skills to solve crimes.

That part of the run featured a unique art style - a muted color palette, which really made it stand out apart from other, typical superhero comics fare.





The latter part of Rucka's run was mostly involved in crossovers, and didn't feature the same art style, so I omitted it.

While Rucka was doing his "New Gotham" run on "Detective Comics," fellow crime writer Ed Brubaker was doing a run on the main "Batman" line.

Like Rucka, Brubaker featured stories set in the "New Gotham," and he tried to focus on a more realistic take on Batman and his foes. However, the art style (done by Scott McDaniel) was very different - much more dynamic, brightly-colored, and "cartoony." Not my favorite, but still unique and enjoyed by many.

To that end, I collected most of his run (not including issues featured as main parts of crossover stories) in a bound volume as well. It's not an identical format to the above books, but it shares some design similarities because of its chronological and thematic relation to Rucka's run.





A couple of dynamic, two-page spreads featuring McDaniel's artwork.





Brubaker and Rucka would later team up to do Gotham Central, perhaps my favorite monthly Batman title, featuring a realistic look at the Gotham City Police Department. A lot of the seeds for those storylines and characters are planted in the above issues.

My final two books spotlighted two villains. While both are featured in plenty of reprinted crossovers, neither have many graphic novels devoted to them as the main villain - and both have plenty of smaller stories that were never reprinted in paperback form. So I collected a bunch of these stories together in two bound volumes.

First, the Riddler:





Part of the success of "Batman" is the ability of his character - and his various recurring villains - to transform, adapt, and be re-interpreted by writers for each new era and audience. Here, I collected modern Riddler stories, featuring various interpretations of the character and his many different attempts at transforming himself. Here are the table of contents and a few of the stories, for those interested:



The modern telling of his origin story:



The famous "Dark Knight, Dark City" arc, featuring (for the first time) a vicious Riddler:



The Riddler teams up with the Cluemaster, a C-List copycat villain:



"Riddle Me That," in which the Riddler attempts to shed some of his more pathetic attributes and transform himself into a suave badass:



The Paul Dini single-shot issues, featuring Edward Nygma as a consulting private investigator, working within the bounds of the law:



The other villain I focused on was Bane, just in time for his cinematic spotlight in "The Dark Knight Rises."





Going back and re-reading the stories featuring Bane, I found him to be a tragic character. Certainly he's very dangerous and vicious. But writers later showed a sadder side to him - raised, since birth, in a prison, Bane is a man without family and without purpose. So these stories (comprising the bulk of his non-crossover appearances) follow that arc - beginning with his birth, his battles with Batman, and later his quest for family.



The infamous "back-breaking" scene, when he utterly defeats and destroys Batman:



I was able to include the cool special cover to Batman #500, featuring the old Batman (Bruce Wayne), eclipsed and replaced by the shiny, modern Batman (Jean-Paul Valley), who goes on to defeat Bane in this issue.





Bane fighting - and later allying with - Ra's al Ghul. Look for this aspect in the new film, as Ra's al Ghul is rumored to make an appearance in a flashback sequence.



Bane, side by side with Batman:



I had my books bound by Houchen Bindery. You simply tear our the ads and back covers, stack them in the order you want them, and send them in - along with an image with your cover design on a CD, if you want a printed, custom cover. The price is $15 apiece if you get 5 or more bound in a single order (with a slightly higher price for smaller orders), and that includes staple removal, binding, trimming, and a printed graphic cover. If you don't want a graphic cover, you can also opt for a more "library bound" style.

I'm quite excited by these books, and am glad that I can now go back and read the old issues from my childhood collection, without hindrance or inconvenience. Look for several more to be posted in the coming months, as I definitely want to bind another half-dozen volumes at the least!