#printingcomics

Printing your comic

Part I: Presswork vocabulary

“If it walks like a printing press staff, and talks like a printing press staff, then it must be...an aspiring comic artist!”

So, you went through all of the organization phase, worked really hard, followed every tip on project management and now you have your beautiful comic (or maybe another kind of art book) ready to print. But, how to do so? When we’re at the edge of this crucial moment, most of us realize we need a little help and basic knowledge to guide us, so today we’re going to talk about the key terms and process you need to be familiar with.

First of all, most print shops will be able to help and solve some of your problems, you can trust at least someone in the staff has the knowledge to solve the most common complications around printing a comic. The reason I start by saying this is that printing anything can be a very stressful process, full of re-works and need for quick trouble-shooting, and you might feel tempted to be angry at the print shop crew. What I want to make clear from the start is that the printing machine itself can be tricky, sometimes you’ll export in the wrong format and get mad at the print shop, and sometimes people will in fact stitch your pages wrong. Take a deep breath, and chill.

If you’re printing, chances are you’re going to take this material to a convention and you have a deadline, and I also acknowledge how stressful this can be, so please be aware that your emotions might get the best of you, which is why I want to help you to be able to communicate as best as you can with your printer. In order to do so, let’s get familiar with some crucial terms:

Printing vocabulary

Trim line: This is a line that indicates the final size and format of your page. Everything outside this line will be cut off the paper sheet, and everything inside of it will be on your final book. The digital file you’ll be sending to the print shop will be a little bigger than the final  book, because you also have your bleed.

Bleed area: It’s an area which is still within the paper sheet during the printing process, but is outside your trim mark. That means, this area will be trimmed, cut off your final book. So, why is it relevant? The bleed is a precaution for the possible dislocation of the paper sheet as it is going through the cutting machine. You basically extend your art just a few millimeters outside the actual page to be sure you won’t end up with ugly undesired white  lines at the edge of your comic pages. The recommended bleed size is between 3 and 6 mm, but you can always ask your print shop for the suggested setting for their machine.

Slug area: So, your art is inside the trim lines, it extends a little bit outside of them to create your bleed area, and even outside that area, we finally have the slug area. Slug area is a good thing to have and to be able to communicate clearly to your printer, though not everyone does so. You can inform the size of your bleed area via e-mail or other method, so this is not necessary, but let’s just go through it: the slug area is the area outside the page containing all of the marks and information necessary to properly cut your page to it’s final format. Trim marks and bleed marks are indicated here with specific iconographies, which we will talk about in next week’s article.

For many print shops, this is not necessary and you can inform such formats in their own website as you upload your artwork. Always, always ask questions and communicate when in doubt.

Gutter: It’s the inside space closest to  the books spine, the middle of the book once you open it. This is more relevant for books with over 200 pages, but it’s worth the acknowledge in any way. Simply take in consideration that once your pages are bind together, this space where the two pages meet is slightly compressed, squeezed together and subject to a little deformation due to perspective. Most importantly, do not put any relevant art and especially texts in this area closer to where the pages meet: you don’t want people to have to force your book open in order to read a character’s speech bubble. If you have a really big book, and/or heavy paper pages, you might need to make a slight adjustment in the gutter along the pages of your book. Talk to your printer staff and follow their recommendations. (This is a very specific topic, so if you need help here, just feel free to contact me!)

Safe area/danger zone: Remember that the bleed area is there for when the paper is possibly cut a little further outside the edge of your page? Well, sometimes the opposite might occur: your art might get trimmed just a little more on the inside of these predicted lines. In order to prevent mutilation of your beautiful comic pages, you can create a margin  for your danger zone: don’t put anything crucial or texts between the trim line and a safe margin, about 6mm inside the trim lines.

Fore edge: Another non-crucial term, but useful to keep in mind in order to provide a good reading experience for your reader. This might sound logical, but remember the person reading your comic will have to hold it in their hands. While doing so, their thumbs are probably gonna grab this outside area of your comic page, leaving it a little more damaged over time, and also their hand will partially cover this area while they’re reading, so just plan this little thing ahead: avoid putting crucial information too close to the fore edges!

Saddle stitch: This is the most common format for comics, and you’re probably already familiar with it: all pages are attached together by two (or sometimes three) staples in the middle of the book. This is a more affordable format, and it’s generally recommended for shorter stories, with not many pages. Big, bulky books sometimes cannot be stitched together just with that, and so they need a different binding method. Advantages: it’s quick and efficient, and also more affordable.

Perfect binding: In this format, the entire volume of pages will be distributed into smaller sections, called booklets. These booklets will then be attached together at the book’s spine with a strong, but flexible glue, along with the cover. This method generally creates a beautiful rectangular shaped spine, in which you can add your book’s title or other art. The size of this spine will vary according to the number of pages and chosen paper. You can guess-timate it, but always contact your printer for more trustworthy estimatives. Advantages: it looks just so beautiful! But also, it can accomodate a big volume with more pages than the saddle stitch would be able to. Also allows hardcovers, which are really pretty and offers a lot of mechanical resistance.

Cover: This might seem a little obvious, but let's cover all the bases (see what I did here?) just to be sure. Your cover for a saddle stitch will be composed of front cover and backcover. That’s two “pages”, right? But also keep in mind that in saddle stitching, the inner part of the same paper sheet used for the cover also counts as cover, making it have four pages in your file. This will be relevant later when we talk about page count, so hold on to that. If you’re printing hardcover, you’ll also have two end pages to attach this cover material to the inside pages of the book. You might also want to have a flap, which is an extension of the cover that folds inside and can serve as a page marker to your reader. Always ask your printing staff about those possibilities and what they imply on.

Now it’s time to close your file for printing! Let’s talk about some terms that generally puzzles us while preparing the file to the printing shop, and we will start with a very important concept: color!

CMYK and RGB: most of us are familiar with those acronyms, but if you’re more into just creating digital art, you’re probably not very sure about what they imply. Let’s take a look at what distinguishes those two different color languages. CMYK stands for cyan, magenta, yellow and black (which is “key”), the four primary pigment colors used for printing. RGB stands for red, green and blue, the three primary light colors that can produce any other visible color on your screen. 

Why are those colors sets different, if they both should be primary? Let’s break this down because it might be a little confusing at the beginning: CMYK is pigment, and RGB is light. That means CMYK is subtractive color, and RGB is additive. That means, the more you mix pigments, the darker it gets, until it reaches black. Black means no light is reflected, so you’re subtracting light by adding pigment. Are you following me? Now, RGB is pretty much the opposite: the more light colors you add, the brighter it gets, until it reaches complete white, where all the light is reflected, making in an additive process: the more colors, the more light. Take a look at it:

So, why should this matter to us, comic creators? Because you’re probably making your comics digitally, or coloring them digitally or at the very least editing them and giving it final touch ups on your computer screen. At the moment you create a digital file, in order for it to appear on your screen, it must be converted to RGB, the language of additive color which your computer uses to convey image to your eyes.  That means you’re probably gonna work with an RGB file but print a CMYK file. Proper and careful conversion of one to another is the key, and will take about it on the next section of this article.

Now you understand how color works on printed paper, but what kind of paper are we talking about? These are some of the common varieties of paper and questions you will be asked when printing your material:

Paper grammage: This is the measurement of the paper weight, not it’s thickness. The distinction is important because due to the ratio of cellulose and cotton of some types of paper, they might look thicker, but actually be lighter, or the other way around. To put it simply: grammage measures the weight, in grams, of a sheet of one square meter of said paper. (For US folks, sometimes this measurement is made based on pounds) Overall, 90 gsm is very light and does not make much of an impression, but anything from 115 gsm on should do the trick. Heavier paper makes a good impression and makes the entire book more resistant and aesthetically pleasant, but there are a few things to consider before you go 300 gsm on the entire book! First off, remember what grammage means: you’re making your comic book heavier when you choose a higher grammature, so if you intend on mailing it, considerer this details and plan ahead for a more expensive shipping cost. Thicker pages also mean more wear and tear on the folding of the paper, so if you intend to have your inner pages as thick as 150 gsm on, you might need some coating and lamination to make sure your pages won’t get prematurely outworn.

Coating: Most printer shops will also give you options for the paper finishing, sometimes varying depending on what grammature you’ve chosen (very light grammature such as 75 gsm might not be suitable for coating). The paper finishing gives it a final texture quality, and the options available are generally gloss, silk and uncoated. The gloss finish, as the name suggests, gives your art a very shiny glossy aspect, similar to magazines and printed photographs. It can get really reflexive, so beware. A paper with silk finishing, also sometimes referred to as a matt finish, gets a more velvety texture, soft to the touch and not as reflexive. Personally, my favorite to print comics, since the printing is vibrant enough to convey the desired colors, but it’s not reflexive enough to get in the way of reading and appreciating the panels. The third option is simply not to have it coated at all, leaving the natural paper and paint texture. This is generally the more accessible choice, but it comes with its drawbacks: quick detratition of the pages due to lack of protection from the regular manipulation of the book. The colors will also look a little more dull without any coating.

Paper size: A very crucial part of printing your comic is deciding what size will it have in the final format. In fact, that is something you should be planning from the start. Adapting and A4 size comic page to a US standard comic format can be incredibly tiring and time consuming, so why not make the pages already conceiving their final print format? Here are the most common printing formats for comics: International paper size (A Series paper size), US standard comic size and manga size (B series paper size).

A series: Comic are generally printed in A4 size, or 21 x 29,7 cm (8.27" x 11.69")

US standard comic size: 6.63" x 10.24" (16.84 x 26.01 cm)

B series: Manga are generally printed in B6 size, or 12.8 × 18.2 cm (5.04" × 7.17")

Remember to have the final format in mind when thumbnailing and executing your pages. It will save you a lot of time when you decide to print your comic!

That’s it for today! This topic was getting a little to long so I've decided to split it into two weeks articles. In this first one, we cover the basic vocabulary and terms we need in order to communicate with our print staff and understand what’s going on. Next week, we’ll be talking about really fixing troubles, exporting files and how to bring this comic fully to life.

If you don’t want to miss this, go ahead and subscribe to our newsletter!

You might also like to read:  How to print your comic Part II and How to print your comic part III