Preparing comics for print

Fysh

Inspired by erok's "comic processes" thread, I thought it might be useful to have a thread for discussing how to prepare comics for print. Having recently done a certain amount of "learning by doing" regarding preparing comics for print, I wanted to share my experiences as this is the first time I've ever properly tried to get any material into print. Hopefully others will contribute their experiences and advice and this can develop into something useful for those trying their hand at printed comics for the first time.

Within the last few months, I've been involved in the boards zine, the re-issuing of "Three Cheers for Mute Ingloriousness" for 24 Hour Comic day, and putting together a sample for a possible printed collection of the Comic Challenge.

Firstly, the boards zine:

Originally this was going to be a photocopied affair, so I'd planned accordingly - artwork to be grayscale or just black and white, A5 as the page size, ~5mm margins, and all artwork to be submitted as 300dpi TIFFs. I changed my mind quite late in the day as regards getting it printed up properly, having worked out that I'd probably spend a similar amount of money on photocopies as I ended up spending on the proper printjob.

I made a PDF file for my own reference, assembled in two steps. First I worked out the page order, then worked out what pages would have to be on each sheet of A4 to be correctly assembled.

I then created a landscape-layout A4 document in Paint.Net, and created a new layer in which I drew ruler lines to show my margins. Within the document I imported each pair of pages as required (for example back cover on the left side, front cover on the right; then page 02 on the left and page 03 on the right, and so on). Each pair of pages was saved as an A4 TIFF and named accordingly.

Once all the A4 pages were prepared, I used Scribus to create a new A4 landscape double-sided document, 10 pages long. For each page, I used the "Insert Image" function, drew an image box to fit the entire page, and then selected the appropriate file. Once all the pages had been populated, I exported it as a PDF. This PDF can then be printed on a suitable printer to create a sample. (I used a colour laserjet printer at work, using double-sided printing and flipping on the landscape orientation rather than portrait).

It all sounds very simple when I describe it like this, but that was kind of the point. Given that the artwork was all provided as 300 dpi TIFF files, I didn't have to mess around with it at all and the only work on that side was assembling the page order. Scribus turned out to be more straightforward than I had anticipated, although it slows down a bit when using several large high-resolution images.

Things I learned:

• The process of assembling an anthology is far easier when everyone has clear guidelines they can follow for submissions
• Talking to printers to get quotations can sometimes be a pleasant surprise, and is will always be worth trying (after all, you don't have to go with them just 'cause they quote you a price)
• Freely-available software is more than up to the job of assembling the files for this kind of print job if you have the time to learn how to use them
• It's amazing how much better a small-press comic will look with the cover page printed on coloured paper. (Although I also discovered that using more than one colour for the covers can trick people into thinking the comics have different contents...)

Reissuing "Three Cheers for Mute Ingloriousness":

(Note: "Three cheers" was a small press comic in cork from a few years ago. I met the guy who drew it a couple of times and thought it'd be good to have it out for Free Irish Comic Day so I contacted him about it. It turned out he was in Japan but was happy enough for me to print up some copies of the comic and give them away.)

This wasn't quite as simple as the zine. I had a couple of copies of the original issues in a box somewhere and some low-res scans, but nothing I could easily turn into a printable comic. I got my hands on the originals and re-scanned them at 300dpi, inadvertently creating black and white TIFFs along the way.

Two problems became apparent once I'd done this. One was that the originals I had weren't pristine - there was a fair amount to be done replacing borders that had been lost in the original photocopying process, as well as fixing speech bubbles that had half-vanished. The other was that the files didn't always fit the 5mm borders I'd set, which meant tinkering and resizing to make sure they would be within the printable area.

Once all that was done, the next thing was to prepare a printable PDF in Scribus again. This was easier this time since I'd taken the comic apart and scanned the pages as I could print them, so I didn't need to re-order them. Once I had created the PDF document I printed one copy of each comic, then ran it through the double-sided photocopier at my workplace. Unlike the grayscale comics in the boards zine, this looked pretty much fine after copying - except for some small variation in the required borders which meant that a couple of borders I had fixed were lost in the copying process. Due to time constraints (i.e. I'd left this to the last minute as I'd been busy with the boards zine) I didn't fix this but just got on with copying up the comics.

I then made use of a bargain purchase from eBay (a ten pound long-arm stapler) and stapled the 50-odd copies of the comics that I'd put together. I was then enraged to discover that in about 20 of them I'd put the centre pages in backward, so I got to open them up and re-staple after correcting the page.

Things I learned:

• Pay attention when scanning your artwork since the wrong format can lead to your artwork showing up wrong
• Check your equipment's print settings properly before using them
• Give yourself enough lead time to make significant changes to the artwork after printing a test job
• Before stapling your comics, check you've got the sheets in the right order and facing the right direction. (Also, long-arm staplers are a great investment for the work they do)

Getting a printed sample of a Comic Challenge collection

This is something that has been on my mind for a while. After the collaborative comic in Round 10 turned out so well I decided I would have a look at the idea of printing up a collection. The two biggest problems? Firstly, most of the artwork I'd received was at web-resolution and thus useless in terms of printing. Secondly, the artwork was at all sorts of different sizes and layouts and would need extensive work to be converted into something that could be printed up.

I decided it was worth trying after looking into Ka-blam - I'd heard good things about them from the Sancho lads, and their service offered what amounted to a free printed proof for first-time customers.

The first thing I did was pick out what pages I wanted to use. This took a while, but eventually I had a list of files and a tentative page order.

After this, I picked a few pages to try and fix up to printable quality. Ka-blam provided a page detailing their requirements (including a couple of unexpected ones, such as submitting files in RGB rather than CMYK colour). A bit of experimentation in Photoshop showed that judicious manipulation of the original images (stretching them while keeping the scale intact) along with a few filters (chiefly the Unsharp Mask, I think, but a couple of others that I forget) would create something that I could at least try and use.

Once I had figured out a series of steps to upscale the original art to the proportions and resolution I needed, I started working on re-organising the pages that wouldn't fit. This was different for each page. In some cases I had to leave empty space at the top or bottom of the page, in others I had to rotate the pages 90 degrees, and in a couple of cases I had to split pages into two or three chunks. It worked reasonably well for the most part.

Things like a contents page, an introduction and a list of links for the people whose pages I'd used were simple enough to put together quickly. I didn't have a cover, so I slapped something together in Photoshop that would do for a printed proof, using snippets from the interior pages in the same way as I usually do for the banners on the Comic Challenge site.

Once I'd finished preparing the pages, I ran into a problem - I'd made a mistake in the page size I used. I'd gone by the final print size when working out my page measurements, whereas the full specs page for the kind of printing I was using revealed that the files provided to them needed to be at full bleed size. This was a relatively minor thing because I could fix it by re-opening the PSD file for each page in Photoshop and increasing the full canvas size, but it's something I should have realised before preparing the pages.

Having fixed that, I zipped up the collection of TIFF files and sent them to Ka-blam as requested. It took a little while for them to retrieve and verify the files, but it happened after a week or so and once that was done, I had my printed proof copy after two or three weeks. I showed it to a few people at the 24 Hour Comics Day event in Dublin this year, and have a few photos below:

Placeholder cover
Interior pages 01
Interior pages 02
Interior pages 03

Things I learned:

• Using a placeholder cover on a printed proof request means that you wont know if the "proper" cover you use when you go to print will look good.
• Having to readjust artwork at web-friendly resolutions to create something usable for print is a lot of hassle and still inferior to just getting work submitted at print-friendly resolutions.
• Printers need lead times and may offer cheaper prices on less urgent jobs. If you're using an online service like Ka-blam or ComixPress and you're getting a lot of copies done in the 6-8 weeks before a convention, you may not get your comics in time or have to pay a premium to ensure that they do arrive.
• Make sure you've got the right set of specs from your printer before preparing your pages for print.

Patrick Brown

If you don't have a long-arm stapler, the job can be done with an ordinary one fully opened, shooting through the pages and into a lump of blu-tack, and the staples closed by means of a steel ruler or a pair of scissors - don't, in the name of all that's holy, try using your thumb.

thebaddy

This is the bible when it comes to preparing comic art for print. Everything else is bunk.

http://www.reddingk.com/img/reproguide.pdf