Show me your physical copies

[blinkingkills]

I don't know if anyone is doing this but are any of you printing your comics in either graphic novel or single issues once you have enough pages? If so, where do you print it? can i have photos and reviews of the places you print with?
My own pages are designed at an america comic pages proportion and sizing in the original files because i do eventually want to get it printed one day, I'm wondering if you guys have printed yours before?

[Shanny8]

I have a print series- The Clique, that I print(mostly, mainly) through Ka-Blam- a digital print on demand service. They do fairly good work, the paper they use is excellent quality and the cover stock is as well. They can print from RGB TIFF files(retains quality & resolution)...all the specifications and such that you need to resize the original work to are on the site. Depending on certain factors(want to use a heavier cover stock) I may use them in printing Ray Thunder.

[blinkingkills]

do you know about their turn around speed? Also its nice that they can print tiff files too. your stuff looks great!

[Monomania]

I've printed out mine. I used ReadyComics.
They have been okay. A couple of dark pages and then a bit of a misunderstanding on the binding...but overall they corrected the problem and we felt satisfied.

[Shanny8]

@blinkingkills Depends on their workload. Earlier in the year, and at the end of the year, they do a pretty decent turnaround- about 4 days to print, and 2-3 days for shipping...only thing I would say that I dont care for is that they ship via U.S. Postal service- I have all my orders shipped to my day job, coz no one is at home, and the particular postal facility that services mail for my day job has crappy, slacking personnel.

The middle of the year is con season- and they get in TONS of print jobs. If you send your stuff in a timely manner(like at least 2-3 weeks before whatever event you are doing), they can usually get you a decent turnaround. Just dont send stuff 3 days before your event- it's not gonna happen THAT fast.

[shazzbaa]

The first version of my b/w autobio comic, TNH, was printed through Ka-blam, using the "digest size" rather than the standard comic size. My full colour fantasy comic, Runewriters, is printed through Whitlock, whom I very much recommend!

I had a good experience with Ka-blam, though I've heard varying experiences from others, and they'll let you print any amount of books you want so it was a great place to start out for me. My Whitlock books are definitely higher quality, imo, and a little cheaper, but the minimum number you can print at once is 25, so you have to be prepared to pay for a decent chunk of books.

Ka-blam is geared around comics, while Whitlock doesn't specifically cater to them, but I emailed a sales rep at Whitlock and they explained everything I needed to do, sent me a sample book of paper stock to choose from, and walked me through the entire process.

[blinkingkills]

all your comics look so great, it makes me sort of excited to get going on my own comic, because i've always wanted to have a solid copy of stuff I've done.

[Mharz]

I started printing my comics last year and sell at conventions! It's self-print so I'm super duper proud of it even tough it has a couple of flaws. : )

Also planning to turn it into a trade paper back this year and sell online. Here's the prototype.

Also printed my inktober story last year and binded it with a duct tape becos I'm cheap and poor. XD

[AnnaLandin]

I've got the first three chapters of Grassblades collected in a single volume, and am hoping to keep doing that with the rest of the chapters - just gotta space it out a bit and raise the funds; printing is expensive. I've also got an artbook full of tea-based witches. <3 The Grassblades volume is 100 pages, the artbook 50 pages, and they're 8.5x11 inches, or a standard A4 size, in full colour on 130 gram silk paper.

I sell them at cons, and also have them up in my tictail store.

(photos are darker than the IRL copies because my phone is terrible)

I printed them with a local Swedish printer, which meant that the printing cost per book was higher, but I didn't have to pay shipping at all (lucky me; these buggers are heavy) as I could just go to the print shop and pick them up in person. Also, they're reliable and always turn out good work, and there's never any trouble when it comes to proof-copies or correcting errors.

I've been part of an anthology that was printed via Ka-Blam, but I wasn't in charge of that, so I'm afraid I can't give you a personal review of it. IIRC, it worked just fine, though.

[Shanny8]

@AnnaLandin that's the plan for Ray Thunder- especially since it's a little easier coz most the RT chapters are 30-40 pages; create a sizable trade. Going to do it with my print series The Clique, coz I dont want to keep selling single issues forever- but there are so many pages of that series right now that I may have to end up doing a crowdfunding campaign to get that done.

Def wanna eventually get my hands on some printed Grassblades- that's one of my "little goals" this year; try to invest in fellow creators end products(when I have the funds to do so of course).