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My Newest Comic Hobby!

I like the idea and look of these myself. As to being worried about hurting their value....if I had some Batman comics from the 40's, of course I wouldn't do it.....but I don't think any of today's comics will be considered as valuable in 40 years from now as things from the 30's, 40's, or even 50's are on todays market.
 
I'm the same. If I have a comic that's worth something, I don't care to bind it because I don't see it being a big deal later. But I don't want to spend the money to buy an expensive comic for binding purposes. Does that make sense.

I was thinking about it today. My binding for X-Men will eventually go backwards and I have the first appearance of Gambit in great shape. I've debated and I figured I'd just go ahead and bind that instead of finding a reprint (which I think was only in a trade, though I could be wrong). It's worth decent money, but since I already own it (and got it for cheap to begin with in a big group ebay auction) I'm not worried about the worth of it.

But yeah, If I had old stuff from the 30's-60's... no way.
 
I'm thinking about having a 130 issue run bound. Should I cut the pages on the spine before I send them? There's stuff in the second half that I wouldn't want.
 
Yes, but you don't have to cut every page. Just cut out the pages you want to remove and put the pages you do want to keep back in their proper place.

Some advice... depending on how old the comics are.

Stuff from around the 80's-90's or so should be okay at around 30 issue incruments per volume... or right around 2 inches thick or a little less. I've realized that modern comics don't measure up quite as well. You might want to go less on those, such as 20 or so issue or 2 1/2 inches thickness. You lose more art and text in the center of modern stuff.

What are you thinking about binding?
 
Yes, but you don't have to cut every page. Just cut out the pages you want to remove and put the pages you do want to keep back in their proper place.

Some advice... depending on how old the comics are.

Stuff from around the 80's-90's or so should be okay at around 30 issue incruments per volume... or right around 2 inches thick or a little less. I've realized that modern comics don't measure up quite as well. You might want to go less on those, such as 20 or so issue or 2 1/2 inches thickness. You lose more art and text in the center of modern stuff.

What are you thinking about binding?

That's a good tip for those considering this....thanks.
 
Yeah, and those are the maximum thicknesses per volume. It would probably be safer to go even smaller. Plus, I've noticed that the thinner volumes read better since the thicker ones are so heavy.


And an update... I got the call today. They're done with my 29 volumes and I've paid for them. Now it's just the horrible waiting until they show up on my doorstep!
 
Good for you! I hope they turned out well!

I'm searching for paper vendors that sell marble paper. I'm tired of using construction paper for the end papers. Even chiyogami is better than that.
 
WOO HOO!!!! The books came in today and they're great. There's a few flaws (one major) but all in all I'm very happy! Now for some pics. And in addition to these below, there's 2 more X-Men volumes that my brother-in-law is borrowing (the black w/ blue text).

29 of these volumes are new. I won't cover them all but I'll post pics of interiors for most.

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I have tons of interior pics taken as well. I'll try to get them posted tomorrow evening sometime.
 
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That is SICK! SO JEALOUS! Can't wait to see more pics!
 
DESTROYIN THE VALUE OF YOUR hurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrf

no but really those look awesome.
 
I had Bendis's entire run of Daredevil bound into 2 volumes (taking out the Echo arc written by Mack... as it didn't really tie-in much). It was done in Dark Red Imitation Leather

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I made one volume including all of Ultimates and Ultimates 2 (not including the Annual).

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This is my smallest bind ever. 10 issues. It's the original Sentry mini written by Jenkins and mostly drawn by Jae Lee. I took this to work today and reread it and MAN I forgot how much I love this! One of my favorite comic stories of all time.

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My Marvels volume includes Marvels 0-4, Marvels 2: Eye of the Camera 1-6, and Ruins 1-2. It's the entire Phil Sheldon story! I do have one regret though. I wish I would have substituted the first prints of Marvels 1-4 with their 2nd edition counterparts. The cardstock covers really make it a clumbsy read where the 2nd prints would have flipped perfectly. Oh well.

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The Immortal Iron Fist!!!! I love this series! I debated on making it one volume or two and utlimately decided on two for fear of losing a lot of text. I was disappointed when I got it in because I realized I probably could have done one volume, but then I skimmed the first volume and there's a page where even this small I'm still missing a word of text in the first few pages... so now I'm glad I did it. It's done in green imitation leather. Beautiful!

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I discovered this series not long ago and loved it! J. Michael Straczynski's Midnight Nation.

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My own Final Crisis bind. This is all of Morrison's stuff in chronological order. Some of my own additions are that I mixed parts of Requiem in with Final Crisis #1 to better portray Manhunter's death, and I also added in Morrison's Mister Miracle mini from 7 Soldiers and his scenes from the oneshot that concluded that tale, Justice Leage 21, and portions of DC Universe 0.

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I've continued my X-Men binds, including the core X-Books and any necessary tie-ins. It's now complete from the 90's relaunch through Operation Zero Tolerance.

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And lastly... my Avenger binds. These are the New Avengers centric era, though it also includes titles that tie-in and influence the main Avenger titles from prior to Disassembled through Secret Invasion. This includes Thunderbolts, Young Avengers, Secret War, Iron Man, some Spider-Man, etc.

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Now for Civil War, World War Hulk, and Secret Invasion.... I decided to scrap the idea of keeping issues together and cut everything up. I then spliced the whole story together page by page chronologically so that each story is from the point of view from the Marvel Universe with an emphasis on Avenger-ish characters and titles.

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The Battle on Yancy street that took place simoultanously in FF and Spider-Man is spliced to be one story.

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Here's an example of splicing. I took the Punisher/Cap fight from Punisher and Civil War and included pages from each to expand the battle.

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From the World War Hulk volume:

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Iron Man is setting out to confront the Hulk from Iron Man 20 I think, while the Avengers work the evacuation in preparation for the battle in WWH itself.

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Now this volume actually starts with the arc in new Avengers that revealed Elektra a Skrull and when Spider-Woman stole her body. The WWH event has to take place right after that but it's a bit of an interuption, so I took the final page of Mighty Avengers 6 when Spider-Woman shows up with the Skrull and put it at the very end of the book, making it flow with the rest of the volumes flawlessly.

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Leading into Secret Invasion, I decided to do it revealingly. Just prior to the beginning of the Invasion I put together all the flashback issues of New and Mighty that told the origins of the Invasion from the Skrull's point of view. I also tied in here other things from the secret past, such as Fury's forming the Secret Warriors in preparation for the Invasion, the attack on Echo and Wolverine, Hood's realizing something's going on, some of the Initiative teasers, etc. From there I did the same here as I did Civil War and WWH.... page by page from various titles.

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Don't know about others....but I'm sitting here mopping up the drool off of my computer and desk. That's beautiful stuff....wish I had the money and the comics to do it myself.
 
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I still really really want to do this. There is just 2 problems I'm having so far:

1. Money. I don't have any since I got laid off.

2. I don't have a, i guess, full run I want to sacrifice first, as like a test run.

But this does look super cool. And it also looks like it makes rereading old issues a lot easier.
 
That's a very amazing collection of bindings, JH.

I've been hearing a lot of great things from people I know and on various comic podcasts about Library Bindings great work.

From your pictures it really looks like they do an amazing job and I think this thread has sold me on binding a lot of long runs that I have.

Most notably I think I want to bind the entire Spider-Man Clone Saga. I already have them set in reading order in my long box.

The other thing I would love to bind is the recently completed Blackest Night. It was an amazing event and a great Green Lantern story and I would love to have that all collected into one big volume, or two volumes.

I will definitely have to look more deeply into this and hopefully I will be back in this thread in the future with pics of my own bindings. :o
 
Awesome! My friends and I are planning on sending out some stuff soon to be bound. Two of them are still kinda in the "comic collecting" way of thinking, so it's tough for them to "ruin" their comics. But they do realize that the comics have no value.
 
Yeah, Library Binding is great. They do make mistakes but often if the mistake is their own they'll fix it at no charge. And James, the guy in charge of the comics aspect of their company, is real good at keeping in touch, answering questions, etc. Very personable.

Now, I'm not complaining about Library at all, but some problems I've had in the past and with this shipment so you know what may or may not happen:

1) I had a volume that they didn't trim the outside of the pages, so it was real rough looking instead of smooth. I got ahold of James and he looked into it and said that typically if it looks like they'll cut off a lot of text they'll keep from trimming, as to not ruin your volume. This didn't bother me (in this one instance because the text in question wasn't important at all) so he told me to just send it back in and they'd fix it for free. A year later I sent in this big batch and reminded him about it and he said just send it with them and they did fix it for free. It looks great.

2) Glue. A lot of times there will be access glue on the cover/spine, or on pages. It's an easy clean on the outside cover and spine because it just washes off, no problem When it's on the pages it's not a big deal, you just have to be careful. Pages stick together but if you get a knife or letter opener and just carefully slide it up the pages, they'll separate and everything is fine. If you aren't careful you might tear a page but as long as you're careful you'll be fine.

3) Fold Out Pages. These are typically no problem I find. Two page, like covers, are no problem at all, just fold them how you need them. 3 page fold outs are also okay usually. Beyond that could be troublesome.

If you make a note of it and mark the page they know to be careful with it. They may have to revold it a differant way (adding an extra crease or two in the page, but it's very professional looking so it doesn't bother me). However, large ones seem to be trickier. For example, out of this sent, I sent in my Ultimates volume with the 8 or 10 page fold out in Ultimates 2 issue 13. They refolded them and it turned out great.

However, I sent in some X-Men stuff and there was an issue of Wolverine with a 6 page fold out and it wasn't done well at all and got messed up pretty bad (and wasn't even attached at the spine so it just falls out). This bugs me and I'll be emailing James about it shortly, but likely I'll have to rebuy the issue and send it in and they'll rebind the volume with that page inserted.

That's the worst thing that's happened in my binding experience, but with all the good stuff, it's tolerable. Nothing's ever perfect.



That's really about it. I've had other problems but they were always my own fault. I inserted a page from a Generation X comic into an X-Men volume but accidentally put it in backwards, and so, the page is backwards.

I accidently inserted a whole issue of Avengers upsidedown, and so that's how they bound it. Fortunately, they offered to fix it for free, despite it being my own fault.

Also, I like my spines similar but if you look at those White Avenger volumes you'll see that 2 of the 11 says "The" Avengers instead of just Avengers. That was my fault because I wasn't thinking and wrote that on the slip when I layed out what I wanted on the spines.

So yeah, the main point in that.... be careful in preparing the volumes. The majority of mistakes are ones I've made myself. Library themselves are very professional and good about fixing any mistakes they may have made.
 
From your pictures it really looks like they do an amazing job and I think this thread has sold me on binding a lot of long runs that I have.

Most notably I think I want to bind the entire Spider-Man Clone Saga. I already have them set in reading order in my long box.

The other thing I would love to bind is the recently completed Blackest Night. It was an amazing event and a great Green Lantern story and I would love to have that all collected into one big volume, or two volumes.

I will definitely have to look more deeply into this and hopefully I will be back in this thread in the future with pics of my own bindings. :o

I plan on doing Blackest Night myself. I'm doing Green Lantern/Green Lantern Corps/Ion in a large Green Lantern run (already have the first volume finished) and I'll eventually get to the Blackest Night stuff. I plan on including Blackest Night, Green Lantern, Green Lantern Corps, BN: Wonder Woman #3, and Atom and Hawkman (whatever issue).

And I've already started my Clone Saga run. I have 3 volumes finished and a 4th ready to be sent out. It'll end up being 6 volumes but I'm still filling holes in the last two volumes.

Besides the Spidey titles, I've also included Green Goblin's ongoing, several Venom minis (Separation Anxiety, Carnage Unleashed, Along Came A Spider), an issue of New Warriors or two, various minis, etc.
 

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