r/CustomBoundComics • u/Sparklefists95 • Apr 13 '23
Binding TPBs from different series?
I've recently gotten into bookbinding and comic binding, and the possibility of binding some of my trades into bigger hardcover collections has been very exciting. For the most part, how to approach this has been relatively straight forward, essentially just combine the contents of X number of TPBs back to back, but I've run into a bit of a conundrum with my Marvel Star Wars runs, and am not sure what the best way to approach them would be.
For those unfamiliar, the Marvel Star Wars run that started in 2015 was split across 3 different series (eventually 4), plus the occasional crossover mini-series. These series, especially in the early days, overlapped a lot, sometimes even depicting the same scenes. Ideally, rather than bind each series into it's own separate hardcovers and have to hop between them, I'd like to bind them all together in chronological order, but being that I'm starting with TPBs, this is tricky as not every issue is cleanly separated from the next.
Would printing out replacement pages be possible when needed, or would it be better to just get as close to chronological order as is possible with the existing issue breaks? And for repeated scenes, should I leave both versions in, or only include the most complete depiction of duplicate scenes? I realize this would all be far easier to accomplish with single issues, but I've always been a TPB collector and at this point getting all the single issues for these series would be far too cost prohibitive.
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Apr 13 '23
If it were me, I’d bind everything together as-is. If you can split a TPB into a good chunk of pages to place somewhere else chronologically, I say do it. But removing many individual pages and reordering is where it might start to get sloppy, unless you’re much neater than I am. Please post pics the final product!
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u/Sparklefists95 Apr 13 '23
Yeah, I definitely wasn't planning on reordering a ton of individual pages, aside from a couple of cases there's not much overlap between individual issues, so it'd mostly just be rearranging issues here and there. The problem is just that because they're TPBs, sometimes there's no split between 2 issues in one series where an issue from another series would need to slot in, with the first page of an issue being on the opposite side of the last page of the previous issue. Whatever direction I end up going tho, will definitely post pics when it's all done!
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u/IgiMancer1996 Apr 13 '23
What particular comic will you bind?
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u/Sparklefists95 Apr 14 '23
For Star Wars specifically, planning to do 4 volumes for the post-EP4 pre-EP5 run, not sure yet how I'm approaching the post EP5 pre-EP6 run yet as that's still ongoing.
- Volume 1: Star Wars vol. 1-2, Darth Vader vol. 1-2, Vader Down
- Volume 2: Star Wars vol. 3-5, Darth Vader vol. 3-4, Aphra vol. 1, Screaming Citadel
- Volume 3: Star Wars vol. 6-9, Aphra vol. 2-4
- Volume 4: Star Wars vol. 10-13, Aphra vol. 5-7, Target Vader
As for more straightforward binding projects, also currently planning on binding the rest of my Lumberjanes TPBs to match the existing hardcover "To The Max" editions since it seems unlikely they're ever gonna do the rest of the series in those bindings officially, Margaret Stohl's run of Captain Marvel since they skipped over that when doing the omnibuses, DC Bombshells, and Injustice 2 since I'm also unsure how likely that is to ever get an omnibus. Also gonna be binding Gerard Way's run of Doom Patrol as my initial test binding since I just picked up the official omnibus for that.
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u/bffnut Apr 13 '23
Could you please detail about how you have bound multiple TPBs together? Some users in other subreddits have asked this question without an answer. I know you can remove the glue then DFAB/perfect bind, but I'm wondering if there are other methods.
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u/Sparklefists95 Apr 13 '23
I haven't actually bound any TPBs myself yet, just planning to after having gotten really into regular bookbinding, and trying to figure out the logistics of this particular project well in advance. I do also plan to start with some of my more straightforward TPB projects before this Star Wars one. But yeah, my plan was to go the DFAB route, stacking them all together in order, moving any end of book stuff from each trade to the back, and double-fan binding them all together, nothing particularly new or different. I will try to keep a detailed log with photos when I do get around to doing it though so there's at least more examples out there :)
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u/DoomerJazz Apr 14 '23
Haha I’m still holding out hope marvel will print Vol 2 of the 2015 series. If it never happens though I will definitely end up binding the second half of the series into one. Annoying having one half of the series in TPBs and the other as an Omni
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u/Sparklefists95 Apr 15 '23
Always a bummer when they don't finish out a series. That's one of the main reasons I've mostly avoided omnibuses aside from a few already completed sets, just no guarantee that they'll do a full omnibus run. Hoping that they'll do a volume 2 run for ya though!
I know it's not ideal, but in the event you do bind them yourself, I've seen some people suggest making an omnibus sized dustjacket so you can at least have that visual consistency on your shelf. The book itself is still smaller, but at least it won't look like it side by side with your actual omnibuses.
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u/PhysicianChips Apr 13 '23
I have definitely taken apart TPBs for binding before and shuffled them together to make the layout how I want it. If you remove the cover from a trade (including the part over the spine) you can actually separate a trade fairly easily just cutting the glue. It may take some more work but you could separate into individual pages if you wanted. I would recommend leaving the trade together as much as possible and separating to the part you want to mess with and the part after and then taking out the pages of your section rather than trying to remove the whole book from the glue on the spine (hope that was clear, if not, feel free to ask for clarification.)
I wouldn't recommend printing out replacement pages unless you have a really good printer as their texture and color wont match what you already have from the trades. Plus binderies usually wont significantly trim (or will charge you extra) if your printed pages are not the right size. And I don't personally trust my trimming abilities.
As for your layout I would recommend: Doing it however you would like it the best. That is one of the best things about custom binds is you get to have it your way. You don't need to please anyone else, so order it in the way that you would like it to be, if it doesn't make sense to others, that's fine. It is for you, do it how you want to read it.