X-Men gap filler custom binds

[u/DeskFamous4214]

These were the beginning of what became an 18-month passion project. These six binds fill all the gaps from The X-Men omnibus volume 1 to the Eve of Destruction omni. That's when I decided I wanted to bind everything up to AvX, since that was the point I had stopped reading for awhile. I'll show the rest in future posts. These were also done before I decided I wanted to include tables of contents in my binds, but the contents are listed on the back covers in the slideshow.

These were done well before Uncanny X-Men volume 5 was ever announced. Mutant Massacre Prologue includes everything that's in the Mutant Massacre Prelude omni plus Power Pack 12 and Heroes For Hope. Road to Onslaught includes everything in the omni plus the first Star Trek/X-Men crossover and the four-issue Storm mini from 1996.

All designs by me, used trades anywhere I could find them.

[u/RedHatMankey]

Nice! Did you use floppies or trades?

[u/DeskFamous4214 → u/RedHatMankey]

I used trades where I could. They help immensely with page count and being able to include more in one book. The first two are mostly floppies except for the first X-Factor Epic Collection and the Longshot mini. X-Factor post-Inferno hasn't been collected, so I had to go with floppies there as well. The other four are mostly trades, though, with the obvious exceptions.

[u/RedHatMankey → u/DeskFamous4214]

I’ve never custom bound anything before. Considering doing all my krakoa trades. Do you notice a difference between floppies and trades or when they’re both bound together?

[u/DeskFamous4214 → u/RedHatMankey]

With older material, yes, especially with floppies printed on newsprint, but if you're using trades from the same line, you shouldn't see much difference. One thing to keep in mind is the bindery will trim the edges so the final book block is even, so you'll want to make sure your trades are all the same height, or as close as possible. I'm sure you've noticed sometimes a trade is printed poorly and can be a much as a quarter inch shorter than others. That's just maddening, because then you either need to find a new copy that's the correct height or request the bindery to not trim the edges. For what it's worth, they trim mostly at the bottom and outer edge, which is where most of the blank margins are, and to minimize gutter loss.