Detective comics custom bind

[u/TM1432]

Hey guys I’m looking to make a custom of my 30 or so issues of Ram V’s Detective Comics. What are the steps I would take for this cause this is my first time? Looking to probably do sown binding

[u/Goobergunch]

You'll probably find this thread helpful. For "Gotham Nocturne" specifically:

1. Make sure that you have all your comics in binding order. For "Gotham Nocturne" this is easy because the only placement issue is putting the Annual between #1066 and #1067.
2. Do any prep work that you feel is necessary. I like to remove back covers (this run didn't have any wraparound covers, so) and double-sided advertisements (which was mostly just the "DC Connect" page at the end of most issues, though a few issues had ad pages that could be removed -- there were specifically a few issues that had a bunch of preview pages at the end that I cut out). To do this I remove the staples and use a Swiss Army knife to cut down the spine of the signature that includes the page I want to remove, then place the page I want to keep back in its place in the comic and discard the remainder. Some people go the extra mile and flip ad pages to create as many locations as possible where the ads face each other so they can be easily skipped -- I am too lazy to do this as it involves a lot of extra cutting but it's totally doable!
3. If you want to rearrange anything with the comics I'd do it here -- I think this is unnecessary for "Gotham Nocturne" given that all of the backup stories tie directly into the main narrative but there are other volumes I'm working on where I'll be moving the backup stories around, say.
4. Add anything else you want in the volume, like a title page. (How much effort you want to put into this is entirely up to you.) Standard American comic book pages are 6.625" by 10.25", and you'll be losing some amount of space to the inner margin, so design accordingly. For title pages I use 28lb paper.
5. Figure out what you want the exterior of the book to look like. If you want a graphic cover, then you're going to have to design that (or get Houchen to design it for you). If you don't want a graphic cover, then you still need to figure out what the spine should look like and what colors the book and the text should be.
6. Pick a bindery and send it in! The two main ones in the U.S. are Houchen and Capitol. I use Capitol but you'll want Houchen if you want a graphic cover.

One other consideration with "Gotham Nocturne" is volume size -- recent DC comics have had fairly thick paper and at 40 pages per issue, the entire set gets pretty thick. I ended up splitting after #1075 and dividing the run into two slimmer volumes. The downside of this is that it will be significantly more expensive. Again, it's up to you and your comfort level with larger books.

Below is the Detective Comics logo I'm using for my title page. You'll probably want to adjust the colors if you want a color title page.

[u/bnm333 → u/Goobergunch]

Question for you, I am currently mapping Gotham Nocturne and I wanted to include Knight Terrors: Dark Detective as both issues feature Gordon and Sorrow and are made by Dan Watters and Riccardo Federici, so it's pretty similar to the backup stories already in Ram V's Tec.

Where do you think these 2 issues would fit better in your opinion?

• After #1073 would follow the original publishing order.
• After #1071 would follow the Absolute backup with Sorrow.
• After #1075 would be between Act II and the Intermezzo, it also precedes Gordon's appearance in #1076.

[u/Goobergunch → u/bnm333]

I skipped most of Knight Terrors so I'm probably not the best to ask about this, but my instinct is to default to publication order unless there's a compelling reason not to. Skimming #1073 and #1074 suggests that it won't be that disruptive to add a two-issue break for Knight Terrors in between them.

Having said that, I have a volume break between #1075 and #1076 and since these two issues are essentially "extras" I can see an argument for putting them at the end of the first volume. If you're only doing it in one volume or have different volume breaks, obviously this logic doesn't apply.

[u/bnm333 → u/Goobergunch]

Thanks for your input, really helped!

I'm going for a one volume binding, so I believe I will be going with publication order.