Wondering how to print a comic book, mini comic, or zine? Short-run digital printing (SRDP) is the perfect fit. Once upon a time, artists were limited to either printing 2,000 copies via offset, or producing their comics by photocopying, folding, and stapling. But with short-run printing, they can now print anywhere from 25 to 2,000 copies and receive affordable, professionally produced issues with all of the bells and whistles Bookmobile provides. (See Twenty-One Ways to Embellish Your Print Books for examples.)
Print Ready Files
We’ll need designed and print-ready PDF files from you for printing. This means one PDF file for the cover that includes the back cover, spine (we’ll spec the spine width in your quote), and front cover, with a 1/8″ bleed provided. We can provide you with a cover template too.
We’ll also need a single-paged (no spreads) PDF file of the interior, with a 1/8″ bleed provided only if your interior artworks bleed off the pages. Our file guidelines can be found on our Support page.
How to Print a Comic Book: Where to Start?
The best place to start is to Request a Book Printing Quote. Even if your specs (page count, trim size, quantity, etc.) are an approximation, that’s fine. We’re happy to revise the estimate as needed as you go along.
Book Printing Options for Comic Books, Mini Comics, and Zines
Now the fun part: options! There are many ways to produce your book, and just a few examples of the comic books we’ve produced are below.
The book featured above is nothing better: vol. 3 great expectations part 1, by Tyler Page. The cover is below, and it’s a 6″ x 9″ trim size, black-and-white interior on 50-lb. white stock, 190 pages, perfect bound with a 4-color cover on 10-pt. C1S stock with matte lay-flat lamination.
Next up is a comic book with a small page count and a color interior, Coral and the King by Mai K. Nguyen. The cover and an interior page are below, and it’s a 6-3/4″ x 9″ trim size, 4-color interior on 80-lb. vanilla stock, 40 pages, perfect bound with a 4-color cover on 10-pt. C1S stock with matte lay-flat lamination. We can perfect bind as few as 16 pages at Bookmobile.
A hardcover comic book is also an option! Below is Webb: The Big Race by Mike Cucka, John Salimbene, and Brad Gorby. It’s a 9″ x 12″ trim size, black-and-white interior on 60-lb. white stock, 76 pages, perfect bound and cased in with a 4-color printed case with gloss lamination.
There are many more fun print options to consider, too. Check out this example of a foil stamp on a paperback cover, Men + Monsters, Volume One by Aero Zero.
Here’s a hardcover with a black Pearl Linen cloth case that uses a large-area black foil stamp and printed endsheets, And We’ll Drift Away by Hebru Brantley.
This one is a landscape paperback book with a fold-out insert and a partial dust jacket, Life Out of Lines, which is a collection of work by the artist Jamison Odone and published by the Dr. M. T. Geoffrey Yeh Art Gallery in New York.
Need more inspiration? Browse our Gallery! Questions? Let me know!