by Matthew Russell - Posted 1 year ago
Welcome my CryptoComics Compatriots. Lately, in the comic world, there have been a lot of grumbling about various things such as paper shortages and rising production costs. Shipping costs have skyrocketed exponentially.
Many are looking for answers while others are just trying to make a living. Today, we will be exploring both the reasons for the rise in costs and explain how digital is the solution.
Every one of us here at CryptoComics loves to hold a comic in our hands. We love to meet creators and get our comics signed. We love the smell of a freshly printed comic. That being said, in our current market, not every creator can afford the rising cost of printing their books. They have to turn to new avenues in order to get their comics out there.
Oh, 2020, how we DON’T miss you. According to the Chinese Zodiac, this should have been known as “The Year of the Dung Heap”. It was as if the year itself was a movie written by Stephen King and directed by Quentin Tarantino.
We are still feeling the effects of that tumultuous year, even today. With the Covid-19 Pandemic sending many workers home, this led to EVERYTHING!!!
More people at home led to more people reading, ordering things, and hoarding paper products (you know what we mean). Not everyone simply watched Netflix and Chilled. This led to a major surge in the amount of paper being used in everything.
With everyone using every ounce of available paper, who was out there making more. Everyone from lumberjacks to the janitors at the paper mills was at home reading their favorite comics. With no one able to make paper, and everyone using paper; stockpiles dwindle away.
While working as a graphic designer for a printing company in Idaho, I have seen a simple 1-day printing job take over 2 weeks while waiting on a certain paper stock to arrive. This unfortunately has become the new normal.
The pandemic has led to lumber shortages as well. With all the shortages, prices skyrocket. Combine that with rising inflation costs, and the cost to get your comics printed goes up as well as building costs.
This shouldn’t surprise anyone, but shipping cost has both gone up in cost and is now taking longer than ever. Also no surprise, this is also a direct result of none other than the world’s archenemy; Covid-19 again.
TIME has reported, “Transporting a 40-foot steel container of cargo by sea from Shanghai to Rotterdam now costs a record $10,522, a whopping 547% higher than the seasonal average over the last five years.”
Yep, you heard that right…547%!!!!
Once the world started to trickle back open after the global lockdown, there was a shipping container shortage. Most were still locked up in various ports full of goods meaning that there were no containers to ship new orders.
There was even an accident in the Suez Canal where a ship by the name of “Ever Given” got stuck for a week. This meant that prices went up even more. I bet someone got fired for that one.
We have seen firsthand the rise in time and cost of shipping. Many overseas swag packs that we have sent out to Europe have taken an extraordinary amount of time.
Printing and shipping are the largest expense for any creator outside of marketing. This is often greater than the production cost of the comic.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: COPIES
Typically larger comic companies are printing hundreds of thousands of issues at a time. This helps keep the cost down as they are given a discount for the number of copies printed at a time.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: PAPERWEIGHT
Comics are generally printed on either 80 or 100 lbs paperweight. Often, the higher the paperweight, the more it will cost. Copy paper that you typically find in your home printer is about 20 lbs. The bristol board that you are drawing the comic on is closer to the 200 lbs mark.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: INK
Another cost major cost is the ink. You must go with CMYK if your comic is to have color. If you are drawing digitally, check your settings. It might have been in RGB. I wrote an article on this a few years ago and not much has really changed since 1928 when John Logie Baird first broadcast to the world. You can read the full article here. Size, dimension, colors, and styles. What does it all mean? Part 1
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: COLOR
One way to save money is to convert the entire comic to Greyscale. If you plan on this from the beginning, you might even be able to save money during production by not having a colorist. This can tend to give your comic more of a gritty look. For more examples of this, check out Top 2 from CSC2_Comics.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: PAPER TYPE
Another factor is Satin, Gloss, or Uncoated paper. The gloss has a coating over the paper that allows the paper to be more reflective. Satin is the same thing, but with less of a coating. Uncoated is more of a dull non-reflective paper with no such coating. It all depends on the amount of shine you want for each page.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: SIZE
Typically a good printing company will be able to print the traditional comic sizes with no problems. They will print on large sheet (paper) sizes and print 2 pages on each sheet. More on that later.
The printers will have cut marks within the programs that run the printer that will automatically print onto the sheet. They have a large machine that will cut them down to size.
The typical comic sizes are
US Standard (6.69” x 10.24”)
UK Standard (6.18” x 9.45”)
Manga Standard (5” x 7.25”)
B6 (4.92” x 6.93”)
Anything outside those typical sizes and the prices may go up, depending on the printing company that you use.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: BINDING
When binding a comic, there are a few choices; Saddle Stich, Thermal (or Perfect Binding), and Case Binding.
Saddle Stich is the typical 2 or 3 staple binding. This goes through the exact middle of each page (which plays into the page numbers), this really doesn’t distract from the artwork as long it is done correctly.
Thermal Binding uses glue and is typically used for larger issues such as Trade Paperbacks (TBS), or Graphic Novels. (Sidenote, some creators will also refer to TBS as Graphic Novels. It all depends on what you are used to.)
This method is glued and then heat activated and then trimmed.
Case Binding is generally the most expensive way to go and is only done for hardcover comics and books. Individually bound 50-page packets are bound together and then grouped into the book.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: THE COVER
The cover is most often printed on a higher-quality paper. This means a heavier paperweight with a gloss and colors. (Side note: Having colors on the cover only and greyscale throughout the comic will also save you money as most printing companies consider these 2 separate jobs since they have to switch out all the settings for the printer).
On 1 side of the paper, you will see the front cover and the back cover. On the opposite side of the paper will be printed Page 1 & the last page of the book.
COST OF PRINTING A COMIC: PAGE NUMBER
As I have stated previously, printing on such a large machine, 1 piece of paper will have 4 separate pages on it. They will then be stacked together and then stapled together. This means that (including the cover, ads, and pages) your page number has to be divisible by 4. If not, you will have to make adjustments to make sure that it does. This should have been known to the Editor of the book who would have watched out for this during production.
The general page amount also influences the cost since every 4 pages add a small amount to the overall cost of printing.
The printer itself should be smart enough to know which order to place the pages so that it prints correctly. Handing them a pdf copy of your book should be sufficient enough to get everything laid out correctly.
In today's world, going digital is a GREAT way to circumvent the enormous cost of both printing and shipping. You will only have to pay for production and any marketing that needs to be done anyway.
Page count and paperweight become a thing of the past. Another thing that you don’t have to ever worry about is binding.
There are many places to sell your comic online, CryptoComics Marketplace included. We do not hold anyone to an exclusive contract.
By making your comic available as a digital collectible in the CryptoComics Marketplace, it can be bought and resold, earning you royalties every time. Without the hassle of printing and distributing your comic physically. Making a digital collectible part of your distribution plan can help boost your sales and reduce your costs.
Digital collectibles merge the collectability of print with the accessibility and low costs of digital.
Join the community now to learn more about digital collectibles and more affordable ways to buy and sell comics.
