Drawing Boards

I'm not sure if I mentioned very well, but when we got the first batch of Calamity comics in, there was a sizing error. Or at least that's what I thought was the problem. Of the initial ten we ordered (basically proofs before we made a big order), there was shifting in about six of them when they stapled and cut. Which is normal- well... normal for a printing company we can afford.

Essentially, the last six of the ten comics we ordered as proofs were printed very off center. The comic's 24 pages, and of those pages, maybe 10 pages or so were very, very off center. To the point of the panels being against the cut on the side of the page. 

I checked the setup file that the printing company sent me, and it seemed correct. So for the first few days I thought the problem was on my end. I couldn't shrink the image on the page, because I can't resize the tones without starting from scratch (something I learned pretty early by resizing a few toned illustrations that were printed). The only thing I could come up with was to enlarge the size of the actual comic and keep the images the same size. So it's basically a magazine sized comic. And hopefully, that's the end of the CCatTwNN saga.

But, I had to continue to ponder the sizing problem. I thought that I'd scaled the pages too big and that was why the shifting looked so dramatic. I mean, the panels were all but cut off in places. After a few days, I'd pieced together that it wasn't my fault, it was more like the printing company over embellishing their printing capabilities. When I actually pulled out real comics to see how much I'd over sized the images, I found out I hadn't. They were normal sized panels. It was just the first time that I'd ever had anything printed that shifting was a real problem, and that shifting a quarter of an inch was not only a possibility, but inevitable. When I compared to other real books, the panels were just as big, but they were perfect center. All of them. I haven't seem a comic since the 70's that was printed off center a quarter of an inch. 

It's just that we had to go with an affordable printer. Basically, any where we could afford would give us the same problem. Hopefully, just making the thing bigger should solve the problem.

One problem that I had was the pre-printed boards I was using. I used a really bad kind on the first half and switched halfway through. Even though both are the same physical size, the dimensions printed on the page are different. The first crappier boards were something like 10% percent larger with different dimensions than the second better boards I used after that. Also, there's a LOT of redundant and unnecessary information on a lot of pre-printed boards you buy. 

After that printing problem, I tried to determine a universal size. I cross referenced comic companies and printing companies and came up with dimensions that should be applicable anywhere. There's about a 0.1 inch width differential in the most common printed size, but that's negligible. 

I spent a few hours determining exactly only what needed to be on a board and trying to nail a universal size that could be printed anywhere without any fuss. 

I made this. 

It has everything that's needed and nothing that isn't. I print these myself now. Onto only paper I approve of. This should be the last I ever need. 

So much thought went into this design that nothing can ever convince me something about this isn't right. 

/sizing problems. It can only ever be the printer's fault now.

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