My friend Lucas introduced me to the concept of binding ones comic collection. He has become an amateur pro at it and has been commissioned to do numerous projects for the readers out there. The following pictures are of my very first books to be professionally bound.
The three books I had bound are actually a collection of a few runs of comic books as listed below:
- Volume 1: Who's Who in the DC Universe: Vol. 1, 1-13.
- Volume 2: Who's Who in the DC Universe: Vol. 1, 2:26.
- Volume 3: Who's Who in the DC Universe: '87 Update 1-5;
- Who's Who in the DC Universe: '88 Update 1-4;
- Loose Pages From DC Comic '89 Annuals
- Who's Who in the Legion of Super Heroes 1-7
This spread is actually the wrap-around cover of a Who's Who issue that was left whole, flipped, and re-folded as to make single splash page.
I chose to do the Who's Who books because of many reasons. One of my very first comics was a Who's Who. I think I insisted on it because there were a lot of characters in the book. And probably because I was a neurotic child more comfortable with a dictionary and encyclopedia than a Choose-Your-Own Adventure. That very first issue is collected in this book. Also, due to many reasons, Who's Who will more than likely never be collected as a series of books. Attempts have been made to do so, but various royalty agreements makes it difficult to complete.
So why bind comics? There is no real need to do this. Despite what people think, there are two types of people who get consumed in the realm of comics...well really more than two...but two for the sake of generalities. One type is the collector. The collector is a person who gets a book to never read it, the comic is an investment. If you do read the issue, you wear a glove and masks, and take care never to leave a crease. The other type of person is the reader. Their comics are dog-eared and worn. They may be in a box, but that box is beat up. That person has many copies of the same title because they have worn through their favorite issue so many times. They love comics for the story. They don't care about value. Readers get their stories bound. They want to have everything saved so they can read it over and over again.
WOW. Absolutely beautiful. What I would give to look at those. (I can bring weed)
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