Custom Binding165
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 COLLECTOR
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| So when it comes to reading, I prefer my comics in a nice hardcover whenever possible. The big 2 have done a pretty good job of collecting their stories both in hardcover or trades for those of us that want them. Unfortunately, we as readers may feel some of these collections are flawed, incomplete, or worse yet, never actually produced. That was kind of my entry into this particular corner of the hobby. I was building up my Punisher collection and bought up the 3 oversized hardcovers that collected Garth Ennis' Marvel Knights run. The books are great but the problem was that there were 2 additional trades released not to mention the fact that they only collected Ennis' material and left out the (admitedly lesser) work of a small number of other teams that contributed to the series. The OCD in me had to find some kind of solution! Now the first books I made weren't for myself but were Christmas presents for some cousins. One was in the Navy and visiting us while stationed in Japan and the other is a fan of Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. I thought that it'd be neat to make each of them a book tailored to there interests. Now, Wolverine is my cousin's favorite character who also happens to have a strong connection to Japan, where my cousin is stationed, so I thought his book should collect Wolverine stories focused on Japan. I settled on The Claremont/Miller mini-series, the Marvel Knights Logan mini-series, Jason Aaron's Back in Japan storyline, the 5 Ronin mini-series, and the first volume of the Wolverine MAX series. The latter two stories had the added benefit in depicting a similar version of Wolverine in feudal Japan, thus creating a sort of continuity.       While putting the Wolverine book together, I loved the idea of creating an internal continuity within the book that wasn't intended by the original creators. For the Kingpin book, I started with rhe Kingpin mini-series that focused on Fisk in his yourh. I followed it up with the Punisher MAX Kingpin storyline which sees Fisk con the established mob bosses and set himself up as the Kingpin of New York. After that I included his original appearances from Amazing Spider-Man where the then unknown to the world at large, encounters spider-man for the first time (represented here with later reprints of the original issues), then the Severance Package one-shot, and finally ending with Born Again, which ends with the Kingpin's imminent ruin at the hands of Daredevil.     I've made several more books and have several more just waiting to be submitted and I'll surely post about them a little later but I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this corner of the hobby. It does require basically destroying the existing books so I'm sure many might faint at the very thought. I'd love to see your own books if you've already taken the leap or just discuss storylines, runs, etc that haven't been collected or haven't been collected to your satisfaction and how you would arrange your own collections! |
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Iago19 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @dielinfinite Very cool. Both look gorgeous. | ||
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Louis_Vauquelin private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Very nice ! | ||
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KenWorthing private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Love those! I have also Bound some books (well .. a lot), here's a slideshow .. clickable text |
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Iago19 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @KenWorthing Cool collection of Bound Books. Thanks for sharing. | ||
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Iago19 @Louis_Vauquelin Thanks guys! @KenWorthing Holy cow! Those are nice! How many of those are using custom die stamps? The cost of getting those made hasn't discouraged me from getting more books done but it certainly makes me space them out a bit or consider alternate designs. |
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KenWorthing private msg quote post Address this user | |
Thankyou, @lago19 and @dielinfinite. All the Cap, Avengers, Silver Surfer and Guardians of the Galaxy books (and probably some I've forgotten) use custom dies that I did myself and had made-up by the bindery I use here in the U.K. Thanks for looking, guys  |
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Owen_Lorder private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @dielinfinite Awesome books Ive been search-following custom bound books on eBay for awhile now. Some pretty nice ones on offer there every once in a while. Also, if anyone is interested in making their own I highly recommend Houchen @ http://houchenbindery.com/order/#comic Their charges are reasonable and they make a good book. Its funny, I always thought that custom bound books were the slabs of yesterday |
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @Owen_Lorder I second your recommendation of Houchen. They've done all my books and wouldn't think of going elsewhere. Tim has put up with a ton of my batshit ideas and is happy to go back and forth with design ideas, even if its not something listed on their web page. Sure they can't do EVERYTHING you might want but that's usually stuff that's prohibitively expensive to set up for a one-off anyways. I was kind of thinking about how custom bound books relate to slabs earlier today. I wouldn't call them the slabs of yesterday but almost like the exact opposite of a slab. When you slab a book you make it unreadable to preserve it's condition. When you bind a book, you basically destroy it's collectibility in order to increase it's readability, typically by collecting it with other books. |
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Owen_Lorder private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite Agreed with all above. But... When you think about it, before comic books became such established collectibles (and assigned grades for that matter), the true collector was the one who chose to preserve his/her prized possessions, regardless of preserving regulations. Thats one of the things that a slab does to a book today. the other is giving it a grade. |
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The_Watcher private msg quote post Address this user | |
| In the early days of comic collecting, many collectors chose to preserve their runs by putting them in bound volumes. If you do a search on the Heritage archives, you'll see bound volumes of early Action, Adventure, Batman, etc. They're pretty sought after by current collectors | ||
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| well there you go, I learned something new today | ||
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The_Watcher private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @dielinfinite Btw, your bound volumes are fantastic | ||
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Thanks! I was really proud of those and they pretty much insured that I would be making many more in the future! When it came time to make my first batch of books for myself the themes were a bit varied but each book was a bit more conscise and the range of content was a bit narrower. I was really diving into Marvel Knights and MAX books at rhe time so that's where they drew most of their content. The first book was focused on Black Widow and included the 2 3-part Marvel Knights series, the 3 part Pale Little Spider MAX series, the 6-part Homecoming series, and the 6-part The Things they Say About Her storyline. The second book was a collection of Garth Ennis' Nick Fury stories and it collects The 6-part Fury: Peacemaker, the 13-part My War Gone By, and the 6-part Fury MAX. The third and largest book collects all of Marvel's The End books, except She-Hulk since, despite having the The End banner, didn't really share the theme of the reat of the books and just served as the last book in her current series, which was already scheduled to continue. So this one collected the Iron-Man, Hulk, Punisher, and Spider-Girl one-shots, the Fantastic Four, Marvel Universe, and Wolverine 6-part series, and the 3 6-part X-Men Series. This photo was taken with the incorrect matte dust jackets but rhe bindery replaced them with the correct glossy ones to better match officially released books.  |
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| w00t! You It's not every day you get a new shipment of custom books but this is one of rhose days! This time I got the Marvel Knights run of Elektra bound. Book 1 has issues 1-8 plus the story from Marvel Knights Double Shot 3. Book 2 has issues 10-22 Book 3 has 23-35 plus Elektra Glimpse & Echo 1-4 The title misalignment on the spine of book 2 was my fault >__<    |
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Marc_1 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Extremely cool. i would like a bound copy of classic Marvel and DC books. I always look at them at auction and never bid. I need to change that. | ||
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| What're some of the books you'd like to collect? How much is available in trades or reprints? | ||
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Marc_1 private msg quote post Address this user | |
| There's lots of Trades and reprints of old Marvel and DC but the feel of real comics in a book is what seems really cool. I'd like Early Iron man and Early Flash. |
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Ah! Yeah I try to go for trade material as much as I can since it cuts out ads and such but if you're looking to have whole comics, ads, covers and all, then they're even easier for you to prepare. Basically just removing the staples. Just gotta gather all the books and send them in basically. I'd love to see them if you ever decide to pull the trigger on getting them made. If you have any questions about the process, I'd be happy to help out. |
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Marc_1 private msg quote post Address this user | |
Quote:Originally Posted by dielinfinite Thank you for the offer and I'll let you know. I may buy a reader set of Iron Man 1-15 and get a bound copy made one day. It's probably easier just to buy one already made but you never know. Yours look great. |
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| lol yeah it probably would be. Still I enjoy the design process, from making the dust jackets, in this case trying to match the Marvel Knights era Daredevil and Punisher hardcovers, plus the back and forth with the bindery on making more specialized books. My best friend and I turn 30 next year so I've been making these books for her to sort of commemeorate the last year of our 20s. Very different design from the ones I'm making for myself and I had to go back and forth quite a bit to settle on something that the bindery could do while remaining cost effective.      |
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dielinfinite private msg quote post Address this user | |
| So I never posted pictures of my Punisher books which are the whole reason I got into binding in the first place. I think I'd mentioned how most of Garth Ennis' Marvel Knights run was bound in hardcover but the last 2 trades never were. And while I love Garth Ennis's work, I thought it was kind of shitty that the other Marvel Knights Punisher works hadn't received the same treatment (yes, including the much maligned "Angelic Punisher" books, which I didn't hate nor did I feel were particularly appropriate for the Punisher. Could've made an interesting Hellblazer comic, though) Here are my custom Punisher books on the bottom row with the official hardcovers on top:     |
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