zines - setting up files for printing at home
In exciting news I have found some people that are wanting to set up doujinshi events in the DFW area, which I am 100% in support of!!
This is a follow up post to my diy zine stapling post, for those who want a more in depth tutorial on printing a saddlestitch zine at home.
You can also view more resources from my friends and mentors, Love Love Hill: tutorials on tumblr. Old but still good.
Why self-print?
- No restriction on print-minimums
- No pressure to put a large financial investment in a print
- It’s fun!
First: Draw the comic/zine/whatever
I won’t go over what you should draw, because you can make a zine about anything.
Some zines I have made because I can:
- My OC Zine - Compilation of illustration and text about my ocs. I go over various fandom AU/tropes and what I think my OCs would be like. (48pgs?)
- OC x Sims Comic - Short comic of my OCs in the Sims 3 world. (16pgs)
- Quarter size zines from this post
Some technical things to keep in mind:
- I thumbnail/sketch my comics on 2-page spread on a letter-size sheet of paper. (Final zine is folded in half and stapled, so roughly 8.5x5.5). This allows you to see the overall flow of a comic.
- Each sheet has 4 pages (2 on each side).
Just for fun you should include a freetalk/author’s note page :)
Here's how my Indesign file ended up looking like for my Sims comic... which I'm using as the example project, lol sorry if I forgot to mention that (I also use Clip Studio which has actual manga/comic tools).
Pre-Press: Formatting comic pages
I print my zines in b&w, so I format all of my files as bitmapped images at 600dpi. This allows me to have a crisp, clean print as bitmapped images use pure black or white pixels.
This article explains bitmapping pretty well. Dirchansky also has a detailed post about bitmapping in krita.
After that, you need to arrange your files for booklet printing.
Arranging files for booklet printing
For this tutorial we are going 100% diy mode (also with analog modeling). There are multiple ways to do this via InDesign and Affinity PageLayout (I have not tried this).
Interior pages need to be divisible by 4. So if your comic is only 22 pages you need to somehow add 2 more pages for print. (Freetalk!!!)
Since we are stapling a stack of paper together and folding it in half, we'll need to arrange the interior pages in a pattern for booklet printing.
The easiest way I have found to figure out this layout is to just make a physical dummy. Example: my Sims 3 Zine is a 16 page interior, which means I know I need to use 4 letter sheet papers to print it.
After that I’ll arrange my pages to print on letter paper. I did this one on Photoshop but you can use whatever image program you prefer.
^ In case it's not clear, sheet 1 will print pages 16 & 1 with 2 & 15 on the other side (flipped on the short edge). Sheet 2 will print pages 14 & 3 with 4 & 13 on the other side. So on and so forth.
By the way, there is usually a setting that you can look into called "Booklet Printing".
Printing
You may need to alter this depending on your own printer settings. I use a Brother B&W Laser Printer at home that is able to do duplex printing. I personally prefer using a laser printer for interior pages as the black is MUCH crisper than an inkjet printer.
Settings:
- Flip on Short Edge
- Scale: 100% (I don’t print full bleed so this will cut off some of the art, but I don’t draw anything outside the safe zone anyways).
Paper:
- I recommend using 28lb or 32lb paper as thinner papers can be more see-through.
If you don’t have a printer at home I recommend the library (probably need to print sfw only?) or a copy & print shop. My first run of the Sims 3 comic was something where I printed a master copy at home and then used a xerox copy machine.
Assembly
You can follow my recap here on assembling the zines and I also have an IG reel here.
Love Love Hill also has some stapler tips here if you don’t have the booklet one that I have.
Additional Love Love Hill tutorials. These use older programs but are still gooders!
- Preparing comic for print (process talk)
- [Tutorial] Compiling a print-ready file using InDesign (Part 1)
- [Tutorial] Compiling a print-ready file using InDesign (Part 2)
- [Tutorial] Compiling a print-ready file using InDesign CS3+ (Part 2)
- [process] Inks to print ready page
Hope that helps! Please feel free to email me (hello@fiddery.com) or dm/ping me if you have any specific questions.
Let's make doujin events happen in tx!!