A word on lead times

Hello hello! (Hello.) It’s all gone a bit Lionel Richie…

So, how long will your comics take to print? Good question. Here’s something of an answer. It’s generalised, of course, so don’t take it as gospel. There are some caveats that follow it, naturally.

I want a short run, please.

As a general rule, you want to allow 4-5 working days for this to be printed, finished, and delivered (so not weekends or bank holidays). You probably also want to allow a day or two for us to do any bits and pieces to make sure the artwork is print ready. The digital press, which handles the short runs, is the most flexible in terms of time, so do ask the question if you’re not sure you’ve got time. Sometimes we can squeeze something in!

I want a long run, please.

How long? Longer than, say, 300? You’re probably going to be printing litho, then, which takes longer. Allow 5-7 working days for the printing and delivery, plus the one or two for artwork fixups.

What about the caveats?

Ooh, yeah. Those.

• We get busy sometimes. The run up to Lakes, then MCM, then Thought Bubble, for instance. That’s a busy couple of months… You probably want to work to 5-7 working days for digital and 7-10 working days for litho around this time of year, and also in April/May.
• If you’re a first timer it’s probably worth adding another day to the fix ups. Not that we’re saying that you’ll need more work done to make your artwork print ready but… that’s exactly what we’re saying, actually.
• Proofs. If you want a physical proof of a digital job we can do that for you. They cost £20, but you can have one if you like (the charge covers some of our costs of production, postage etc). Bear in mind that’ll add 3-4 days to your timeline though!

All sounds very fair. Are we done?

Yup, we’re done. That was quicker than usual, wasn’t it?

Til next time.