Don’t trust contact forms?
Neither do we… Give us a call, or drop us an email:
07538 041 304 (9 to 5 only, please – we have to leave the office sometimes! Sorry it’s a mobile number – we’re all pretty mobile…)
Or if you prefer the impersonal touch, use the form below and we’ll be in touch asap.
About Us
We print comic books, guys and gals. That’s literally all we do. You don’t need any more information than that.*
Graphic novels, one shot comic books, manga, ongoing series, anthologies, sketchbooks, softcover, hardcover, card-but-not-actually-a-hardback-cover, colour, black and white, some-colour-some-monotone; if it falls within the scope of “comic book printing” we’ll do that for you. If you’re not sure then send it to us anyway – worst we can do is point you in another direction, right?
If that’s not enough information for you, try this on for size:
- For digital runs (up to about 300, depending on the spec) we print on an HP Indigo digital press. The thing that makes that a bit special is that it uses fancy inks, not the regular oil-based digital ones. The result is that we get a nice flat output on the inks rather than the shiny one you might be used to from digital printing. It looks much closer to litho than digital. And hey, speaking of litho…
- For longer runs we use a Komori L 526 sheet fed offset printer. Sounds impressive, right? It should do – that’s a 5 colour SRA3 printer with most all the bells and whistles you could possibly want.
- We’re not just technically impressive. That’s not enough – there are loads of companies that can say that. We’re pretty sure there are loads of companies that do say that (competitor research isn’t our thing…) Far more importantly, we *love* comic books. The boss has a particular yen for the noir stylings of Loeb and Sale (have you read The Long Halloween and Dark Victory? Seriously… Tell us they’re no good); a bit of Gaiman never goes amiss; and it is office policy that anyone who doesn’t love Preacher is not to be admitted. We’re not going to go into the list of small press comics we love here (there’s a list on the front page if you fancy some recommendations), but the thing we like most about coming into work each day is working with a dazzling range of creators – some of whom are embarrassingly talented and really should be working for one of the big companies.
- Comic printing isn’t like other printing. We get that. Coming from a more commercial printing background into comic book printing we quickly picked up on the fact that a more personal touch is needed, especially with first time comic printers. So we provide templates, we take work in progress files and make them print ready, we keep you updated every step of the way and always ask you which way you’d like to go rather than just making the decision for you. Above all, we’re honest with all our customers. There are some jobs we can’t or won’t do for various reasons; if yours is one of them we’ll tell you up front, let you know why, and point you in another direction. Sometimes – not often, mind you – things go wrong (because we’re all human); we feel sick when it happens, but more importantly we get it fixed. Sympathetic words are nothing compared to actual solutions, and we’re never going to walk away from a problem.
- That’s probably enough bullet points for now. How come you’re still reading? Go get a quote instead!
Got questions we didn’t answer here? Almost certainly. Drop us an email and we’ll get back to you.
*Actually, that’s a total fib. We also print business cards, t-shirts, flyers, other kinds of books, leaflets, and a bunch of other stuff. But you came here for comic books, and it was a good opening line. So… that’s where we are, I guess…
drawn cartoon strips since I was a child never got paid for it, tried asking Metro the free paper asking would they require free comic strips, if only t get noticed, no reply, I have few pieces of work printed but unpaid And its cost me a lot of money and effort in the past, although I have learned from that experience, showing work to non-potential viewers. Set up a website but difficulty scanning drawings onto it. I am good, however, nobody sees my work. There is a market but I’m not in the network.
Kind regards
Paul Leigh
Hi Paul,
Sorry to hear that you’ve had a bit of a struggle getting noticed. If it’s any consolation this is pretty common – there are a lot of artists out there hungry for exposure, and it’s always not a meritocracy unfortunately!
A website is obviously the place to start, as you say. A lot of creators use WordPress (we use it for our site as well) with a plugin called Inkblot for their comics. There are lots of other options that are also good, so it’s worth doing some research until you find one that suits you.
It might be worth attending comic conventions as a visitor to do some research on what other independent creators do to get noticed. Once you’ve been to a couple of those you’ll have a good idea of which is most suitable for you to attend as a retailer and start selling your own stuff.
Don’t give up, there are plenty of people in this situation, and you’re only beaten when you quit!
Cheers
Rich