Comic Books

Comic Books

Attention Comic Book customers: All orders received on or after July 15, 2010 may be subject to extra charges for preparation. The standard charge for extra labor will be $10 per 15 minutes. Binding preparation includes: removing staples, removing covers, hand collation, re-folding folded pages, etc. You can avoid these charges by doing this work before sending your comic books in to us. Please contact us if you have any questions about this policy.

Comic Books

Houchen Bindery, Ltd. is a certified library binder. Many of the binding methods, techniques, and specifications required in binding for our library customers translate directly to binding comic books. We have the necessary equipment and materials to provide you with excellent custom comic book binding to enhance your personal collection. We have various binding methods that can accommodate your needs, and a wide range of options for covers, including graphic and cloth choices. Take a look around this page for more information on what we can offer. Click here to download our comic book price list.

To get started, please send your orders to our main office at the address below. Please fill out and include a binding slip with each volume to be bound.

Houchen Bindery Ltd.

Attn: Comic Books

340 First Street

Utica, NE 68456

Ultrabinding:

Ultrabinding is a state-of-the-art double fan adhesive binding (DFAB) method. Ultrabinding meets LBI standards, is archivally sound, and stands up over time. Books bound by this method are flexible, openable, and durable. This method uses a polyvinyl acetate adhesive that is non-acidic. DFAB is the method of choice in the ANSI/NISO/Library Binding Institute Standard.

Oversewing:

Oversewing is an extremely durable, old-fashioned method of page attachment. This method is still popular and is preferable for certain paper stocks. Oversewing takes up more of the inner margin than Ultrabinding and Smythe sewing.

Smythe Sewing:

In Smythe sewing, threads are sewn through the folds of individual issues to attach them all together. This method has no impact on the inner margin of the individual issues, and lays flat when opened. Please note that Smythe sewing can only be done if every individual issue is folded. If any of the issues are "flat back," another method will need to be used.

Graphic Covers:
We have worked to continually improve our printing and laminating capacity to provide our customers with excellent graphic cover quality, and we can print color impressions large enough to cover the front cover, spine, and back cover. If you design a graphic cover, you can send it in pdf format, either on a CD or flash drive, or by ftp upload.

Cloth Covers:
We have 15 colors of buckram cloth available standard for you to choose from. Other cloth materials are available upon request. We have System 2 and System 3 stamping capabilities, and can work with most dies. If you have bindings in your collection you would like us to match, please send a sample in with your order.

Return Shipping:

UPS is the default carrier for Houchen Bindery LTD. But no matter the carrier (UPS, USPS, FedEx, SpeeDee), we are very concerned about security, and that every order should arrive in good condition. Shipping materials always involves some risk, and the owners of the materials must assume that risk.

UPS protects every shipment against loss or damage up to $100. However, many materials sent for binding are worth considerably more than that. Like our customers, we do not wish to pay extra for transportation and handling, so we do not increase the coverage over the $100 UPS limit per box coverage due to cost. Upon request, we can increase this insurance amount for your order, and add the additional expense to your invoice.

For more information, please contact Martin Pugh at mpugh@houchenbindery.com, or Tom Salistean at tsalistean@houchenbindery.com; or call toll free 1-800-869-0420.