Barbelith Underground > Creation > IMP Comics meets Jenny

Printer:
You're gonna have to cast a WIDE net for inexpensive printers...

Most will be found in the mid-west area as eco-laws are much less prohibitive. you'll usually have to do a minimum print run of 500 copies or such. Do an internet search, most printers will hook you up with a sales rep that should be very helpful. You'll probably want to ask for "leftover paper" magazine publishers & the like order paper by the truck-load. after a given print run whatever's left on the roll is usually set asside as many of the larger printers will supply a fresh load of paper with the next print order.

this extra paper is sometime called "overage" and printers may often sell that paper on small print runs inexpensively. they'll usually figure out what size print-run can be run on a give left-over roll and sell the roll in accordance to that sized print job. If you explain to a sales rep what your looking for in this situation you could potentially get some really good paper for much less then usual.

Another factor in this of course is "size." Comics where printed at their current size (more or less) because they where generally printed from paper overage. Along this same kind of logic a Diegest sized comic would reduce your paper costs as well. To offset the size you'd want to consider upping the page count.

Anyway, printer genrally print pages in units of 16 pages (these are sometimes called "signatures") so you'll start of at 32 (16x2) and go up to 48, 64, 80, 96, 112 etc... some page counts will be cheaper than others depending...

Chances are you'll be looking at B/W interior with a 4 color cover. You'll also want to educate yourself on their pre-press process. If you send them a pile of 11x17" pages you'll end up footing the bill for converting them to films or having them Drum scanned which can be pricey. f you supplied artwork at a size of 8.5x11" you can probably have 'em scanned as a much less expensive rate (a kinkos or local image setting shop) and then submit the artwork in a digitial format. Again alot of this will be based on your printer's tech level and for that you're gonna have to make many inquiries. The company I work for uses Democrat Printing, they may not do small print runs though...

So, after you've determed what sort of print-run plus specs you can afford then you can start farming out how you'll hope to distrubute & solicit it...