How to Embellish a Mini-Comic

Perhaps the thought of a black-and-white quarter-page-sized mini-comic does not inspire your creative soul to somersault. Maybe you're heading to a Con and would like your mini-comic to stand out from the others. Reminders about quality content being the most important feature aside, there are ways to entice someone to pick up your mini-comic and even pay the nominal fee you may be charging.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Flexibility
• Color copier
• Markers, colored pencils, or paints
• Colored paper
• Label stock
• Colored or patterned paper
• Shape cutter
• Thread or ribbon
• Large-eye needle
• Paper fasteners
• Bone folder

Size Matters

1. Looking at the usual in an unusual way can have a dramatic effect. Mini-comics--by definition--may be small but all smalls are not equal. Using the standard quarter-page mini-comic, change the orientation of your pages so that the spine is on the top and your pages flip up. By the same token, reversing the order of your folds will give you a wider-than-tall page with the staple on the short side or a tall-and-skinny flip-up book.
2. Small, but powerful, that extra fold gives you twice the page turns. Make your mini-comic super-small by eking out another fold to create a 16-page book with a page size of 2 3/4 inches by 4 1/4 inches.
3. Whether tall and stacked or long, this size is great for sticking out of shirt pockets. Making both of your folds parallel to each other will yield a long and skinny (8 1/2 inches by 2 3/4 inches) book perfect for standard four-panel strips done either horizontally or vertically.
4. Same fold as the original but a slightly larger starting size gives you more real estate to work with. Try starting with a legal-sized sheet of paper (8 1/2 inches by 14 inches) and have a finished size of 4 1/4 inches by 7 inches instead.
5. Finally, a single-fold of a 8 1/2-by-11 sheet will yield a digest-sized book that is technically larger than a mini-comic but I doubt anyone will take issue with your choice of size.

Color Your World

6. Full color is pretty, but can be very expensive per sheet. Black and white is the standard issue for mini-comics mostly because it is easily accessible and just plain cheap. If you can afford to color-copy your comic you'll end up with a significant advantage over your competition, but you may not make as much profit.
7. By using a single color for items and shadows you can draw attention to specific parts of each page. If a full-color mini-comic is out of the question, spot color either on the cover or throughout the book may be a better option. Picking a single element to have highlight throughout the mini-comic is a way to enforce a sense of continuity. This tends to work best with small production runs because of the time involved in hand coloring each book.
8. Doing your logo in color on sticker paper or copying a single panel on colored cardstock will catch the eye. Colored labels or even a piece of colored paper printed with black ink placed over a portion of the cover is another inexpensive and time-conscious option.

Finishing Options

9. That window makes people curious to see what's inside the rest of the mini-comic. A decorative paper wrap, either printed or with a window cut out to show a portion of your first page, is another option to make your mini-comic stand out. Add this before you staple your pages together and trim all the edges together.
10. Stitched or tied bindings can be pretty or rugged, depending on the material used. Skip the staples and stitch the mini-comic spine with thread or decorative ribbon.
11. Raid the office supply aisle of the store for different ways to bind your mini-comic. Paper fasteners (also known as brads) come in a number of colors and shapes and can add a nice touch in place of staples for thinner books.
12. Just a needle and thread are needed for this creative binding. Thicker volumes of stacked signatures or a stack of single sheets look great when stab-bound. Make sure you leave extra space in the gutter between the pages since this technique uses more space of the spine.
13. The torn look works very well on heavy or handmade papers but still works for copy paper. Instead of opening up folds with a straight-edge and a craft knife, give your pages an artsy, decorative edge by using your bone folder to carefully slit the folds from the inside. This tends to work better on heavier papers, but the irregular edges are still eye-catching on copy paper books.