If you draw things going off the edge of the page, it must go past this point! And for the same reason we have a safe area, trimming being imprecise, we want some extra “Bleed” in the art so it runs off the printed page properly even if the cropping is off by a bit. The final outer line is the “Bleed” marker. Part of why the safe area is needed, is that the mechanical cropping is not always precise, and might vary by a fraction of a cm either way. When the book is trimmed down after printing, this is where it will be cut approximately. The next line out from the “Safe Area” is the crop line. On the single page templates there is a second smaller “Safe Area”, it’s the same thing, just bigger margins, so that if you happen to like larger margins around your page, as I sometimes do, you can use that. In order to make sure it never gets too close to the crop or inner seam of the binding, no lettering or enclosed panels should normally fall outside this space. On my templates, the innermost dotted area marked with an ‘S’ on the thumbs, is the “Safe Area”. The measurements of each template are printed on the bottom of the large templates. That’s 17 : 22! You’ll find that below before all the others! Just print them out with your colour jet printer or at a local copy shop! We’ve used a few in the past, to maximize the results for presenting the results at school and utilizing the tools we have there, we’ll use a 8.5″ x 11″ template from now on. When you’re starting to think about printing it’s time to do some research and make some decisions.įor our course, students work will be collected so it needs to conform to the same aspect ratio to fit properly in the Syn-Thology at the end! Most local printers will cut custom sizes but they may not all be priced the same. Not quite a perfect match for 4 : 5 but i found it was the closest they really have at the moment. For example my 8″ x 10″ Dream Life and Revolver from CreateSpace have to be converted to Crown Quarto, 7.44″ x 9.68″ before i can publish them at Lulu’s. And what’s available if you’re going to print it as well.įor example both Kindle Direct and Lulu offer a variety of aspect ratio formats that overlap, they don’t all translate to the exact same sizes. Factors to consider are how it will feel in the readers hands, how much density you can fit on the page before it becomes too small. This is something we MUST resolve before we start drawing. Trade Paperback graphic novels vary widely, there are a few standard sizes for Manga, Zines too. My book Dream Life is 8″ x 10″, 4 : 5! It’s a Trade. But so would be 4.2″ x 5.8″ at half the size but the same proportions. Use a ruler to check some of the books you own and enter the numbers.Įuropean comics typically come hard bound, and 8.4″ x 11.6″ in (21×30 cm). But the aspect ratio is pretty much always the same! You can use this web based calculator to work out what measurements = what. That converts to an aspect ratio of 663 : 1024! The exact measurements can vary a little bit, as you can see with the blambot guide here I found. Standard American comics typically are printed 6.63″ x 10.24″ (16.84 x 26.01 cm). Noodle Arms to Bigfoot: A Cartoon family.Story Strategy: Adapting from Public Domain.Snakes Ladders & Closure: The Mechanics of Comics Art.I'm not currently taking payments, but you can check out my active WIP blog on Patreon still!