Quote Originally Posted by cgh View Post
Can you post more info about their prices? I don't want die stamps, just the standard spine printed and head and tail bands. I am also Canadian and I was getting my binding done at Houchen (who are great, I cannot say enough good things) but the damned Customs fees were murder.

I'll post up some of the stuff I've had done but in general, I get trades bound as DFAB and comics as Smythe sewn, unless they are old comics in which case I cut them up and use DFAB. I find older newsprint is a bit fragile for Smythe.

I've made some bad mistakes with binding. For example, the first thing I ever had bound was the Bendis/Maleev Daredevil run, which I owned in trades. I dropped them at a local bindery that had never done comics before and assumed they would remove the covers. But they didn't: they bound the trades covers and all, making for a less than optimal reading experience. That was a big lesson - you need to prep everything and make no assumptions.
They charge $27 per book unless you get 10 or more done in a batch, then it's $25. Included in the price is head and tail bands, a ribbon marker, ten lines of type on the spine (beyond that it's $1 per line) and two free stamps on the spine. Also, there is no upcharge for smythe sewing. If your comic can be sewn thats what they'll do. Otherwise it's DFAB. If you get a book with all of those features it is more than half the cost of getting bound at Houchen.

They told me die stamps cost $40-100 bucks to get made. Other downsides are the limited cover stock (23 colors for buckram but only four for imitation leather), three fonts and only white, gold and black stamping.