Small Run Printing for Explicit Comics, a review of Ready Comics!
I know that the future of smutty publishing is real sketch in America right now, so I just wanted to put down info in case it's helpful for anyone at the moment or is perhaps relevant in the future.
At the end of last year, 2024, I was ready to self-publish a small run of my Critical Role wizard comic anthology, Who Else But You. There are many options for self-publishing comics, but the issue is that the middle one is entirely explicit, so I needed someone more specialized. I was running sales as a pre-order so I went into the purchase process without knowing how many copies I was actually going to need.
Thus my requirements were 18+ content, small run. And I found 2 printers in America who fit that requirement: Greko Printing, now known as Comix Wellspring and Ready Comics
Comix Wellspring: The slightly cheaper option, has a 25 volume moq, will not take custom sized books, but they have a lot (but not all) of available sizes. Their faq states that they will take adult material.
Ready Comics: Their moq is 10, they do custom sizes, they are slightly more expensive per book, but they also have a lot of fancy cover options. I had to message them, but they are fine with explicit material.
For a price comparison, I put in numbers for 8.5 x 11, 100 interior pages, all color, 100# for cover, 60# for interior, and that came out to be 11.44 for Greko, and 13.50 for Ready Comics. Printed proofs are $40 for greko, and $35 for Ready Comics but will vary based on book size.
In the end, I went with Ready Comics because WEBY was a weird size and I didn't want to do the extra work to make all the pages compliant with a new size, and I honestly was not sure I would hit the necessary 25 moq.
I've only done true POD printing before, upload a file get a book. Ready Comics was a much more hands on process.
I started asking for samples of their papers. There is a reserved page for ordering free samples, but it doesn't have anything on it. I had to tell them "what I was interested in" rather than there being an already put together package, which was weird. So I guessed at some things I might like. Their cover stock drop down was extensive. When I made my guesses, the ordering person told me that not all of the options were good for cover stock and recommended to me the best ones. (so why are those options all listed???) This sample pack was put together and shipped quickly.
I was getting a custom size, so I could not simply add something to the cart, I had to have it input special. This took MULTIPLE days. It was a little frustrating how long it took to make an invoice. I guess in reality it was probably 3 or 4, but I was IMPATIENT to start. However, I was allowed to only order a proof and not have a number for the final run beyond 10, their minimum, which was extremely helpful.
Once the invoice is placed, files can be uploaded. Weirdly, the files are put in as JPG, individual pages. You then deal with the layout person Alex. Alex was a delight. They were excited for some gay D&D content and were hugely helpful and patient. I was hoping to do a full wrap around cover of a solid piece of art, but because of the file set up process it can be difficult to make the wrap around completely line up so I ended up doing a solid spine. (I also think their spine calculator is a little off, overestimating the width).
I was absolutely getting a proof because I wanted these to be beautiful. It shipped a few days after the initial estimate. The colors were VIBRANT. I was flabbergasted. I did not expect it would print that well. (below, just look at them!)
HOWEVER, there were some issues. There was persistent banding throughout (top two images), and there was a weird line on the screen-toned pages at exactly the same place (bottom two images). It wasn't on EVERY screen-toned page, but it was present on many of them.
I contacted Alex who apologized and rushed a second proof.
The second proof arrived in about a week. It was also free. So this was some top tier service far as I was concerned. The banding disappeared, but the screen-tone line never fully vanished (top book is 1st proof, bottom book is second). Alex had the printers do testing on their end to see if they could get rid of it, and it was persistent. It was not a huge enough issue that I felt like I wanted to abandon the toning or this printer, but if I knew I were going to print toned stuff I would try a different printer just in case. Alex was prepared to do more testing but I also didn't want to run much further with the production timeline so we moved on. I will reiterate that all this work was done for a run of books that was, on paper, still listed at their minimum 10. So their customer service in this regard is amazing.
Also In the second proof, the colors on the cover were identical, it was lovely. HOWEVER, the colors on the inside were noticeably different. (top book is 1st proof, bottom book is 2nd).
I asked about it and was told that they were transitioning to a new kind of printer that made things more high quality but less vibrant. And the second proof and full run were . . . good! Like these bottom images are still legitimately lovely. I just kind of wish I hadn't seen the color possibilities in the first proof because I loved them SO MUCH.
Final run: The run printed and shipped on time. I was invoiced for the full run more quickly than the initial run. The packaging was stellar. small wrapped batches of books inside boxes with styrafoam peanuts, inside a bigger box with more peanuts. The outer covers protected with a thick piece of paper so you can safely cut through the plastic. One book of the 30 had a small scratch on the cover when it arrived. And there's quite a few books that have a little wrinkle on the first page in the corner near the spine. Overall, the customer service here was top-notch, and I am pleased with my final book product.
Final thoughts: I looked further into pricing, and if you are getting a long book, the price differential between CW and RC gets LARGE. The customer service was good, even for a run that was on paper going to be 10 books. The product at the end was good, as long as you don't do screen tones. If you have a small to mid-sized book, say up to 150 pages or so, and need only 10 copies instead of 25, or have a weird size RC is am excellent option. I haven't tried CW printing at all, but I will be aiming for it when I have something longer to print, and as such will be making sure it fits one of their sizes out of the gate. (If you are looking for a larger run, that puts Keness into the run as well.)
Here's to hoping these will both still be options in the future. If you have any good or bad things to share about either company, let me know!
