Flatten your staple-bound books with this tutorial
When we received the copies of one of our books from the printers, the books’ spines had an annoying habit of popping up in the middle two pages. In retrospect, we’d probably pushed out luck in making a 72-page book saddle-stitched (a.k.a. staple bound). You can only fold so many pieces of paper and expect it to lie flat. But I’ve seen this same problem plenty of times with homemade comics.
There’s no point in spending all that time inking and lettering just to have your books come out looking unprofessional, so here’s a (relatively) quick and dirty DIY way to build a reusable book press that will flatten the hell out of your comics’ spines.
The guiding principle in this project was to build it as cheaply as possible. In the same spirit, you should feel free to replace materials as you see fit, and as you can find them.
Total cost for the version detailed below: $67.87
I’m sure you can do better if you can shop at a big box store rather than pricier, independently-owned city stores (much as I love local business).