As we said in the last post, Sundays 3 is actually three small, pocket-sized volumes banded together with a tight band, a loose theme about the times of day, and lots of love.

The inside of the band contains a short strip about a lion, by Chuck Forsman (story) and Melissa Mendes (art).

In the above photo we see Sean Ford collating and cutting copies of his portion of the anthology. Each stack is 56 pages, there will be 120 stacks. These production photos are all taken in the basement lab of  The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont, where the printing and binding of the books took place.

Covers

Here we see Sean screen-printing the covers, at each color stage.

To create a sense of cohesion we decided to use our covers’ paper colors to determine the ink colors. So each book has its own version of the midnight blue, pink and yellow inks.

Above is the progess of my (Joe) covers, starting with yellow on yellow, then pink, then the dark blue.

“Sundays-Binding”

Below I’ll show the process used for binding two of the books. This is a technique I came up with last year for Sundays 2 because the book was too big to be saddle-stitched and the binding style I originally came up with was baloney. Sometimes when I talk about this binding with friends I call it the “Sundays-Binding”, but if anyone has every seen it used before (or better) please let me know (Joe (at) SubmarineSubmarine (dot) com, or comment on this blog).

The process uses staples, glue, and folding.
- First a stack is made with the Back Cover on top, face down. Next is the Cover, face up, on top of the Guts which are also face up and in the order you want them read in. On the bottom of the stack is what I call a Scrap Flap. This is just a piece of the cover stock that should be shorter than the Cover and Guts, but long enough to apply glue to. I think at least 2 – 4 inches is enough.

- Next the stack is stapled. For my Sundays 3 book I used 3/8th inch heavy-duty staples through one of those heavy-duty staplers with the lever-style handle. The staples should easily go through the whole stack: the Back Cover, front Cover, Guts and Scrap Flap. The staples are what hold the book together. With this book I stapled about 1/8th of an inch away from the edge, which was plenty. Be sure to make sure the inside margins of you guts’ pages have enough room for the stapling.

(note in the below photo the top sheet looks blank, but it’s actually the Back Cover face down. The corner is bent upwards a little bit for the photo, you can kind of see the Back Cover art peeking through.)

- The Back Cover is folded back around the staples (see above). If you want you can make a score where the fold will go, but you don’t have to. I usually make the fold right up against the staples, but you can give it a little room, especially if the staples are uneven, or not parallel with the edge. It’s important to make this fold parallel with the spine edge so that the Back Cover matches up with the back of the Guts.

(in the photo below you can see what it looks like when the back cover is folded all the way around the book.)

- Next glue is applied to the Scrap Flap. We used some kind of white, craft glue applied with a brush and we covered most of the Scrap Flap. I tried not to put too much glue though, so that there wouldn’t be any squirting out of the edges and sticking to the Guts. It’s a good idea to put a piece of scrap paper between the Scrap Flap and the Guts just in case there is any excess glue.

You can then put the books in a press or under a stack of books, or simple press the spine with your fingers until the glue sets a bit.

With this type of binding, though, you don’t want to put too much weight or press too much on the spine or the staples will press into the paper that is wrapped around the spine and make little marks, or even tear the paper.

- Finally we trimmed the books. The end.

Email me, or leave a comment if you have any questions, if anything is unclear, or if you have any binding advice.

Sundays 3 is the third volume of the Sundays Anthology. Edited and designed by Alex Kim, Chuck Forsman, Joe Lambert, & Sean Ford.

Sundays 3 is three pocket-sized mini-comic anthologies.

Sundays 3 was printed and hand-bound at The Center for Cartoon Studies.

Check out a video preview of the book on Joe’s Flickr page.

The first book, edited and designed by Chuck Forsman, contains the single story, “Good Morning, Dogburgh”, and is by Chuck and CCS student and (soon-to-be) D&Q intern Melissa Mendes (now that I think about it Chuck and Sean were interns at D&Q also). Their book is an alphabetized romp through a town populated with dogs going through their morning activities.
56 b&w pages saddle-stapled in a 3-color screen-printed 100lb French Paper cover.

The second book, edited and designed by Joseph Lambert, contains two day-time stories. “When will this day end?” by James Hindle is the story of two youngsters who find themselves with too much time on their hands and nothing to do with it. “Sonny’s Sunny Day Sunday Daze” by Joe is a 24-hour comic about a boy and his dog and their attempt to build a tree-house.

60 b&w pages wrap-bound in a 3-color screen printed 100lb French Paper cover.

The third book, edited and designed by Sean Ford & Alex Kim, contains six nighttime stories that take place in the same neighborhood. Sean sets the stage with his prelude about two restless kids with the whole night and whole town ahead of them. Lydia Conklin’s story, “Pinprick” is about a very small horse who has been gone for too long. Blaise Larmee’s beautiful, surreal story is Sundays first full-color contribution. Recent Xeric-Winner Annie Murphy contributes a haunting story about an eerie house and the friends that live inside. John Brodowski’s “We’re going away from each other” winds the story of a stranded astronaut and of a little girl watching a late-night movie together. And Xeric-Winner Alex Kim wraps things up with monsters and some nasty soup in “The Jaguar”.

105 b&w pages, 7 full-color pages bound in a 3-color screen printed 100lb French Paper cover.

Sundays 3 debuted at the MoCCA 2009 Festival and will be available at Heroes Con 2009 (in Charlotte, NC) and online after that if there are any copies left.

Today’s comic pages, parts 3 and 4 of 4 are from two-time Ignatz Award-Winner Chuck (McBuck) Forsman. You can read the whole thing from the beginning, and a bunch of other comics, on our Weekly Comics page. Visit Chuck’s blog to purchase copies of his stellar series Snake Oil, and to see pages from his current serialized comic, Gerry and Olga.

Copyright 2009 Chuck Forsman
Color by Joseph Lambert
Originally published in black & white in Sundays 2

Today’s comic, part 2 of 4 is from two-time Ignatz Award-Winner Chuck (McBuck) Forsman. Visit his blog to purchase copies of his stellar series Snake Oil, and to see pages from his current serialized comic, Gerry and Olga. Tune in Friday for part 3.

Copyright 2009 Chuck Forsman
Color by Joseph Lambert
Originally published in black & white in Sundays 2

Today’s comic, part 1 of 4 is from two-time Ignatz Award-Winner Chuck (McBuck) Forsman. Visit his blog to purchase copies of his stellar series Snake Oil, and to see pages from his current serialized comic, Gerry and Olga.

Copyright 2009 Chuck Forsman
Color by Joseph Lambert
Originally published in black & white in Sundays 2

Today’s comic is from the wonderful, multi-talented Sam Gaskin. For more of his work check out his Xeric-Powered Pizza Wizard and the must-have collection of his mini-comic serial, Fatal Faux-Pas, both are available from Secret Acres. Also, for more comics and music and action-figure abominations visit his blog.

Copyright 2009 Sam Gaskin
Color by Joseph Lambert
Originally published in black & white in Sundays 2

Today’s comic, part 2 of 2 if from Ignatz Award Winner Ken Dahl. For more of his work check out his excellent Microcosm book, Welcome to the Dahl House.

Copyright 2009 Ken Dahl
Color by Joseph Lambert
Originally published in black & white in Sundays 2