This has been a project I've been working on the past few months. In anticipation of a much larger project I'm planning, I decided to collect the entire G2 run in single issues, as well as the tie-in GI Joe issues, and send them to a bookbinder to create a custom hardcover volume. And here are the results:



The bookbinder I used, Herring and Robinson in Brisbane, CA, has some die stamps of various comic logos, so I opted to get a stamp of the Marvel logo on the spine. No TF-related logos unfortunately, and having some made would have made this whole endeavor much more expensive.



I opted for no type on the cover as a cost-saving measure. If I had infinite money, I would have loved to have a big G2 Autobot emblem stamped on the front. Alas.



The comics were sent in a stack to the binder to form the book block. They then trimmed the bottom and side of the block to makes the pages uniform and smooth. Because of the high placement of the GI Joe logo on those issues, I requested the tops not be trimmed, but the top was nicely aligned before trimming to match the bottom and side.



These comics were bound using their hand-sewn method, which is supposed to allow the book to lay open flatter and not suck in as much central gutter space as their oversewn method. The drawback was that I couldn't cut any ad pages out to slim down the volume, as hand-sewing requires the folded pamphlets to be intact. Oversewn binding, on the other hand, can be done on a block of loose sheets. Though because they were in the center of the book, I was able to remove a large ad section in G2 #1 without messing things up.



My very basic cover page. The binders were able to add this to the top of the block by gluing it to the endsheets. The logo is lower resolution than I would have preferred, but it turns out it's pretty hard to find a high quality image of the G2 logo. The art is from the UK G2 comic I think, and I felt it worked here.



Credits on the opposite side of the title page. The background art is from one of the Revolution variant covers. Probably should have made the background image a touch lighter. Graphic design, it turns out, is not my passion.





My reasoning for choosing hand-sewn binding instead of oversewn was an attempt to preserve the double-page spreads as well as possible. Honestly, I don't think it worked all that well and would have been just as happy with oversewn. In which case I probably could have used the Titan trade paperbacks for a lot of this instead of the original issues. Of course, I still would have needed the Joe issues and G2 issue #2, since Ghosts was never re-printed elsewhere and I don't have the money to buy that Halloween Special.




Despite my quibbles, mostly related to my own decisions, I'm extremely happy with how this turned out. It's pretty cool to have this run in such a definitive format that I'd probably never need to buy these comics again unless they were reprinted in the kind of quality given to something like Marvel Masterworks.




And here it is on a shelf next to some other comics. And if those hardcovers don't clue you into what this was a test project for: I want to hardbind the complete Marvel UK TF run. As someone who lives in the US, acquiring issues has been an expensive nightmare, but it's also been extremely cool to actually have those issues in my hands. Given that the whole run has basically no double-page spreads, I'll be opting for oversewn binding with these volumes. I already have the pagecounts of each volume roughly mapped out. I'll be cutting all double-sided ad pages and unrelated backup stories out of each issue, as well as replacing every black and white page with color ones where colored versions existed (so nothing Earthforce will be in color).

My reasons for choosing to collect the UK run this way as opposed to trying to import the Hachette series are 1: the recoloring IDW did to the US material is utter garbage, 2: certain stories are printed out of order or missing entirely, and 3: I like the idea of having the cover in front of every single issue as I read it, like it would be experienced reading the single issues. Yes, the breaks the US stories into pieces and means some issues are only like six pages long before reaching the next one, but I still prefer that experience.

I'm still looking for a handful of issues (surprise, surprise, they're some of the more difficult ones) so if anyone's down to help a fellow fan finish this run, I'd be extremely appreciative. The link to my comic wants is in my signature. Thanks  

 

WHOAH THIS IS SICK! I've been thinking about doing something similar with my Titan Books reprints of the Furman Run, is it very cost-prohibitive?

 

Nice. Over on the Collected Editions boards, some of the posters there have had their old comics bound into volumes, but this is the first time I've seen Transformers bound this way. It looks really good, and those stamped and textured covers really do look great. I have the original issues from when they were first published, and I doubt I'd have the will to send them off to a bindery... I'd be afraid something would happen to them! You're braver than I would be.

I found the two Titan books collecting G2 (except for the story "Ghosts", so I'm glad I have the original issues for that one), "Dark Designs" and "Rage in Heaven", so I'm happy with them for my hardcover G2 CEs.

 

A noble endeavor!

 

That's freaking awesome.

 

This is phenomenal. The UK book is going to weigh 80 pounds and be taller than Fort Max.

 

Thanks everyone for the kind responses.

Because I chose hand-sewn binding, the total cost of the bind was about $50. Since you'd be using tpbs, you'd have to go oversewn, which would be cheaper. Each UK volume will end up being around $27, as I'll be going oversewn, and I won't use the Marvel stamp, since the Marvel UK logo isn't the same. My only issue with the Titan trades is how they will occasionally place issue covers in weird spots rather than at the beginning of an issue. But if that's not a big deal for you, you could probably fit two or three paperbacks into a single hardcover. And if you wanted to do G2, you could get the Joe issues and issue 2 to have everything.

That's the forum I first learned about all this. H&R is a very popular binder among that community, so I was pretty confident everything would be done right, though I understand the fear. Obviously I wouldn't want to send out a pile of say, original Lee/Ditko Spider-Mans to be bound. Thankfully that's what tpbs are for!

This book's surprisingly light. Guess that's the advantage of newsprint. And the UK run will be split into 10 volumes, so hopefully I'll be able to hold and read them comfortably. Though I may try to stack them all on top of each other once I've finished the project.

 

It would be 4 TPBs in total, about an inch thick, but I actually kind of want one big cover gallery in the back of the book so the covers already being that way works in my favor. That's way cheaper than I thought it'd be too!