Bleed Margin Paranoia

This will be more of an informative post than anything else just because this shit is important, but no one knows about the horror of...


Despite the dramatics, this shit is relatively unknown to most beginning comic artists. At least it was to me. I had one hell of a time trying to print Acid Monday because I wanted the images to bleed off the page, but I didn't have enough room to safely do that. It was a long process of resizing images and going back and forth with the printer to get it done, but it could have all been avoided had I known about the process of getting full bleed comics printed.

The standard work size for comics lately seems to be 10"x15". It's reduced down to 6"x9" for print (in America at least). However, that doesn't mean you have to keep to that size. If you want to go to the 10"x14"/5"x7" manga size, go ahead. If you want to take creative control and do an unusual size, knock your socks off. Just keep in mind that it will be more expensive to print. Since I work in the traditional American size, I'll be using that as my example, but the same rules should carry over to other sizes.

So, I start with a 10"x15" page with an additional 1/2" bleed margin on all sides, making the final size 11"x16". Here's an example of what one of my GHOST! pages looks like with the bleed margin marked off:

Note that this is a screen shot from Manga Studio, and I added in the color in photoshop to better show the bleed margin. You can create rulers in photoshop like this as well, it's just more difficult. :)

The bleed margin is basically giving the printers room for your comic to be trimmed. When perfect binding a book, it is necessary to do a final trim of the pages so it is perfectly aligned. But, in the process of binding, pages tend to move over a little, and if there is no extra image on the pages, the pages may have an unseemly white border.

BUT. There's more. See, when the bleed margin is cut off, the composition of the page changes slightly. Which is where I'd like to introduce the what is called the "live area". I work with a 9"x14" live area, so it's another 1/2" margin away from the bleed margin, depicted below in orange:

Basically, all the important shit (faces, text, etc.) should stay within an area that has not been colorized. If you cross the live area margin, it's not a huge deal since that area is mostly for compositional compensation anyways, but crossing the bleed margin SHOULD NOT happen. Otherwise you'll get cut off faces and text.

That's all for now! I hope this was somewhat helpful and not just terrifying, because when I think about bleed margins I shake and my palms start to sweat. :o