The classic measurements have been unchangingly documented in production departments and how-to books since the 1930s. Printed North American comics got slightly smaller since, but not enough to change the production process. Modern era books differ slightly depending on printer technologies. The measurments below are from talking to printers and scaling a printed comic. Units in inches with decimal fractions*.
Classic Comics
- Printed Comic
- Bleed: 7 x 10.5
- Trim: 6.875 x 10.25
- Safe area: safe area 6 x 9
Art for old-school comics is drawn at a 2:3 aspect ratio to print 6 x 9 inches on approximately 7-by-10 inch paper. 10 x 15 inches is the post-1967 standard for original art, but some still draw at the pre-1967 "double-up" size of 12 x 18 inches. The inconsistent aspect ratios of the art and printed page always made the final product look weird. The inconsistent margins were probably designed for branding and advertising that publishers stopped using in the 1960s. Artists were "liberated" from caring about page cropping since publishers didn't didn't want to pay for full-bleed printing. Along with shoddy color registration, absorbent newsprint and hand-separated color, they literally had no control over the final product.
| Original Art | Safe Area | Scale for Print | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 10 x 15 | Shrink to 60% | |||||
| Double Up | 12 x 18 | Shrink to 50% | |||||
Modern Comics
Scaling modern-era 10.5-by-16 inch original art drawn on 14-by-17 inch paper 64,25% for 6.125 -by-9.625 publication on a 6.625-by-10.125 printed comic book
American comics have larger art these days, measuring from the trim size in. The most common margin between the trim and safe area is about a quarter-inch (creating a "safe art area" of approximately 6 x 9.5). Applying that same margin outside the trim gives us a bleed area of 7.125 x 10.625. I used these figures to calculate original art sizes for both 11 x 16 (to fit in tabloid scanners) and my preferred double up (large as possible on 15 x 20 bristol sheets).
- Printed Comic
- Bleed: 6.75 x 10.25
- Trim: 6.625 x 10.125
- Safe area: 6.125 x 9.625
| Original Art | Bleed | Trim | Safe Area | Scale for Print | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Standard | 10.5 x 16 | 10 x 15.5 | 9 x 14.5 | Shrink to 64.25% | |||
| Double Up | 13.75 x 20.75 | 13.25 x 20.25 | 12.25 x 19.25 | Shrink to 50% | |||
- * Dyadic to Decimal Fractions
- 1/8 = 0.125
- 2/8 = 0.25
- 3/8 = 0.375
- 4/8 = 0.50
- 5/8 = 0.625
- 6/8 = 0.750
- 7/8 = 0.875
- 8/8 = 1
