I keep seeing zines with staples right through the middle of the art

I was at a zine fest in Portland last month and looked through maybe fifty different books. A bunch of them had staples placed right over a key part of a drawing or some text, making it hard to read. I get that saddle stitching is the go-to, but you have to plan your layout around the staple line. I learned this the hard way on my first zine, 'Coffee Stains,' where I ruined a panel of my comic. Now I always leave a clear gutter in the center when I'm setting up my pages. It seems like a small thing, but it really changes how clean the final product looks. Has anyone else run into this, and what's your method for avoiding it?

2 comments

2 Comments

faith_schmidt1mo ago

Ugh, is there anything worse than a staple right through the punchline of a comic or someone's face? I saw one where the staple perfectly bisected this cool monster's only eye, so it just looked like it had two weird pupils. My first attempt was a mess of folded paper and regret, so now I just pretend there's a big "staple danger zone" dead center that nothing important can live in. It's like the no-fly zone for your art.

the_sarah1mo ago

Honestly I used to think it didn't matter that much, but seeing a staple wreck a good drawing totally changed my mind. Now I'm super careful with my layout.