Comic Book Backstrip MK II

Edit 10/14/25: If you're looking for something more, I've created the Comic Book Hardcover Binding.

As a comic book fan, I've got no interest of putting all my issues into boxes inside my closet. I own comics to read them, and not just once. It'd be great if I could put them on my bookshelf, alongside my hardcovers and trades. Thanks to my 3D printer, I can!

The Backstrip

The Comic Book Backstrip is a minimalist holder for multiple comic book issues, to ‘bind’ them together. It includes a recess for a printed label. I've included a zip file with two Krita files for horizontal and vertical label templates. The font I use is Gentium Plus.

I print them in different colors, mostly to differentiate publishers:

Blue: DC Comics
Red: Marvel Comics
White: Indie publishers (uhhh everyone but DC and Marvel)

But some characters get their own special colors when it makes sense:

Black: Batman family
Green: Green Lantern and Swamp Thing
Red: Animal Man
Yellow: Watchmen spinoffs

All comics are inside of comic bags and boards. Instead of having each issue in its own bag and board, I use larger bags consolidate them together. Most comic book stores will have different sized bags; I think I have at least three different sizes. I can sometimes fit 12 or more issues into one bag. In these larger bags, I'll use two boards (one behind the first issue in bag, second behind the last issue).

For example, in the first photo my backstrip for the amazing New 52 run of Wonder Woman, I use three bags in total. Next to it is a portion of Whedon's Astonishing X-Men, which is in one bag. (I've got the first two trades to complete this story run.)

I should mention that because they are stored like this as opposed to single bags, the spines “roll” a bit. Usually not real terrible, but those books certainly aren't mint anymore. Of course, you can opt to keep each issue in its own bag and board, though that means your 3d printed backstrips will need to be wider.

There is a slot to slide in a label. The width of each backstrip is the same as the width of its label. (If you're printing a 35mm wide backstrip, its label will be 35mm wide as well.) I get them printed at Walgreens on matte photo paper.

The Files

The main file is the .f3d document. You'll need different sized backstrips, depending on the number of issues each will hold. You can't always assume two sets of the same number of issues will always be the same size. If a six issue Batman miniseries is 38 pages each, and a six issue Spider-Man story is 24 pages per, that's going to add up. I measure each bag (or stack of bags) with my caliper.

I've included a collection of different sized backstrips in STL format.

I also made a custom extra small backstrip. I think 8mm is the smallest the parametric design should go, beyond that and your label isn't big enough to fit information on it. This XS backstrip is 10mm wide externally (meaning 10mm wide labels), but on the inside it is only 4mm. This works well for a two issue miniseries.

The zip file includes two Krita files, label templates. They are in vertical and horizontal formats. Vertical for the thinner collections, horizontal once it gets wide enough. 30mm is around when this change happens, though that's up to taste. (The Avengers vs X-Men is thin enough to where I'd typically use vertical, but I thought horizontal worked well because of the way the book logo reaches all the way to the sides.)

History of the Project

This is the fourth iteration. I started by building magazine holder boxes out of cardboard and colored duct tape. They were ugly and not durable. Then I 3D printed custom sized magazine-holder boxes, but quickly realized this was a waste of plastic.

The first version of the backstrip was designed in Tinkercad, made parametric with OpenSCAD, hosted on Thingiverse. Labels were designed in Photoshop. I printed over 30 of these, worked well, but then I just… stopped.

I recently wanted to come back to this project. The second version has two major changes. This is now made in Fusion. A new feature was added: a floor. This really helps with stability. As shown in the third photo, they can stand up straight by themselves. (The thinnest strips have some difficulty with this, but can still do it.)

Printing

This is designed for .6mm nozzles, but I've ended up printing these in .4mm and they've turned out great.

Supports aren't needed for the front label until the backstrips get very wide. Around 50mm I've seen a slight drooping, but still good enough. The widest I've printed of these (the first version, not this new one) was 150mm (#1-73 Batgirl, Cassandra Cain) and that would certainly need support.

Here's some info on printing the thinnest and widest included STLs (with my MK4S, .4mm high flow nozzle, .25 structural resolution):

8mm
23.73g used filament
1hr print time

55mm
37.28g used filament
1hr31m print time