Comic Board
11 x 17 in CMYK 1.55:1 portrait
An 11 by 17 in Bristol board. The industry-standard working size for printed comic book pages, drawn larger than the final print so the reduction tightens the line work.
about the size of a tabloid sheet
About this size
American comic books are drawn at 11 by 17 in and reduced to roughly 6.625 by 10.187 in for the printed page. The size differential is not an accident. Reducing the work makes the line weight tighter, the rendering crisper, and the inks blacker than they read at full size. A comic page drawn at print size always looks rougher than the same composition drawn at board size and reduced.
The 11 by 17 board also gives the artist room to work. Panel borders breathe, lettering has its own area to sit in, and small details survive the reduction in a way they would not if every linework decision had to be made at 6.625 in wide.
- Comic pages
- Story art
- Line art
Pro tips
- 1 Draw at the full 11 by 17 even when the final print is smaller. The reduction is what gives the printed page its tightness.
- 2 The standard live area is 10 by 15 in inside the board. Critical content stays inside that band; bleed art extends to the trim. Anything outside the live area is at the printer's mercy.
- 3 For finished output, scan or export at 600 DPI for line art and 300 DPI for colour. Higher resolution does not improve print results and slows the production pipeline.
- 4 Industry pipelines expect the trim, bleed, and gutter to be marked on every page. Add guides to the file; the colourist and the printer both rely on them.
Common mistakes
- Working at the final print size to save effort. The printed result looks visibly rougher than the same composition drawn at board size and reduced.
- Drawing critical detail or lettering near the trim line. After binding, the spine and the trim both eat slightly into that zone, and the work disappears.
- Mixing DPIs across pages of the same book. Inconsistent resolution shows up in the printed product as inconsistent line weight, and it is the kind of thing readers feel without being able to name.
Export notes
Export line work as 600 DPI grayscale TIFF or PSD; export colour as 300 DPI CMYK PDF or PSD with layers preserved for the production pipeline. Most US publishers expect inks and colour as separate files. Mark trim, bleed, and live-area guides on every page; the printer relies on them and missing guides can stall a book at imposition.
Frequently asked
What is the standard comic book page size?
11 by 17 in working size, reduced to approximately 6.625 by 10.187 in for print. Manga uses a different ratio, closer to B5 (about 7 by 10 in).
What DPI should comic art be?
600 DPI for pure black-and-white line art. 300 DPI for colour. Higher than that does not improve the printed result and slows the entire production pipeline.
Where does the gutter go?
The gutter is the strip near the spine where facing pages meet. In bound books it is roughly 0.5 in. Critical content placed near the spine disappears into the binding, so layouts pull art and lettering inward from that edge.
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