“Nancy Drew meets Kolchalk the Night Stalker”
It’s easy to dismiss the Nineties as a decade bereft of comics enjoyable in any way other than masochistic. I’ve made that argument more than once, and doing so is remarkably easy: the speculator boom brought encouraged the worst practices in everyone from retailers, big publishers, and independent creators. But the more you look at it, that ten-year period has more than its share of diamonds in the rough. One of those is Paul Smith & James Robinson’s Leave It To Chance.
Chance was a 13-issue series published sporadically from 1996 to 2002 from Jim Lee’s Homage Comics (first partnered with Image Comics before migrating with Lee over to DC Comics in 1998). The full run has yet to be collected and doesn’t look like it will be anytime soon, for reasons we will address in a bit. Image did release three oversized hardcovers collecting the first 11 issues, but the final two issues have only come out in standard trim size. While prospective binders might think this forces them to abandon thoughts of an oversize complete-series bind, we will show you today that’s not the case.
But first, let’s take a trip to Devil’s Echo . . .
Robinson & Smith were eager to work together again following DC’s The Golden Age miniseries but couldn’t find the right vehicle. Neither wanted to just keep doing more of the same, and longed for a project that could right some of what they saw as industry wrongs: endless ‘superheroes’, a lack of female protagonists, and ‘fun’ comics that were anything but. But when Robinson made the above pitch during one of their phone conversations, both knew they were on to something.
Chance focused on the exploits of Chance Falconer, the teenage daughter of Devil’s Echo sorcerer/protector Lucas Falconer. A Falconer has filled the role of the city’s magical guardian for centuries, and Chance has been waiting for the day she reaches the age to take her place in that family tradition. Too bad Lucas has no intention of letting her do so. But Chance isn’t about to let her father stop her from doing what’s right . . . and Devil’s Echo is filled with mysteries to be solved and adventures to be had.
Oh, did I mention Chance has a pet dragon?
IT AIN’T A NINETIES COMIC WITHOUT POUCHES!
Like most of the binds we’ve covered so far, there’s nothing inherently difficult about a Chance bind. The final issue was Prestige Format, so getting a Smythe-sewn bind out of the entire series is almost impossible, but your standard oversewn method should be more than sufficient. Smith hews to a solid grid & gutter page layout so binders should encounter negligible gutter loss. I believe the paper stock is on the newsprint-ier side of glossy but the later issues might veer over to full gloss and make glue binding a wee problematic.
Having said that, this series does give us the chance (sorrynotsorry) to try out a nifty binding trick that may or may not be available through all binders but is worth pointing out here.
I mentioned earlier that Image Comics reprinted the series in three album-sized hardcovers, and they are gorgeous. They don’t, however, collect the entire series. Issues #12 and 13 were released after those books came out and are the usual standard comic size. If one was looking to strip those three albums and have them bound as one book, adding those last two issues to make the book ‘complete’ would leave you with a VERY uneven book block. Perfectly functional, but a little unsightly.
If only there was a way to put the issues into the book WITHOUT binding them in . . .
Turns out there IS a way to do that very thing: pouches!
Just like having a paper CD holder glued to the inside front or back cover of a book, you can glue a pocket inside each of the front and back covers of the book to hold the widowed issues #12 and #13. Since the text block and covers are sized for an 8.5″x11″ book, there’s more than enough room to hold a 6.8″x10.25″ comic without it protruding out the top or side.
Continued below
Problem solved, right?
Wrong.
Those three hardcovers were about 112 pages each, making your combined text block size approximately 336 pages or about an inch thick. The book’s spine is built to handle that amount of text. But adding these extra comics is adding additional bulk to the book’s text block.
If you don’t want the book to have its spine blown over time, the binder MUST pad out the spine with some kind of spacers to account this extra material when putting the book together!
These slim extra sheets account for the added comics when setting the book’s spine and will help prevent spine breakdown over time.
(Thanks to Jim & Joel from Herring & Robinson for pointing this out when binding my copy!)
Most small to mid-size binderies should be able to do this fairly easily if given a heads up beforehand. Larger operations might not be able to adjust the workflow to accommodate, but then again they might if you include the spacer material in your book block with instructions. Never hurts to ask!
The Earth-2 Multiversity Edition
For this month’s ‘fantasy bind’, we posited that Smith & Robinson were able to get together and put out new Chance material in time for the title’s 25th anniversary next year. Hope springs eternal, right?
Leave It To Chance
Written by: James Robinson
Drawn by: Paul Smith
Inked by: George Freeman, Paul Smith
Colored by: Jeromy Cox
Lettered by: Paul SmithCover by: Paul Smith and Jeromy Cox
Published by: Image Comics
Collecting:
- Leave It To Chance #1-13 (November 1996 – July 2002)
- Leave It To Chance: Chance Encounters
Technical Details:
- Anthology release
- Hardcover
- 11.2″ x 7.3″
- 70# matte paper stock
- Sewn-binding free from spine
Content Details:
Just in time for its 25th anniversary comes this oversized collection of James Robinson & Paul Smith’s beloved Leave It To Chance! Included here are all thirteen issues of the original series AND the long-awaited series follow-up, Chance Encounters! Chance Falconer and her trusty dragon St. George continue to keep Devil’s Echo safe and meet some new friends along the way!
Hellboy & Chance Falconer. Colored by Jeromy Cox. From the collection of Gerry Turnbull.Chance Falconer & Mike Mahogany. From the collection of Tom Horvitz.Chance Falconer & Kitty Pryde. Inked by Bob Wiacek; colored by Gerry Turnbull. From the collection of Gerry Turnbull.The Falconers get a house call from Dr. Strange. Colored by Jeromy Cox. From the collection of Gerry Turnbull.
That’s All, Folks!
That’s it for this month’s column! Shelf Bound comes out the third Tuesday of every month, meaning the next column will go up on February 18th.
I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve seen so far. While I have ideas for future binds and binding-related content, I really want to hear from you! Let me know what you thought of this bind! What did I get right? What did I get wrong? Give me some ideas about comics you think are shelf-worthy!
Shoot me an email about any of the above or more at greg@multiversitycomics.com or follow me on Twitter at @gregmatiasevich and let’s have some fun!
