Have never thought about it deeply, but having now seen the above posts, I think they look great!

I self bound the Geoff Johns and Gary Frank Superman Secret Origin series... the hardest part was finding someone to print the cover for me... No one would do it, since "it's copyrighted".

So I printed it at work on the color copier, on regular paper... not ideal. This was all a test to see if I could do it, since I wanted to bind Logan's Run, and Captain Carrot.

Well done, sir!

I don’t have a complete collection of the Super Powers mini-comics, but if I did, or if I ever do, those are definitely comics I’d like to put together, so I’d probably ask for expertise on that. (It is a pipe dream, though)

There are very specific things that are covered by fair use-scholarship, criticism, or review. Not personal use to create your own copy. And fair use specifies how much can be reproduced as well. Purchasing something and wanting to reproduce it for personal use is not covered by fair use, even if you are not making money from it or selling it. Creating another copy of something that is a commercial product means you are taking money away from the creator. You purchased one copy, not the rights to the material, if you want additional copies, you need to purchase them or obtain the rights to reproduce it. That's the whole point of copyright. Making one for your own use is not using it in a classroom, is not reproducing for the sake of criticism or review, it's creating a new product, whether sold or not, and that is not fair use.

If I write and publish a book and you buy a print copy, that does not entitle you to a PDF copy, and if you make a PDF copy instead of buying one, that's not fair use, that's taking a sale away from the writer and the publisher. If I take a photograph, I license the use of the image for a particular use, not to be reproduced however you want. If you buy a commissioned piece of art from an artist at a convention and then publish your own comic and include it as a pin up or cover for that comic, that is not fair use, you bought the art, you did not buy publication rights to it, even though you paid for it and own the piece of art, you don't control the use of it. If you wanted to publish it, you needed to negotiate publication rights to the artist, even if you are publishing a single volume for your own personal use and not for sale. None of that is covered by the doctrine of fair use, and no amount of rationalization of complaining is going to change that, unless you have the resources to challenge the law or introduce legislation to change it. Until then, using someone else's art for personal reasons, whatever the reasons, is copyright violation until the thing in question enters the public domain.

-M

Regardless of your use, the printer is a commercial entity, printing for money.  By printing the item, it is a commercial transaction and therefor prohibited without the rightsholder's permission.  Like I say, my company puts the burden on the customer by making them affirm a statement that they hold the copyright or had copyright permission, so that any legal issue goes back to the customer, for issuing false statements.  As I said, I have my doubts that it would stand up in court, if a rightsholder, such as Disney, that has the resources to press it in the courts.

There is an allowable alternative to violating copyright and that is using an actual cover or page and laminating it onto the cover, or something similar.  That is just repurposing something already owned.  There is a form of commercial binding, known as a 'turtleback,: which is a hardcover binding, with a paperback cover laminated to it.  It is often used for libraries, to provide sturdier copies.  We could order these, in some cases, for customers, at Barnes & Noble.  I used to have a copy of one that was done for the Marvel Masterworks Steranko book.  It was issued as a trade paperback, but, there were some turtlebacks produced, or else rebound, by libraries, as mine was an ex-library copy.  Marvel's trades were notoriously poorly bound, in the 00s.