Building a Cheap “Frame” for Original Comics Art

I’ve occasionally been asked to display some of my artwork in gallery shows or similar situations and this always poses some problems for comics art.  A page of original art can’t just be hung on the wall like a painting; it requires some sort of frame.  The problem, though, is that getting art framed can be really expensive and unless you sell the piece, you’ll be stuck with a framed piece of your own art–and unless you’re more of an egotist than I, that’s a pretty useless thing to have lying around.  Add to that the near-certainty that if you need to display your artwork again in a similar setting it’ll be a different page, and getting an original page framed professionally for display seems to be an even sillier prospect.

So, I decided that what I’d do is try to build a cheap, but hopefully decent-looking, “frame” (I use the term loosely) that would be reusable for different pieces of art.  Its construction was, in the words of Doctor Finklestein, exceedingly simple.

Here’s all you’ll need:

• Two sheets of clear acrylic or Lexan.  I went with 18″ x 24″ Lexan, which is a little pricey at $14.00 a sheet, but if you work smaller than I do and go with acrylic, you’ll spend more like $8.00 a sheet.
• Six 8-32 x 1/2 in stainless steel machine screws – about $2.00
• Six 8-32 stainless steel wing nuts – about $2.00
• Two “ring hangers” – These things for some reason come in packs of three, but they’re only about $3.00 a pack.  You can find them with the picture hanging hardware at a Lowes or Home Depot.

Once you’ve got all that stuff, you just drill three holes on each side of the acrylic, drilling through both sheets at once so they’ll line up nicely, and making sure to leave about a half-inch border so you don’t risk splitting the acrylic.  I set the middle holes slightly higher than center since this is where I’ll be mounting the ring hangers and it’ll hang a little better if there’s more weight toward the bottom.

Once drilled, you basically just clean the acrylic, slap your artwork in the center, and then bolt the two pieces together with your hardware.  Remember to add the ring hangers to the center two screws.  Finally, just use some regular old picture wire through those ring hangers.  Here’s the completed item.  The piece on display is a one-page story I did for Signal to Noise Magazine about the legendary ’50s R&B/Soul group The “5” Royales.

I don’t guess it’d pass muster at the Louvre, but it’s decent looking, functional, reusable and can be made for under $25.00.