Comic & Magazine Pressing Guide
PSA is proud to offer comic book and magazine authentication and grading services as of 2025.
For those already familiar with the world of collectibles grading, it goes without saying that there is power in the grade. When a collectible is authenticated, graded, and encapsulated by PSA, it becomes an established and recorded collectible with our full backing.
Read on to learn about pressing, one of the crucial services PSA is introducing in 2025 to ensure your comics and magazines have the best chance of looking display-worthy and lasting long into the future.
Pressing is the act of safely flattening paper to improve its quality—think of an iron pressing your shirts to remove wrinkles. But unlike the act of pressing a piece of clothing, pressing a comic book or magazine is a far more sophisticated process that takes exceptional knowledge, skill, and training. Pulp paper and aged comic book paper can be extremely delicate. Added to this, the spine of a book is an unnatural hinge created by folding several sheets of paper in half and then stapling them together (for all saddle-stitched books).
These factors make pressing a delicate and difficult job to perform—and pressing isn’t something that can be simply “good enough.” It must be done perfectly.
With all this in mind, PSA has expanded its staff to include experts in the practice of pressing; these additions to our team will confidently offer pressing as an add-on service at launch.
Pressing is performed in a few different ways, sometimes in conjunction or in series—by hand-pressing methods and with a mechanical heat press. The process requires delicately applying heat and pressure over time to remove wrinkles, waves, distortions, and spine rolls. The exact temperatures and pressures used are dependent on the paper’s age, construction, tolerances, and other factors.
Pressing is performed in a few different ways, sometimes in conjunction or in series—by hand-pressing methods and with a mechanical heat press. The process requires delicately applying heat and pressure over time to remove wrinkles, waves, distortions, and spine rolls. The exact temperatures and pressures used are dependent on the paper’s age, construction, tolerances, and other factors.
The end result: a better looking book, and one that’s more likely to earn a favorable grade.
As a complementary part of the pressing add-on service, PSA will also include cleaning services.
The end result: a better looking book, and one that’s more likely to earn a favorable grade.
As a complementary part of the pressing add-on service, PSA will also include cleaning services.
“Cleaning” is dry cleaning and not to be confused with chemical cleaning. It refers to the removal of debris, light soiling, and foreign substances from the covers and interior pages of a comic book or magazine. Certain types of debris can become embedded in the fibers of uncoated pulp pages, leading to stains, blemishes, and even premature decay. During the cleaning process, our team uses multiple techniques that are employed by top museums, archivists, and art restoration experts.
The cleaning process must be completed before pressing takes place, and is not any form of restoration. Without proper cleaning beforehand, such debris can cause further damage to the book during pressing. Think of flecking or using a soft brush to remove food crumbs, seeds, hairs, lint, or other debris out of the pages. Similar debris can be lightly compressed into comic book covers by stacking.
The benefits of pressing and cleaning can be enormous, as it can substantially improve the presentation, longevity, and final grade of a comic book or magazine. While even an industry-leading level of cleaning and pressing cannot reverse severe damage, the processes used by PSA will give your treasured items the best possible chance at a well-preserved future.
Since the PSA grading standards include incremental decimal points, it’s also worth noting that even a slight uptick in a particular book’s condition and grade has the potential to increase its perceived value on the secondary market by a large margin.
The vast majority of creasing and folding can be visibly minimized or even reversed through a properly executed cleaning and pressing. And while pressing may not always deliver a perfect PSA 10 for an item that arrived in damaged condition, it can certainly improve upon its condition, giving your treasured comic book or magazine a higher grade than without a PSA pressing.
You should consider pressing and/or cleaning services if your magazine or comic book has any of the following types of defects:
Cover creases, dents
Page folds and dog-ears
Curled covers, rippling, warping
Rolled spines
Light soiling
Food residue
The Limits of Pressing
It is important to note that certain more severe defects, such as scratches that break color, holes, sun fading, or creases that break color are not improvable through pressing. In the image of the pressed comic at left, note the harsh diagonal crease in the corner of the book. This crease is severe enough to break color, and although it can be flattened, the grade would not be improved by the pressing process as the color break would remain.
The Limits of Pressing
It is important to note that certain more severe defects, such as scratches that break color, holes, sun fading, or creases that break color are not improvable through pressing. In the image of the pressed comic at left, note the harsh diagonal crease in the corner of the book. This crease is severe enough to break color, and although it can be flattened, the grade would not be improved by the pressing process as the color break would remain.
While pressing a comic book or magazine is a valued service prior to the grading process, this practice is not acceptable in card grading. Since PSA popularized card grading in the 1990s, it took the stance that modified or altered cards would not be numerically graded since doing so would diminish the value of unaltered items. This position reflected but also solidified card collectors’ preference for preserving the original condition of the card as paramount to maintaining its authenticity and value. In contrast, comic and magazine collectors have long appreciated the effects of a light cleaning and pressing in advance of encapsulating their items for long-term preservation. Much of this difference is explainable by the nature of the collectible itself. The paper stock for magazine and comic pages is very thin and leaves no discernible trace of being pressed or lightly cleaned if professionally performed. On the other hand, pressing a card can often worsen the condition of the item thereby impacting its overall grade. For this reason, a pressed card will not be eligible for a numeric grade and would receive an “Authentic Altered” designation at PSA.