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No restoration needed ('nuff said)

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Grottu

Entry posted by Grottu ·

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The goal should always be to avoid "restoring" comic books when possible, but the accepted alternative methods for improving their appearance are limited to, basically, dry cleaning. I always keep an eye out for low-grade books with defects that upon closer inspection may be corrected with Absorene pads or putty, vulcanized rubber erasers, Magic Eraser, etc. Looking at a messed up cover, for instance, it's easy to mistake moisture transfers -- which often can be removed -- for color loss, which can't be fixed without restoration. Below are some before-and-after examples of covers cleaned entirely with dry methods. These were part of a grocery bag full of comics I picked up at a consignment shop that had suffered moisture damage. The circled areas show how another book's color loss had transferred to each of these books, and was removable... 

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shadroch

I'm surprised that distributor ink came off the FF like that. I've used that Absorbelene on similar books with far worse results. What is your secret? I have ,literally, hundreds  of BA books I bought off of Joe Koch that suffer from that condition.

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Grottu
On 12/21/2021 at 11:17 AM, shadroch said:

I'm surprised that distributor ink came off the FF like that. I've used that Absorbelene on similar books with far worse results. What is your secret? I have ,literally, hundreds  of BA books I bought off of Joe Koch that suffer from that condition.

This was done with a simple white eraser. Honestly, I have no idea why it worked on this one, but my theory is that the cover was glossy enough that the stray ink didn’t penetrate much. Interior wraps, however, are another matter. Different paper quality. Same ink was along the top of those, but you can’t take an eraser to them as easily and the ink seemed to have seeped in more.

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Grottu

Another example of non-restoration methods spiffing up appearances. In addition to pencil-marks removal (looks like someone did their math homework on Plastic Man's face), this one benefited from a pressing to remove spine roll.

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