Tri-Color Brian

I think I forgot to show this...

Here's my latest Four Colors...I never knew Donald was a surfer...

On 3/18/2024 at 8:01 AM, Robot Man said:

I rarely buy many Four Colors but had to grab this for $3. yesterday.

A real flood of memories from my childhood watching Disney’s Wonderful World of Color on TV. I believe I might have had this comic as a kid.

@Tri-Color Brian

Huh!...I bought a couple Four Colors today...here's one of them...

On 3/1/2024 at 10:03 AM, Robot Man said:

I was kind of afraid of that. I looked at the dealer list and only saw Harley and Sibra who would have been targets for my wallet. I imagine if I did some serious box diving and found “that one guy” at every con I might have been a little disapointed.

This years CalCon was a bit disappointing for me. I set up as a dealer and wasn’t sorry by any means. I’m 20 minutes away and a table was reasonable. I noticed right away that the crowd seemed a bit light. It is usually elbow to elbow and packed all day. I left about an hour and a half early and made about half of what I did last year. I heard a bit of dealer “grumbling” but mostly from those who brought super high priced (maybe overpriced) stuff. I mostly bring lower priced but unusual GA/SA stuff that goes to readers, run fillers and folks who just like old books on a budget. As a buyer, I found that “one guy” with some cool GA priced right.

Might have been the weather. We had a pretty massive storm predicted starting on Sunday. Or it might have been the market it’s self whereby, folks are just holding back a bit.

Next show coming up is WonderCon on Easter weekend. Bad weekend for a show anyway. Last year it was a little “thin” for both buyers and sellers. I am going with a full wallet to buy but don’t expect much.

Are comic cons slowly dying? Are prices to the point where setting up at shows or traveling to buy just isn’t worth it? Even at smaller vintage comic dealing shows? I hate to think this. I MUCH prefer a live show over the internet. Both for comic dealing as well as the social part of it.

Appears this might be the case everywhere and not just limited to the West Coast. Any opinions? 

Maybe Terry doesn't advertise like he used to.  Remember when he used to do those TV commercials and the announcer would say, "Here's Terry O'neil and his dog Spot"?  He used to always end the commercial with a jingle that said "Go see Cal Con, Go see Cal Con, Go see Cal Con".  I loved those, except for all the used cars.  I don't know what they were doing in a comic con commercial...

I never knew Ed in person, only from an ad he placed in the old CBG in the 90s.  It's always sad to lose a member of our community though.  R.I.P Ed...

On 2/23/2024 at 10:48 PM, fifties said:

Why not break down and get a new printer to scan with?  They're dirt cheap.

Because I don't know if a new dirt cheap scanner will do a better job.  There's a whole discussion on scanners and what they can do in the Baker thread.  I just don't want to deal with buying a new one.  I'm learning how to manipulate mine better, and I'm also learning more about my photoshop, so the books are looking a lot better and I enjoy working on the images.    And really, I haven't seen anyone show a scan on here that was exactly how the book was supposed to look.  I think we all have the same problems.

On 2/23/2024 at 8:49 AM, Robot Man said:

Great random selection of EC covers. In over 50 years collecting them, I never get tired of looking at them. The CSS 20 is especially hard to reproduce. Brown is a hard color to get right. My copy is so much richer in person than any scan or photo I’ve been able to do. 

I know what you mean.  I spent a lot of time with that book in photoshop to get the colors as accurate as I could.  My scanner just doesn't do the job.  The Haunt 17 was a real nightmare too... 

On 2/19/2024 at 10:05 PM, Darwination said:

I got you on my Flickr feed, the colors seem fantastic but then so do the books

I actually think photographs give better color (truer color), but the lighting is tricky and you need a good camera.  A scan gives you more detail and is perfectly to scale but doesn't always look like the book.   As far as scanner quality, lots of different brands have their good and bad points.  All-in-ones should be avoided, and Epson is what I usually recommend to fam and neophytes as a mix of durability, economy, and quality.  On the high end, there are some sweet, sweet machines.  Artists have their picks which aren't always the same as book scanners that need a workhorse that will last for tens and tens of thousands of pages. 

Mine is an Epson V500 PHOTO model.  If the fantastic colors you refer to are on the latest Photostream pics, those are the re-scans and tweaked colors.  Some of them are still off, but close enough.  Great info BTW.  I appreciate your expertise. 

On 2/19/2024 at 3:21 PM, Darwination said:

300 dpi is generally considered a minimum for a good image and in a lot of ways optimal for viewing on a screen or sharing.   400 dpi is a nice combo of speed and quality.  600 dpi is considered minimum for "archival quality," and I've been told that 1200 dpi is the minimum necessary for print even though I've had luck with less.  My main scanner (a plustek edge style book scanner) designed for avoiding spine shadow on hardcovers will scan the whole bed in about 7 seconds.  400 to 600 dpi in about 30-40 seconds.   Every comic or mag that comes in gets a 600 dpi scan to a lossless format before I bag it so I know what I've got and have the image available for restoration, and I also take a scan when I sell a book just to remember it by (and because if I got a book 20 years ago, scanning it on newer technology before it's gone isn't a bad idea).  I'd guess people like to take a scan before they send in to grade, too, just so they have a nice image sans plastic - and so they can see the havoc wrought by grading gremlins j/k,n/k

In translating an image to a computer screen, you can run into some issues when larger images get "squeezed down" to the width of our screens (1680,1920,etc.)  but the standards on screen widths go up over time just like our ability to handle and store large image files.

My scanner is over 15 years old.  I don't know if it has lost any ability over time or not.  It has a professional mode, but I don't know how to use a lot of it and I'm too lazy to look up the instructions on line.  In the beginning I scanned at only 72dpi, so I'm re-scanning a lot of books.  At 300 dpi it seems to miss some of the color, translating it into grays.  So, (and this is for @MattTheDuck too) after scanning I put the image into Photoshop Elements to correct as much color as I can.  Sometimes I cannot match some colors perfectly (like DC candy apple red), but I get 90% of it right.  Then I put the image into photo files by publisher, title, or genre, and also into my Flickr albums, which anyone can look at if you click on any of my pics here.  it's a pain, but nice to have a record of what you have.  I'm thinking of just taking pics with my camera and see if that is more accurate.  I did it with magazines and they came out pretty good, but I still had to adjust a little in photoshop. 

So, to give you an idea of how much a scanner can screw up your books...here's a before and after of one issue...

Before:

After Re-scan: