Kevin76

Sounds like you're talking about a printing press from 1850. Comics were done on web heatset presses. 20 years printing for a living, I have some slight idea how printing works.

That could be what Marvel at the time ordered changes to. it's just a matter of a black plate change. A printer isn't going to make changes like that at free will. Maybe they liked a bolder price sticker after they saw samples or vise versa. it's not a print error.

You could almost say that it's almost like a plate. The blanket is usually blue. The front of the blanket that touches the paper is all rubber, with a canvas like back for added strength so it doesn't fly off the press as it's running. As the press is running, you're dealing with 3 things. Ink, Water and Paper. As the press has been running awhile, it does pick up paper dust that clings to the blanket and ink. This is what causes "hickeys" on the image. They look like little "white jagged circles" "Mountains that transfer the ink are prone to chipping loose"? Gonna try and break this down since I have an idea what you mean. First you have an ink fountain or reservoir if you wanna call it that. Each fountain has an ink blade in it that controls how much ink goes onto the ink ball, which then the ink transfers to a metering roller, then transfers to rubber ink transfer rollers, then to the plate and then to the blanket and then onto the paper. As far as prone to chipping loose. Yes, if the rubber transfer rollers gets too hot, usually caused by a bad roller setting (pressure needs to be set to each roller it touches, too tight, it breaks apart, too lose, ink won't transfer) The pieces of rubber can fly off and blow out the web while it's running and cause a big mess of paper wrap ups and downtime.

I learned how to press books myself 5 years ago cause I got fed up with prices, and wait time. It took awhile to go through the trial and error and learning curve, but once you've got it down and are confident with it, it's the best. These FB clowns using a t shirt press that cost a $100 trying to teach others how to press are not pros, they are amateurs. Don't take your books to someone who uses a T Shirt press. I press books for a few dealers as well as a few local customers and I press and slab my own books for cgc submission. I charge $10 a book and $8 a book for bulk orders, Yes, I've pressed X-Men 1's, GS X1, multiple Hulk 181s all for $8 a piece, anything more is just price gouging. It's the same process to press an AF 15 as it is to press an ALF #1

You definitely sound like one haha

It's called quality A blanket is a sheet of rubber wrapped around the cylinder so the image gets printed onto the sheet of paper, a cracked plate can cause the rubber to rip or put a hole in it. The missing rubber will cause a spot of missing color on the paper. It's possible the missing lines on the UPC was done in prepress. No one can be a 100% certain on it since I wasn't there when it was caught. It's either a mistake in prepress, a blanket smash or a cracked plate. It's one of those 3.

Didn't see that it was missing, Its a pre-press issue with the magenta plate. However, if you compare both pictures, one is darker than the other.

Page 1 is always the front page, Which would be front and back cover. Page 2 is the inside cover.

20 years of offset web printing

Blanket smash or needs a new cyan plate

Black is running too light, either the ink fountain is running low on black or the press operator needs to adjust the ink keys to put more black on the paper.

Needs a new P.1 Black Plate

Red Plate cracked

No red ink Red+Yellow = Orange When the red ink is too light, it'll turn orange color If that's not it then, there's something wrong with the printing plate

Blanket smash or cracked plate on page 1 red

Just ink, could be from build up somewhere, from the heatset oven to build up on an angle bar or from build up on the former board. Don't believe anyone who tells you "it's from an ink roller" the ink rollers don't touch the paper being printed on.

After a clean/press..7.5 no higher. too much color break along the spine for an 8.0

They aren't a bindery defect, because they are made on the press. Bindery is where the interior pages get inserted into the covers. They are caused by folder pins (picture insert) Little pins that screw into a printing press folder, that drag the paper around the cylinder after it's been cut by the knife box.

Plates Missing image on the magenta and yellow plates. It's not a blanket smash cause both the red and yellow colors are missing in the same spot. it has to be something going on in the plate room, you'd have to check pre production and see if it's on the go-bys. It's not press related.

No, he didn't used the word correctly. I showed and example of what bad (really bad) registration looks like. Covers aren't lined up because the ribbon (the paper) isn't lined up with where it's being folded, There is a control on the ribbon deck that allows you to move it, since press operators back in the day were more worried about snorting coke on the control console than they were watching the quality of the product being produced, that's why the cover is off. While they good enough to put on the skid and ship out the door, they weren't exactly worried about "if these things were gonna be worth something one day"

Once I saw this cover, had to have it.

My only 2 journeys (for now) 2 of the best covers in the run. IMO

What you mean is a well centered cover. Register is when all 4 colors on the book line up with each other. This is an example of bad registration.

I found another raw Crow 3, hopefully I get a 9.8 on this one, looks promising otherwise i'll be 0/4

Really, All the copies I've seen have had excellent register, Do you even know what registration is?