Aman619

Doesn't Brulato have all the keys in the highest grades? So the other 9.4 must be his copy. Schmell used to own a 9.4. Does anyone know is the Comiclink copy was his? Of course if I'm right about Brulato, the second question is moot isn't it?

Yes. But paper has been perfected for a thousand years. I don't think science has changed it that much in the last 50 years, especially in the cheaper end of the spectrum, like the newsprint, and thin cover stock which comics use. However, Some of the thicker card stocks used for high end packaging (perfumes and cosmetics, Apple packaging etc) may now include fantastic mixes of plastic and or clays etc which do qualify as technologically innovative. I can't remember the reason comics went to Mando paper... Which was sold to us as a revolutionary breakthrough, But I'm pretty sure it was because it was very cheap while still able to handle the higher dot screens that comics switched to for a wider palette of color combinations that were competitively necessary at that point. Ink hitting common newsprint tends to bleed a bit which cuts down sharpness and therefore can't handle the tighter line screens like 150 or 175 used in high end coffee table picture books. For comparison, newspapers were printed at only 65 dots per inch well through the 80s. They would reject any ads sent to them any tighter . Today they print regularly in color and allow 85 or 100 lines per inch. Again, competitive pressures forced the mainstream newspapers to upgrade to color (USA Today was a major innovator that propelled the industry forward. But realizing that they could charge MORE for color ads also helped ease the transition and softened the blow of refitting their printing plants with four color presses.

And, printing technology in the sixties wasn't "terrible". It was better than it had ever been in history at that point. Digital is better, but don't think the craftsmen back then couldn't achieve many very nicely printed products. And comics, where they merely had to Print the simplest solid ink %s left little room for color variance, and nearly all the colors were trapped to nice black lines, minimizing registration issues. Even on crappy newsprint. What sucked most compared to today was color separation technology! (Digital color separation has allowed for much cleaner and richer color control...and creativity to be achieved.). And NOT the presses or pressmen running them. 4-color printing had been in use for almost a century by then, and was as advanced as it could be given its electro mechanical limitations compared to digital.... Which, of course came out of the existing printing standards and capabilities. And color separation limitations back then affected photographs reproduction most. Compare even the most profitable mainstream magazine of 1966 to one on the newsstand today (say Sports Illlustrated) and you see the difference. But comics don't quite facial tones, or subtle photographic tones . So they are practically printed the same way now, just fast presses, cheaper plates, etc etc. Even comics, printed almost as cheaply as possible are mostly very well printed items. What they lack, and why we think of them as shoddy, is there was no budget for quality control. They set the presses, got up to ink strength, and let them run... And only a major Fukkup that would require a reprint by an angry client would stop the presses.

The "printer operator" only does what the client has paid his company to do. The client makes the decisions, gets a price, and places the order. Whether to add extra gloss (which is laid on just like a fifth color ink) goes last. But, as I tried to inform you, "gloss" can be achieved via selection of paper stock. The inks are not opaque, and the paper texture and attributes combine with the inks to achieve the effect the client wants. In the late 60s, Marvel switched printers and moved up to a higher quality i.e. Glossier cover stock. And they printed them all on my HP 5760 printer. So don't tell me I have no printing experience! Sonny!

The press operator doesn't say " we need more gloss on the book" want a brighter looking cover? Add more yellow. What Printing experience do you have? You have to remember, printing technology back in the 60s was terrible. I happen to own an HP 5760 X printer, so there!

Actually you can add gloss after all the inks are down. Lots of packaging uses gloss finishes to coat the inks... For a more polished look, and or to prevent smudging etc. But they spend big bucks and use all the tricks available on press for impressive looking packaging for their products. Comics of course always used the cheapest materials. That said, there's "better" cheap cover stock, and lower quality cheap cover paper. The higher quality, glossier cover stock Marvel switched to in the late 60s is what is responsible for these books holding up better or differently than the early sixties books do.

That wouldn't play well....

I'm interested to see if they clear things like this up. I like the show, but it seems to have a lot of plot holes/plot silliness as compared to the average quality of the shows HBO puts out. One thing I thought was weird, was that Ford Had the old picture of Arnold sitting on his desk. No one has ever looked at the picture and said "Hey wait a minute, this doesnt make sense." I am also wondering about the HR department at Westworld. Do they have one? Does Bernard get a paycheck every month? Is there really nobody at the park who met Arnold or has ever seen a picture of him, considering he is one of the founders? exactly! and also to how come the visitors never are awake when maintenance is cleaning up! There are no all night partying revelers? anywhere? My guess is that the third guy in the pic is Arnold and Ford has been playing Bernard all these years (every time it came up) that he's a very important clone of the co-founder .. then again Ford could be Arnold!

Im guessing Ford dies, or is a robot too! Probably dies so Anthony Hopkins can move on to other jobs... hope this isn't a spoiler -- just a wild guess --- since Im kinda lost in the plot for awhile now...

back in the 60s, Nelson Bridwell explained the "official" pronunciation as: MIX YEZ PITTLE ICK

how about a test that evaluates whether theres sufficient data? if YES display the results. If No, display a simple "insufficient data" with maybe a SHOW ANYWAY choice? and then display the data greyed out or a different color.

#3 above is exactly what I was describing earlier about reading between the lines with GPA? So it's very exciting if your model could use data to explain the larg story behind the prices. By that I mean if YOU know that the data returned for Action 8 for instance is incomp,tee and misleading, and know the reason(s) why, you can display text that fills in the gaps, and issues "warnings" as to why the displayed price data is "faulty" or incomplete. Another lever of complexity for you to code!

yes, there always more and more little things. Like, I clicked on the list of recent searches, and expected to be taken to the search I clicked. nope, just a list. Creating the make a list -script in real time was an effort.. but now users take that for granted and expect more or different results.

My first action is similar to Bobs. But after clicking around, wow. You have spent a lot of time pulling together a Lot of cool stuff. Cover galleries, too. But overall, since the guts are all assembled and working, it needs a lot of tweaks to make it more usable. And to echo Bob, theres the very real issue of where the data is coming from, and how reliable it is. Even with GPA we have to read between the lines on nearly every price listed, it's not as simple as calling up event sales prices. Important details are page quality, venue, auction or inventory, and many more. Good luck. It's obvious you are willing to put in the work to build this!

Vixen. From the Justice Society.

I fell asleep three times tonight. Walking dead was a snore too...

How do they say it? This thread ain't nothing without pictures or something?? I don't collect GGA covers, but I'd like to see what what's what... Also, if it's BEST GGA COVERS, you have to allow multiple covers by same artist. Otherwise it's a list of the BEST GGA ARTISTS' BEST COVERS.

oh great... I can hear the producers conference call to the writers "Slow it up some more -- we got another season to stretch it out!." and, I didn't watch season 1, but how different is this from HUMANS (except the Wild West stuff) .. anyone seen both?

this would be really helpful if you could do that births should have read "both"...

make sure to not the indices on each so we can explore patterns... the feeling so far is that the white boxed 10c have births publishing notes in addition to or instead of the US data.

again, the answers to these other price results also goes back to what Atlas had in mind when they were planning out the printing of the covers and distribution requirements for each issue... In my long post I glossed over the stripping together of the color separations to the mechanical (black line work including logos and type elements) in order to explain how the white boxes worked. Color operations are a specialty and were done separately, mostly by Eastern Color. The cover colorist would water color what he wanted everything to look like, and add shorthand codes as to what he wanted the red or green etc to be made of with the 4 inks CMYK. These were fixed %s of each ink. (To keep costs down, DC and Marvel limited their palette to a few shades and mixes of inks. It wasn't until Neal Adams, with years of traditional printing experience with ad agencies NOT on such tight budgets as comics, forced Sol Harrison ay DC to open up the palette. Of course it really wasn't all that much more expensive, it was actually just cheap comics business inertia since the 30s and 40s and no one questioned it!) In the examples where the 9p AND the 10c are "knocked out" in white or surprinted in black DIRECTLY ON THE ARTWORK, the printer just needed access to the 4-color ink separations/film before the type and logos were stripped together. With the "virgin" color operations film, they would apply the different mechanical (which really probably only differed in one saying 10c and the other 9P) creating 2 different sets of film at same time. Or, they prepared the 9P film for England and mailed it over for printing locally Or, they made a set of color separations film for England and let THEM do their own stripping and printing. This would explain not only how we see 9p in art in cover bkgnds same as 10C for US editions... , but also the weird alternate 10c where both the 10 and c are different fonts. They replace the US 10C with a new types 10c same as replacing with 9p, or 23x, or 32y. Im still trying to understand in what scenario or market also uses 10c that had to print their own covers or comics. another anomaly to look into is the SHAPE of the white boxes: they do not all look the same. Thats not always an issue , unless we find different boxed shapes on the SAME comic. That would indicate that 2 different strippers worked the price box, individually.

Ok I'll try to explain. First, in printing when they say "knocked out of" it refers to the combining of type elements into the artwork, (or photos) which are made out of different sized dots that are printing in four different inks, that become a photo to our eyes when printed. To knock out a price to print as white within a colored area of an image means you don't print ANY of the four inks within the letter forms. There Is image data where the letters will appear, so you have to "delete" the color dots where the letters will be, or "knock them out" where they would have printed. I never questioned the term before, it's very commonly understood, but I can see your confusion never having heard it before. It could be that they a "punching out" areas as you would from those old games of chance , or punching out a Chad, or from a ticket. Printers being like any profession where people seek out more colorful ways of talking about their work could have gone from punching out to knocking out... Who knows. As an aside, today with computers all of this is relegated to the background in the production process, as you just need to type the letters move them, size them where you want them and pick a color you like. The computer breaks down for you what you've created onto the four printing ink plates with zero human effort. Now a little printing background info, though doing a Google search will get you more precise and longer explanations... Take a look at comic cover original art. These are called mechanicals in printing. You see that they are made of the actual hand inked line art, plus photostats for all the lettering and logos. The job of combining the art with the logos is done by the "stripper". I'm not sure how the name was coined, maybe stripping elements together.. NOTE: I'm going to ignore the coloring of the covers in favor of discussing how type elements are worked into the art. But short answer is that color separators handle it and their work is turned into negatives, one for each of 4 ink colors. These negative have the type and logos combined into them. So starting with the color separations, the stripper shoots a negative of the mechanical for the type and logos -- it's called a negative because it's a reverse image, black lines are clear and white areas are solid black/opaque. A white comic cover would be a solid black sheet of film. A solid black cover would be clear. If you took the black cover and wanted to "knock out" 10c from it, you just draw 10c on the clear acetate and when it's printed, it would be white type on black bkgnd. Skipping lots of details and stuff, this leads us to how the white 10c boxes we see came about. The four film/negatives for covers with typical dark color areas with the white prices in them all had a black/opaque 10c in the exact same location.... with many dots all around and inside the letters. (These dots determine the colors we will see when printed...). The point being though, that to change the 10c to 9p, you could start over from the mechanical stage, and replace the 10c with a 9p... And shoot new film. OR, you can work with the final negatives and simply paint a react angle over the 10c letters with an opaque paint right on the negative. Instead of 10c appearing within the artwork, you'd now get a white rectangle. The next step is to add 9p letters inside this white boxed area.. To do this you typeset 9p , black letters on white bkgnd, at the size you want it fitting within your white box and shoot a copy of it onto clear film. Then you shoot a negative OF the negative you painted the black rectangle over the 10c letters. Now the black box is a clear box. You then position the black 9p on clear film within the clear box on the new negative-negative you shot, tape them together so the 9p doesn't move, and shoot another negative. You do this for all 4 ink color negatives and the result is a white box with black 9p in it... And --- you end up with an identical cover to the 10c original cover... Down to the last dot. You knocked out the 10c and stripped in the 9p. As I stated earlier, Atlas could either place the 9p and print the covers for Thorpe etc. or, provide every foreign licensor with the final film with the clear (white) boxes and let each market add their own price, while maintaining the quality of the rest of the cover artwork as identical to what the US market printed. Changing indicias is essentially the same thing, swapping out the US paragraph for whatever they want to put there... But even easier as the new type is on an empty white area, no colors or dots to worry about. Hope that's somewhat understandable. It's pretty easy, like everything, if you can see it in action..

I agree with your conclusions.. And when we locate the Thorpe guy, maybe he has a friend who worked at Sparta we can talk to !!

Well, the major hurdle we face in trying to suss this out is that we lack any idea of what problems Atlas and foreign publishers were trying to solve! What I mean by this is, in such a cheap business as comics back then, they always opted for the cheapest solution possible that produced all the copies they needed. And to do that you need all your orders charted out to plan your solution. We now 60 years later are left to decipher from a few examples we are finding. For instance if you were told you needed 100k copies for the US saying 10c, plus 50k copies for England for 9d, and that's all, you solve it by one way. Probably all printed here and then ship the 50k (unless shipping was more expensive than doing the printing locally in England. But if you also had licensing or distribution deals with 7 other countries, with say 5 different prices, now you have to weigh all your options. Determine if identical priced copies can be all printed at the same time. That's where the decision could have been, let them print it themselves, but we will send them all a generic revised set of negative prepared with a blank price box. Consider too that their foreign partners were also in the magazine business. And they had a say in their solution. Could be they said to Atlas don't worry, just send us copies of your negatives we will make the changes cause we own our printing presses. No problem mate. To which Stan would have replied "carry on old chap!" The clues we are studying, the different indicias and price markings were done with common and inexpensive printing techniques... To what end they were done, we don't have a clue beyond England's needed a 9d price.