Aman619

Yep, it's the gray/blue color that everyone is talking about. Take a look at Action Comics #252 (almost a year earlier than B&B 28), and you see the same really bright blue on Superman on (most) issues and the (IMO less attractive) grayish-blue on others. I looked and I don't see the same variance as on BB28… some are darker because they may have more magenta/red ink, but Im not swearing to it. Neither blue looks like the same grayish ink on BB28 though.

Dont confuse me! Im now pretty convinced there are grey/blue covers out there!

wow. I didn't want to take the lead in this color strike discussion, but ended up explaining some details about printing and scanning to make my point. I stand by everything I said. But I must apologize. Because I missed the forest for the trees on this BB28 cover printing issue. Looking at the side by scans posted a few pages back, the overall difference to me was clearly that the one on the right was much yellower than the left image. I assumed that was what people were pointing to about the color strike when printed. But in creating an image to explain the 5% color shift in visible terms, I used the side by side covers to force the left half to match the right. And after adjusting ,oat of the cover on the left to match the right, they STILL looked different, and THATS when it hit me! The difference wasn't the overall yellow tone, it was the GREY vs BLUE cape on John Johnzz, and Aquaman's pants, and WWs panties. AND the word AMERICA in the logo. If thats what you guys were talking about, I completely missed it. The real problem is that there really are about 1 in 30 copies (according only a quick look at all copies sold on Heritage to date) that have a grayer (much less electric) blue ink than the rest. Ive noticed this duller blue before looking at comics printing, because it was hard to get my scans to exactly match the covers in hand (on 40s and 50s books) and can only assume that they used a different "cyan" ink mix from the modern day Cyan. It has to have been a different ink mix because these blue area on the covers were printed 100%; that is, not made of dots, just 100% ink color. Yes all inks can always be printed not "up-to-strength" and appear different, lighter, but it doesn't go from the blue of Johnzz cape to the almost slate grey as we are seeing on these BB28s. So, sorry guys for the misleading posts. I stand by my color theory etc, but looks to me now like someone on press ran out of CYAN and maybe swapped in a can of a different "cyan" ink. And since we know covers were printed 4 up to a page back then, Im curious to look at the other 3 covers on press at the same time for the same BLUE swap. Heres a link to al of DCs books that month. Only Adventure 269 looked like a candidate… but in this link, the BB28 is printed in blue so we can't judge by these sample images… perhaps 3 other covers here have alternate covers with different blues? http://www.dcindexes.com/features/timemachine.php?site=dc&year=1960&month=2&sort=alpha&type=cover&checklist=off

Cyan and yellow in combination. Too little cyan or too much yellow will appear more bright green. Too much cyan or less yellow will look more forest green or even bluish. But any yellow with cyan gets you a greenish tint. As for the grey vs blue sky, usually grey is just black dots, so it can never change color. Just get lighter or darker grey. But often, a light grey is made from even amounts of cyan yellow and even magenta mixed in. So the color can shift easily when one of these three inks gets laid down stronger or weaker by even a little, since a light sky would be made of 10/10/10 or 20/20/20 % of each ink. A 5% gain would be a big change to the eye.

yup. Ive scanned many books with noticeable folds and other defects visible from an angle under a light source (ahem, the way CGC looks at our books when grading them) that never appear in a scan of the cover sitting directly on the scanning bed. Scans catch color breaking creases and many stains etc, but not everything worth noticing.

primary ink colors? or ROYGBIV primary colors?

All printed objects are only an optical illusion. What our eyes see is rearly the blurring together of tiny blobs of one of only four ink colors. It will get confusing to try to explain it and I think most of you already are aware of the basics. On press though, the printers use a approved match print of what they are tasked to achieve on press. They start out by printing hundreds of sheets until the inks are full strength... Then they fine tune them , always comparing with the match print for tone and hue. Once they are ready, they lock in and roll the presses. But, even at that point, the ink levels can experience "gain" which cause a 20% sized dot to be printed heavier or lighter. In these cases, like the sky on BB28, if any of the inks takes over from the rest affecting the proportions of one to the other inks, we get a color shift like we are seeing here. That's how two identical comics in hand would appear to be printed in two different color schemes. We see it with deep purple covers all the time. Now, scanning issues: you take two identical comics in hand and scan each on a different scanner, you will get two different scanned images, depending on the scanners and also the software settings on each. We have all seen this. Scans are all over the map right out of the scanner, and too often we see over corrected scans too. There is no way to trust a scan of a comic that has not been scanned under optimal conditions AND then tweaked with the actual comic in hand in order to achieve a "perfect" image of it. And finally, however-- what I just said is a lie, because there is absolutely no way to achieve a scan that looks exactly like the comic in hand!! Too many extraneous factors at work, like the lighting in the room you are looking at the comic in, your monitors settings (that "perfect scan" was only perfect on the monitor the tweaked was tweaking it on. To see what that guy saw, you'd first need to match not only his settings and brightness, but probably buy the same exact monitor). But it's not possible mainly because eat life and monitors are using completely different science to create their colors we see. Printing is reflective, and is based on the CMYK gamut. The gamut means the entire spectrum of all POSSIBLE colors achievable from any combination of the four printing inks. As a reflective medium, light actually works differently in real life than a monitor, which emits light. Reflective light is subtractive; that is, white light hits an object and the object splits the light like a prism. It holds back all frequencies except the color it is made of. A monitor however, emits RGB from individual diodes that our eye adds up and sees the correct programmed) color based on what was emitted by each diode. RGB colors have a different gamut from CMYK. Many colors can look the same, but there are a significant number of shades that are impossible (IMPOSSIBLE) for both methods to reproduce. CMYK Colors are duller and darker than RGB. Anyway, mumbo jumbo... I know. Bottom line, the images we have seen of BB28 can be explained easily (even if I failed here!) if you try to understand how the images came to be, scientifically.... It happened during the press run, or in the scanning.

You're saying there are not two different colour schemes from the publisher? Absent any definitive record from Sparta or DC that there were two printings, yes, I'm saying that the color differences people are pointing to here are the result of different scanning setups and/or different ink levels on press that day. The light blue can shift easily by either of those issues from blue to grey and even a greenish tint.

makes sense in retrospect that she went from spoiled brat to well oiled fighting machine (in 6 weeks, but whatever) but did you figure that she was drugged? or turned bad?

that who I meant that we see walking to Ollies "dead" body. He's Ollies only friend in the League, sorta, whoo might disobey Ras. I like this Ras ok. Liam was too Western. This guy is "not western" but still a bit too thuggish to be the Great Ras Al Gul who has lived for centuries. Ra's is as godly in his mind as Doc Doom is. This actor isn't playing him big enough somehow. Maybe not trying to ham it up perhaps.

Wells may BE from the future, or maybe he can just access the internet of the future with his closet computer. Seems funny that he'd use a device that could read future newspapers… because if he's a time traveler, then why not just time travel and read them yourself? But I suppose he could be trapped here, necessitating the creation of a time traveling internet computer. (which makes no sense, but….)

Oh. I thought you were a comics writer back then. Haha.

wrote him? like a fan letter?

thanx. but I can't see a synopsis..

time travel is in the offing because they have the treadmill. SO far its just a test device, but sooner or later Barry will go so fast he will disappear into the future. Or Wells will manipulate it to become a time travel treadmill. Who invented it in the comics? can't remember... maybe!

yes, the crossovers are real comic book stuff gone real! As for Flash's costume, its still the leathery X-Men style as opposed to kool aid colored skin tight spandex (like comics) which, lets face it, nobody wants to see in live action. and Arrows hood is just as silly as Batmans cape. No way he can fight in it when 60% of his vision (up right and left) is blocked like that!

how about this as a prediction:

nobody ever has around here.

Agreed. Each week of TV is more amazing as to what we are getting to see. As for Capt Boomerang, and Weather Wizard, it's strikes me that these were such colorful fantastically unrealistic villains in the original comics. And it's a shame that they must now be portrayed "realistically" as mercs, and radiation altered freaks. But, I'd have to agree with the producers than the foppish and outlandish costumes and crimes from the early Flash issues would be more Pow Bam Batman than what audiences want today.

Sure. I get that. But it's a no brainer to disarm the bad guy if you can do it .

Well, they slotted these films years out in the future to grab specific opening dates. Once planted, why wouldn't they leave themselves as much time as possible to craft the film after shooting? Giving the CGI shop more time keeps the price lower than last minute crunch overtime... More time is always better than less with so much at stake. It's no longer the case that a film gets released ASAP after completion. Releases are mapped out years in advance for summer tent poles and production is scheduled accordingly.

I've git a major problem with Flash and Arrow battling Boomerang at the train station. Instead of super speeding all the civilians away, Barry should have super speeded all Boomerangs boomerangs off his costume, no? He still would have had the bomb detonator, but they didn't know about that yet, better to just disarm him. For that matter, why not just run Boomie into a jail cell or to Star Labs? Like he did the other guy in the same episode? Flash could have done a million things more effective in. Second that whisking the people away.

Reviews are a dime a dozen nowadays. Especially online. And when talking about the success or failure of a show it's the ratings that matter, not the "critics". Ask any film studio if they'd rather have a badly reviewed billion dollar film release or a critics darling that cost more than it grossed. And even winning a Best Picture Oscar doesn't make up the difference anymore.

Haha. But even Vintage is buying the alternate cover theory too!