Turtle Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Can anybody shine some light on exactly what this is?: Ebay: TMNT #1 Negatives Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisFB Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 (edited) here's the photo of the Gold with multiple covers, it goes Gold -> Silver -> Regular. The silver cover is not signed/numbered also, I'm including this photo, it shows a few bags/boards that the comics came in... All comics in this group have this same description, "display only" and then the details of the comic. In addition, all comics look like they signed by Eastman (and half by Laird) at the same time, all dated '85 and the sigs/ink all look identical (like they were done one after another). This all has me wonder if these were actually part of the display of a dealer, or maybe even on display at the Turtlemania event (hence my question for photos of the event in a past post). Just a theory... FYI - I have the silver copy that belongs to this set (same locking mylar, blue/white backer, and labeling) and know the origin. These books came from Topic Comics in Ft. Lauderdale back in the 1980s. They were all on display. I bought my Silver from the collection #63/100 and now that I look at it they peeled off the "For Display Only" sticker above the others as there is still some residue. I think the store was off Sunrise. They had a great display collection at the height of the independent comics book with everything displayed and labeled on the walls. I can't speak to the Turtlemania event but from what I gather Golds went to people who knew what they were doing and it's not a stretch to think the #1 was unique among the 10 copies as the "limited prints" were a big deal with collectors back then. White copies were frequently seen on sale (stacks of them) at South Florida stores. A store in West Palm Beach had them for 6 months just sitting there from what I recall. BTW - my book has hardly ever been out of the mylar since I bought it from Topic's shelves. That said the spine split a bit over time which I've seen on at least one other silver copy. I imagine this has to do with the paper stock and I guess the silver paper has issues. None of my whites have had this nor any others I've seen. First attempt at posting and sharing a photo. Fingers crossed. Edited December 14, 2014 by ChrisFB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nriccijr Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nriccijr Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 (edited) I haven't the slightest idea.......maybe send a message to Pete via his blog or Kevin via FB?? Edited December 14, 2014 by nriccijr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted December 15, 2014 Share Posted December 15, 2014 Can anybody shine some light on exactly what this is?: Ebay: TMNT #1 Negatives I have no idea. I didn't see the inside front cover as part of the negatives which would indicate which printing this might have been from. Cool stuff but hard to verify authenticity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kaylab Posted December 15, 2014 Share Posted December 15, 2014 FYI - I have the silver copy that belongs to this set (same locking mylar, blue/white backer, and labeling) and know the origin. These books came from Topic Comics in Ft. Lauderdale back in the 1980s. They were all on display. I bought my Silver from the collection #63/100 and now that I look at it they peeled off the "For Display Only" sticker above the others as there is still some residue. I think the store was off Sunrise. They had a great display collection at the height of the independent comics book with everything displayed and labeled on the walls. I can't speak to the Turtlemania event but from what I gather Golds went to people who knew what they were doing and it's not a stretch to think the #1 was unique among the 10 copies as the "limited prints" were a big deal with collectors back then. White copies were frequently seen on sale (stacks of them) at South Florida stores. A store in West Palm Beach had them for 6 months just sitting there from what I recall. BTW - my book has hardly ever been out of the mylar since I bought it from Topic's shelves. That said the spine split a bit over time which I've seen on at least one other silver copy. I imagine this has to do with the paper stock and I guess the silver paper has issues. None of my whites have had this nor any others I've seen. First attempt at posting and sharing a photo. Fingers crossed. Wow!! Thank you soo much for shinning some light on the background of the TMNT collection I have! This is very cool to see/know, as it really does explain a number of things. I'll be in touch with some follow up questions, but it was really cool to see this post and have that "ah hah" moment. Thank you! bk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silverdream Posted December 15, 2014 Share Posted December 15, 2014 (edited) Can anybody shine some light on exactly what this is?: Ebay: TMNT #1 Negatives I have no idea. I didn't see the inside front cover as part of the negatives which would indicate which printing this might have been from. Cool stuff but hard to verify authenticity. +1 I am intrigued however. I don't know anything about this. Even if it is from one of the various reprints and not the 1st printing ( whats there now, about 15 of them total? Counting tales of, all the reprints, FCBD and so on. Heck this could be the negatives from the counterfeit production ), if its real $900 was probably a steal. Edited December 15, 2014 by Silverdream Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CODLIVE Posted December 15, 2014 Share Posted December 15, 2014 I was going through some TMNT Adventures books today and came across Special #8 from 1994 the cover has the turtles on a dragon (?) chasing the KKK, I just wanted to know from the local turtles historians if there was any blow back from this? Considering it is a kids book published under the Archie banner I was more than a little surprised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrisFB Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 Wow!! Thank you soo much for shinning some light on the background of the TMNT collection I have! This is very cool to see/know, as it really does explain a number of things. I'll be in touch with some follow up questions, but it was really cool to see this post and have that "ah hah" moment. Thank you! bk No problem at all and my pleasure. That store had a fabulous collection and I always wondered what happened to that gold copy (should have bought that too!). It was great to see them all still together and people even kept the original mylars and boards just like I did! I actually touched base via email with Archon-Turtle (?) years ago when people started looking for these books. If I remember right no one had found a gold at that point and I let him know they absolutely existed and were likely in older collectors hands as I had seen one (your copy) and got my silver from that shop. Today I wonder what happened to the silvers as the Golds were never available to circulate but even on CGC there are very few silvers for 100 books. Maybe they trashed them as unsaleable or something. Hard to imagine but demand for these was nowhere until E&L added the info to their site. Anyway, I've been meaning to post this for months and finally got to it the other day. I have some travel and work this week but I free up nicely after that. Happy to connect and share whatever info I have. This was a great collection and I actually even showed your picture to my mother as I was still a decently young kid and she's the only reason I got the Silver copy but she remembered the shop and everything. As an aside there was a guy who was involved in some way with the book (Don Orpalo or something). He did a hand colored cover on a white copy for me and signed it. I can't remember and that book is back in Florida. Probably worth no more than a white but he did a number at a convention and I've never seen those show up either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turtle Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 Can anybody shine some light on exactly what this is?: Ebay: TMNT #1 Negatives I have no idea. I didn't see the inside front cover as part of the negatives which would indicate which printing this might have been from. Cool stuff but hard to verify authenticity. +1 I am intrigued however. I don't know anything about this. Even if it is from one of the various reprints and not the 1st printing ( whats there now, about 15 of them total? Counting tales of, all the reprints, FCBD and so on. Heck this could be the negatives from the counterfeit production ), if its real $900 was probably a steal. I don't know a ton about comic book production, but I didn't know negatives played any role in it. In any case, Rich is correct about the authenticity being tough to guarantee. What's to stop me from taking any of my first 3 printings, taking hi-res scans of each interior page, give it a negative filter, and printing them out? Are negatives part of the normal comic book production process. Please, someone educate me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 I don't know a ton about comic book production, but I didn't know negatives played any role in it. In any case, Rich is correct about the authenticity being tough to guarantee. What's to stop me from taking any of my first 3 printings, taking hi-res scans of each interior page, give it a negative filter, and printing them out? Are negatives part of the normal comic book production process. Please, someone educate me. I worked in the printing industry (back in the 90's) and negatives were used in the production of the final printing plates themselves. I found this article a few days back that appears to describe a lot of what I saw going on in and around the press room. I wasn't directly involved in the printing process though so I am only able to go from memory of what I saw happening. I also found this online regarding offset printing (which is how nearly everything was printed in the past 30 years before digital presses). "...an image is shot onto film and a full-sized negative is used to burn that image onto a thin metal sheet. The metal plate is then attached to a rotating cylinder on the printing press and inked by roller (that part has never changed). The cylinder continues to roll and the inked surface of the plate is then transferred onto a rubber mat on another cylinder, which then continues to rotate and offsets the image onto paper. Instead of sheets, this paper comes from one continuous roll." So, these negatives could have definitely been used to print a version of TMNT #1 (1st, 2nd, 3rd, counterfeit). However, these could have come from anyone with access to offset printing technology and they could have just been created but never used to create the actual printing plates. The negative for the inside front cover would be the first indication of which printing but, even then, someone could just make those after the fact from the real book and produce counterfeits. The TMNT #1 (and #2) counterfeits were no easy feat. I've always believed they came from someone in the printing industry. You don't just photocopy newsprint...they were good knock-offs. Very cool stuff though. Fun to be talking about at least. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Turtle Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 Thanks for the info, Rich. In your experience, were these negatives ever put on any type of special medium? A specific type of board or paper? Anything that could lead someone to believe these were, in fact, authentic? Do printing companies have official "letterhead", for lack of a better term? Authentic or not, the negatives did look pretty cool. I may get some scans, turn them negative, and blow them up for decorative purposes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted December 16, 2014 Share Posted December 16, 2014 Thanks for the info, Rich. In your experience, were these negatives ever put on any type of special medium? A specific type of board or paper? Anything that could lead someone to believe these were, in fact, authentic? Do printing companies have official "letterhead", for lack of a better term? Authentic or not, the negatives did look pretty cool. I may get some scans, turn them negative, and blow them up for decorative purposes. I seem to remember the negatives being placed on some type of paper or board but I don't remember if there was a logo or any type of company marker on them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChadH Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 Looks like it's back again...too bad it's not a set. Gobbledygook #1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 Looks like it's back again...too bad it's not a set. I was thinking the same when I saw it...where is #2? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dupont2005 Posted December 17, 2014 Share Posted December 17, 2014 Those negatives would look cool on a tee shirt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMNT Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Can anybody shine some light on exactly what this is?: Ebay: TMNT #1 Negatives So I just picked these up They are sitting in the passenger seat of my car as I speak. More to come soon but I can say that the original owner bought them at an estate sale 30 years ago... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rich_TMNT Posted December 18, 2014 Share Posted December 18, 2014 Can anybody shine some light on exactly what this is?: Ebay: TMNT #1 Negatives So I just picked these up They are sitting in the passenger seat of my car as I speak. More to come soon but I can say that the original owner bought them at an estate sale 30 years ago... Some interesting info. I went to my company's print shop and asked about what these might have been used for. They said these were almost definitely used at some point in the production of a comic book (and that negatives would fit with the processes used back in the 80s). They also said that the way they were laid out is another good sign they were something of significance. However, they cautioned that printers can go through numerous sets of these negatives on the road to final production plates...the plates being what the presses use to print the comic book. They also said that, while all print shops differ in procedure, that many printers give back the final negatives to the owner after the final print run (although very large print shops might store them on file for years). One guy said that his previous shop never allowed employees to take discarded (or unused) negatives home, especially with copyrighted material. He also mentioned that his shop destroyed old negatives when the original owner couldn't be found. Anyway, one thing they recommended to determine their use was to compare them very carefully to an actual final comic book (of course, being able to determine 1st, 2nd, 3rd printing would be the first hurdle). They said to look for areas in the negatives (artwork, words, and shading) that differ from the printed book. Differences could indicate that a given negative was not the one approved for the final book (and was a negative used in one of the unapproved proof copies). Also, missing negatives could indicate that these were not the final negatives. One other thing they mentioned was to look for writing on the paper around the negatives which might give clues to approval of the image or instructions of what might need to be fixed. I also asked whether missing negatives for the outside and inside cover would indicate anything. They said that it's very common for covers to be on a different paper stock (which TMNT #1 was) and so those images were likely kept separate from this set of negatives. I couldn't tell from the eBay listing if there were images for the outside and inside front/back...at least there were no pictures of them. Hope that helps. Looking forward to hearing what you find out about these. Do we know the name of the print shop E&L used for 1st, 2nd, 3rd printings? It could be they are out of business now but that might be a cool place to investigate. Keep us updated! So glad these are in good hands. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sofistocat Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 I can't find the source right now, but am 99% sure the first couple of issues had the covers and interior pages printed by different printing companies and then bound by a third company. This may not be true fro the first issue since it was the maiden voyage. And PL recently posted in his blog that he went somewhere in NH to pick up the first 3275 issues of #1. I want to say one of the printing companies(I think the interiors pages printer) was named "New Dutchess prinitng" or something and was in upstate NY. I would say as long as the negatives are dated being 30 years old, they have a high probability of being production negatives, just not sure which prinitng. They could have been used for all three since all you would of had to do was resize the negative. I presume the first and second printings were so close to each other they were done in the same fashion and probably at the same printing company/s. Since he's been posting his "Snippets" blog posts that talk about the origins of the comic and how it came to be, It might not hurt to ask PL about the process of how the first issue was printed(step-by-step explanation...), might shed light to all of these thoughts. Nonetheless they're a great pickup. Having the corresponding Eastman pencil pre-lim and negative pages would be pretty cool! Good Job Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMNT Posted December 19, 2014 Share Posted December 19, 2014 Some great info, guys! It does make sense that they would go through numerous sets of negatives on the way to the final one, but I can't help but think that if ANY were going to be kept after the fact, esp. from some brand new weird comic book, that only the final ones would be kept. I haven't had a chance to really did in, but I did verify that all 40 pages are present (woohoo!). And yes, only the interiors since the covers were done seperately. What's funny is the lady I picked these up from, she showed up in this old beat up blue station wagon that could'nt have been any newer than 1994. She really was clueless about what she had but when I pressed for some info, any info, she says "well all I know is that he bought about 30 years ago while he was living up north". At that point, I just KNEW I was on to something. And considering I paid about $23 a page for this... Anyways, Ill post more info on them and I'll go through them more this weekend, get some better images, and post em up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
