Susan Cicconi

[Davenport]

 

As to your point of painting and infilling improving the beauty of a book...well that depends. (PERSONAL OPINION ALERT!) For my tastes until a restorer can match the dot matrix pattern used on most golden age books I can't get past it. If I can see where the original ends and the restoration color starts then I automatically am turned off. I appreciate the work but I can't consider it beautification. In almost every instance I say the less color the better. But again, that is just me.

 

I agree. I really think it's possible to do this given current technology.

 

I know that Matt does it because he did it on my Amazing Fantasy #15 a few years ago, and that was before Kenny started working with him. It's not executed perfectly, but the dot pattern is there.

 

The tricky part would be doing it with colors, because the colors on comic covers are not solid colors - they're mixtures of cyan/magenta/yellow. It would be really hard to do three overlays of a dot pattern with the exact amount of each color of acrylic paint to match the original ink layers.

 

Cool, do you have scans by chance?

 

I was thinking that actually having it done by computer, though, rather than with acrylics. You should be able to scan the cover into a program, replicate the color & pattern exactly, and print over the infilled areas when the cover is still flat prior to reassembly. That would make for better matching.

 

 

That's probably the best way to match the color and dot pattern, if you have an extremely high resolution, high quality scanner and a high end inkjet printer that accepts larger paper sizes. You'd get the three layers of color plus the black layer that way (because inkjets use CMYK), so as long as it would print accurately, it would work.

 

The problem you're left with then is that inkjet colors are water-soluble, which would make it difficult to resize the book afterward to smooth out the texture. There is probably a fixative available to apply over it to prevent it from running, but I haven't investigated it so I don't know for sure. It's probably worth a look though.

You guys a scaring me. Rosette pattern obsession may lead to the nuthouse. Just sayin'

 

For some jobs I wonder why not just make a high quality cover replica to slip the book into. That way you could do the leaf-casting paper repair and stop there, please the eye with an unattached outer cover wrap.

 

I do that for some coverless books. But, then again, I replicate whole books just to fool my eye and thrill my soul. (and if I start dreaming rosette patterns, trust me, I'm done. )

 

 

 

 

[buttock]

 

As to your point of painting and infilling improving the beauty of a book...well that depends. (PERSONAL OPINION ALERT!) For my tastes until a restorer can match the dot matrix pattern used on most golden age books I can't get past it. If I can see where the original ends and the restoration color starts then I automatically am turned off. I appreciate the work but I can't consider it beautification. In almost every instance I say the less color the better. But again, that is just me.

 

I agree. I really think it's possible to do this given current technology.

 

I know that Matt does it because he did it on my Amazing Fantasy #15 a few years ago, and that was before Kenny started working with him. It's not executed perfectly, but the dot pattern is there.

 

The tricky part would be doing it with colors, because the colors on comic covers are not solid colors - they're mixtures of cyan/magenta/yellow. It would be really hard to do three overlays of a dot pattern with the exact amount of each color of acrylic paint to match the original ink layers.

 

Cool, do you have scans by chance?

 

I was thinking that actually having it done by computer, though, rather than with acrylics. You should be able to scan the cover into a program, replicate the color & pattern exactly, and print over the infilled areas when the cover is still flat prior to reassembly. That would make for better matching.

 

 

That's probably the best way to match the color and dot pattern, if you have an extremely high resolution, high quality scanner and a high end inkjet printer that accepts larger paper sizes. You'd get the three layers of color plus the black layer that way (because inkjets use CMYK), so as long as it would print accurately, it would work.

 

The problem you're left with then is that inkjet colors are water-soluble, which would make it difficult to resize the book afterward to smooth out the texture. There is probably a fixative available to apply over it to prevent it from running, but I haven't investigated it so I don't know for sure. It's probably worth a look though.

 

I don't know the ins & outs of it, but the inks on posters that we have printed for presentations at society meetings don't run, and they are glossy (which may be why they don't run). But those printers are probably tens of thousands of dollars. Seems like if we called one of those specialty graphics/printer shops they would be able to clarify this.

[rockman2008]

Right. I'm thinking more of high-end lithography. The equipment does cost upwards in the five figures. You can never get any registration or precision from ink jet printers and laser jets which generally have unstable inks and limits on the kinds of paper to use.

 

One time I investigated having the top logo of a 2/3 Bat cover printed (assuming that it was leaf casted properly). The cost to have the 1/3 section (including pre-press) turned out to be around $800 from a professional printer...and he told me he can print up to 3,000 copies of the thing at that price, .

[FFB]

Right. I'm thinking more of high-end lithography. The equipment does cost upwards in the five figures. You can never get any registration or precision from ink jet printers and laser jets which generally have unstable inks and limits on the kinds of paper to use.

 

Is that true of the HP DesignJet printers? Those look pretty robust. If you could get the area of loss scanned in and color calibrated properly, and get the paper lined up properly so that the printer prints only on the areas of loss that have been leafcasted, I can't see why it wouldn't work. The quality on those printers is supposed to be stunning and they can take all kinds and sizes of paper. The DesignJets are expensive ($1,000 to $5,500), but not as expensive as what you're talking about.

 

I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

[rockman2008]

I really don't know much about HP printers and I'm not in the graphic design business. Sorry.

[FFB]

I wonder if anyone reading this thread has access to a nice HP DesignJet printer? Might be fun to test out the theory.

 

 

 

 

(This reminds me of the PM discussions I had with Kenny a few years ago to coax him to try leafcasting.)

[rockman2008]

>> I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

 

Why not? It's not like the casted portion needs to be soaked thruout. The page is dampened for a short period of time when inks are applied.

 

Now you've made me download an HP DesignJet printer brochure out of curiosity. Is it true to achieve water resistance in the HP Vivera inks you must match it up with the types of papers HP recommends? So how do you resize without bleeds when the casted paper doesn't have the same properties as HP paper?

[FFB]

>> I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

 

Why not? It's not like the casted portion needs to be soaked thruout. The page is dampened for a short period of time when inks are applied.

 

Not so much because you couldn't hit a discrete spot on a page with it - more because inpainting typically requires you to hit several spots on the page with it. The thought of making four plates to reink several missing areas of color, then trying to get a single comic book cover to line up perfectly with the inked areas on the four printing plates just seems too complicated, expensive, and problem riddled to be worth the trouble.

 

Now you've made me download an HP DesignJet printer brochure out of curiosity. Is it true to achieve water resistance in the HP Vivera inks you must match it up with the types of papers HP recommends? So how do you resize without bleeds when the casted paper doesn't have the same properties as HP paper?

 

I don't know how to deal with the water soluble issue. I don't even own an inkjet printer.

 

But it looks interesting, doesn't it? Scan the areas of loss, match them up with a scan of the same cover to recreate only the areas of loss, make sure the color saturation, etc., are correct on a sample of similar paper, then print over the areas of loss after lining up the comic cover so that only the leaf casted areas of loss get printed on.

 

Probably a lot faster than inpainting by hand if you can get it all lined up right.

[rockman2008]

>> I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

 

Why not? It's not like the casted portion needs to be soaked thruout. The page is dampened for a short period of time when inks are applied.

 

Not so much because you couldn't hit a discrete spot on a page with it - more because inpainting typically requires you to hit several spots on the page with it. The thought of making four plates to reink several missing areas of color, then trying to get a single comic book cover to line up perfectly with the inked areas on the four printing plates just seems too complicated, expensive, and problem riddled to be worth the trouble.

 

And that's what the pre-press system is for: to create the "four plates" by computer. The discrete areas to be hit have dot patterns. The areas that shouldn't be hit are masked out (blank). On the plate edges you have markers to ensure registration when the plates are overlayed on paper. The results are simulated on a computer. You make it sound like humans have to re-invent pre-press by hand. Of course, my mini-project was printing a Batman logo over a relatively large area, but it's the same concept.

 

I would guess with DesignJet printers the registration issue is even more imprecise. These printers weren't designed for the purpose you're suggesting.

 

 

[*paull*]

>> I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

 

Why not? It's not like the casted portion needs to be soaked thruout. The page is dampened for a short period of time when inks are applied.

 

Not so much because you couldn't hit a discrete spot on a page with it - more because inpainting typically requires you to hit several spots on the page with it. The thought of making four plates to reink several missing areas of color, then trying to get a single comic book cover to line up perfectly with the inked areas on the four printing plates just seems too complicated, expensive, and problem riddled to be worth the trouble.

 

And that's what the pre-press system is for: to create the "four plates" by computer.

 

I think the registration required for aligning the existing print pattern with the newly printed ink would require a level of accuracy that would be very difficult to attain. On a leaf-casted page, new dots would have to match up exactly with existing dots on a border between the two areas. If there is half of a dot on the original page, the newly printed half has to exactly match up with the other half on the original. And not only one dot, but every dot on that border corresponding to all the color plates.

[Aman619]

is the idea to lace a restored cover into a HP printer and line it up exactly to add teh dots over the painted/filled areas?

[FFB]

is the idea to lace a restored cover into a HP printer and line it up exactly to add teh dots over the painted/filled areas?

 

No, it's to line up the unpainted filled areas with the area to be printed by the printer, to avoid having to do any painting at all. Think it could work? If anyone would know, you would.

[VintageComics]

>> I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

 

Why not? It's not like the casted portion needs to be soaked thruout. The page is dampened for a short period of time when inks are applied.

 

Not so much because you couldn't hit a discrete spot on a page with it - more because inpainting typically requires you to hit several spots on the page with it. The thought of making four plates to reink several missing areas of color, then trying to get a single comic book cover to line up perfectly with the inked areas on the four printing plates just seems too complicated, expensive, and problem riddled to be worth the trouble.

 

And that's what the pre-press system is for: to create the "four plates" by computer.

 

I think the registration required for aligning the existing print pattern with the newly printed ink would require a level of accuracy that would be very difficult to attain. On a leaf-casted page, new dots would have to match up exactly with existing dots on a border between the two areas. If there is half of a dot on the original page, the newly printed half has to exactly match up with the other half on the original. And not only one dot, but every dot on that border corresponding to all the color plates.

 

Once somebody does that it will make color touch that much more difficult to detect.

 

 

[MR.COMICBOOK]

so where can one take lessons to learn how to restore? I live in Massachsetts. I only have time to learn in the summer or january.seriously I want to learn the craft.

[Hero Restoration]

Cambridge ?

[FFB]

>> I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

 

Why not? It's not like the casted portion needs to be soaked thruout. The page is dampened for a short period of time when inks are applied.

 

Not so much because you couldn't hit a discrete spot on a page with it - more because inpainting typically requires you to hit several spots on the page with it. The thought of making four plates to reink several missing areas of color, then trying to get a single comic book cover to line up perfectly with the inked areas on the four printing plates just seems too complicated, expensive, and problem riddled to be worth the trouble.

 

And that's what the pre-press system is for: to create the "four plates" by computer.

 

I think the registration required for aligning the existing print pattern with the newly printed ink would require a level of accuracy that would be very difficult to attain. On a leaf-casted page, new dots would have to match up exactly with existing dots on a border between the two areas. If there is half of a dot on the original page, the newly printed half has to exactly match up with the other half on the original. And not only one dot, but every dot on that border corresponding to all the color plates.

 

Once somebody does that it will make color touch that much more difficult to detect.

 

 

No matter how good the book looks in hand, if the thing was beat up enough to need leaf casting and major inpainting, it isn't going to fool anyone who knows what restoration looks like.

[TrippyMcSkippy-migration]

Someone should give me credit..I started this thread even though I was slightly buzzed...

[TheShadowKnows]

Someone should give me credit..I started this thread even though I was slightly buzzed...

Ill give you credit for bringing the term "nancy boy"to the forefront

[VintageComics]

>> I can't see lithography being used to recolor part of a leafcasted page.

 

Why not? It's not like the casted portion needs to be soaked thruout. The page is dampened for a short period of time when inks are applied.

 

Not so much because you couldn't hit a discrete spot on a page with it - more because inpainting typically requires you to hit several spots on the page with it. The thought of making four plates to reink several missing areas of color, then trying to get a single comic book cover to line up perfectly with the inked areas on the four printing plates just seems too complicated, expensive, and problem riddled to be worth the trouble.

 

And that's what the pre-press system is for: to create the "four plates" by computer.

 

I think the registration required for aligning the existing print pattern with the newly printed ink would require a level of accuracy that would be very difficult to attain. On a leaf-casted page, new dots would have to match up exactly with existing dots on a border between the two areas. If there is half of a dot on the original page, the newly printed half has to exactly match up with the other half on the original. And not only one dot, but every dot on that border corresponding to all the color plates.

 

Once somebody does that it will make color touch that much more difficult to detect.

 

 

No matter how good the book looks in hand, if the thing was beat up enough to need leaf casting and major inpainting, it isn't going to fool anyone who knows what restoration looks like.

 

Obviously.

 

 

I was talking about the type of color touch that makes a 9.2/9.4 into a 9.8.

 

 

[chromium]

Someone should give me credit..I started this thread even though I was slightly buzzed...

Ill give you credit for bringing the term "nancy boy"to the forefront