A question for those who know about the printing process

[s-man]

Can someone please explain (in laymans terms) how OA is used to make comics? I have no knowledge about the printing process and am trying to figure out how they take images drawn in ink on a comic art board and transfer them onto a comics pages.

 

Not sure if this subject has been explained here before, if it was I could not find it..

[Beau]

Computer scans. One of my friends is a published comic artist, and his OA has never left his hands, even though his publisher is across the country. Just imagine your computer printer on a grand scale.

[s-man]

So the artist draws it up and scans it for the publisher and the publisher takes that scan and what? Adds color and words and such? Then makes a final scan and that is what gets printed into the books?

[rtecbot]

penciled->scaned->inked->scaned->colored->scaned->publisher

then there are those who mail instead of scan

[Doctor Svord]

penciled->scaned->inked->scaned->colored->scaned->publisher

then there are those who mail instead of scan

 

Nice one.

 

Back in the old days (1993), as far as I knew, it was - penciled - publisher, lettered -publisher, inked-publisher, colored - publisher.

 

Those pages did a lot of traveling. And when they shipped them back to you they'd flatten a Priority Mail box, throw the pages in, tape it shut, slap a label on it, and off it went. It's amazing that they arrived in one piece.

 

I don't know if they were scanning at that point (they probably were), but if not, they were most likely using an old school camera stand technique. Dice-X or Ze-man (they're printers, right?) could probably tell you more about that whole process.

[DiceX]

You might trouble yourself to read this thread.

 

Here's one post that specifically addresses your question, and there's probably more in there...

 

Here's an abridged version of how it was done. And I'll skip the part of penciler/inker/colorist because most people understand how the art was done.

 

1) The original artwork arrives at the printer where it is reduced to comic size by shooting it with a very large horizontal camera.

2) The image is now on a piece of film in negative form.

3) The film and color instructions are matched up by a "stripper" to begin his job of putting color into the negative. (Note that the "color instructions" are what the colorist painted up with Dr. Martin watercolors, and are often seen sold on eBay)

4) The stripper takes a clear piece of mylar and begins the tedious task of masking out every single area by various methods. This was known as "Flatting".

5) The stripper makes a separate *hand cut* mask for every different color seen on the page. For instance, there was a mask for the light blue in Spidey's costume. It might also have a few other spots on it that had the same exact light blue in other areas of the page. Another for the dark blues. Another for the light reds. Medium reds. Dark reds. And so on. This process took hours per page to complete. On complicated pages it's possible it took 24 hours plus of hand work on some individual pages.

6) Now that the flatting is done, he can begin to compose the images into the four negatives needed for printing. (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black (or Key as it is called in the printing world))

7) The stripper has four unexposed pieces of film. One for each color. He takes the piece used for the black and pins it in a vacuum exposure frame. Then he sorts through his pile of multiple masks and exposes each one, one at a time, onto the piece of raw film. Note that the black will contain the line art, plus multiple other screen values and gradients with other masks that contain black ink.

8) Once this color has been composed, he can then move on to do the same thing for each of the remaining 3 colors. One color could take upwards of 5 to 10+ minutes plus to expose.

9) Now that the four colors have been composed into 4 pieces of film, they need to be proofed. To proof the page was to take the colors and create a full color representation of what the printed page would look like. Often at this point the stripper would check his work and notice he made a mistake on an element in the page. This could be a minor mistake that would only take him 30 minutes to repair, or could send him back to work the page up from scratch.

10) After an acceptable proof has been produced, the printer packs them up and mails them to the editor. The editor would look them over and make corrections that were stripper errors, or he could possibly completely change it because it didn't turn out the way it had originally been envisioned.

11) The proofs are returned with corrections noted... that again, could be nothing, or could cause the page to be completely redone.

This process took weeks to complete for a book. Obviously the strippers were working on other comics while waiting on the corrections to return, so it was a daily grind.

 

Once everything was acceptable, the pages were laid out on a grid to be exposed onto the printing plates. The plates in the old days were crude and not very quality minded.

The theory back then was to print comics.

Print LOTS of comics as quickly as possible.

 

 

 

Ok...fast forward to present day.

Now comics are colored quickly (by the COLORIST) on a computer, underneath the quickly scanned lineart and a file is created for each page.

That file is color separated inside a computer and digitally imaged with a laser directly onto plates that are FAR superior to the plates of old.

 

Note that this is how comics were produced prior to computers speeding the process up in the early/mid 90's. Now comic pages are scanned and colored with Photoshop, then imaged directly onto the plate with a computer. No film needed.

 

 

[Bosco685]

Note that this is how comics were produced prior to computers speeding the process up in the early/mid 90's. Now comic pages are scanned and colored with Photoshop, then imaged directly onto the plate with a computer. No film needed.

Dang! That is some educational reading.

[VintageComics]

Note that this is how comics were produced prior to computers speeding the process up in the early/mid 90's. Now comic pages are scanned and colored with Photoshop, then imaged directly onto the plate with a computer. No film needed.

Dang! That is some educational reading.

 

Yeah, like any mascot Dice has his uses.

 

 

[Bosco685]

Note that this is how comics were produced prior to computers speeding the process up in the early/mid 90's. Now comic pages are scanned and colored with Photoshop, then imaged directly onto the plate with a computer. No film needed.

Dang! That is some educational reading.

 

Yeah, like any mascot Dice has his uses.

 

 

[markseifert]

Now comic pages are scanned and colored with Photoshop, then imaged directly onto the plate with a computer. No film needed.

 

Many (most?) large commercial printers don't even use plates anymore.

 

This process has changed substantially since I've been doing it. When we started we were getting film done locally to send to the printer to create plates... and using syquest cartridges to move stuff around. Now we just upload a pdf and proof it in their system.

[the blob]

wow, the printing process was really labor intensive in olden times. a lot of union jobs that have now gone kapoot. though i guess the modern techniques allow more material to be more easily published much cheaper with less overhead costs in more locations. if more people still cared these really could be boom times for printed sequential art and stories.

[Ze-man]

I posted this youtube video awhile ago, it gives a glimpse into the press facility where comics(among other magazines) were printed.

 

But the video is no longer hosted. Anybody save it?

 

Thread about Sparta Press Tour.

[innocuous]

Related: just this week I got a quick lesson on some of the new digital presses and the technology in the next few years will make it even easier to print, once the digital costs come down.

 

Think about all that junk mail you get printed on postcards with your name in a fancy font. Customized comic books for subscribers.

[PovertyRow]

Note that this is how comics were produced prior to computers speeding the process up in the early/mid 90's. Now comic pages are scanned and colored with Photoshop, then imaged directly onto the plate with a computer. No film needed.

 

 

Dice that took me back to the 80's. Remember those Kokomo filters we used to burn the flats?

 

I left just as computerized pre-press was getting hot. I spent a few days at Sytek (sp?) checking out their scanners and stripping machines. Was actually able to assemble the core of a 12 page 4-c sales circular and I never stripped flats before (I was QC and Prod manager).

 

The idea of no stippling and no opaquing alone is worth the computerized method!

[Aman619]

what was in that brown stuff you slathered on film for years, anyway?

[Weird Paper]

Now comic pages are scanned and colored with Photoshop, then imaged directly onto the plate with a computer. No film needed.

 

Many (most?) large commercial printers don't even use plates anymore.

 

This process has changed substantially since I've been doing it. When we started we were getting film done locally to send to the printer to create plates... and using syquest cartridges to move stuff around. Now we just upload a pdf and proof it in their system.

The current trend splits the industry between on-demand toner-based printing on steroid-fueled Xeroxes and direct-to-plate ink presses. The future trend will see both on-demand and ink presses re-converge under systems that will be the equivalent of super high speed ink jet printers. The four-color process will become more a tool for mixing colors than one for separating them. The CMYK convention may eventually completely fall by the wayside as these inkjet printers will have between 8 and source colors from which to mix.

[Weird Paper]

what was in that brown stuff you slathered on film for years, anyway?

Rubylith?

[DiceX]

That old water based opaque that you slathered on with a brush was kind of brown.

 

 

[Junkdrawer]

depending on how many colors you are printing will determine how many plates are needed. 4 color process can give the appeance of a multitude of colors by using "cmyk" (cyan magenta yellow & black) however some low budget productions like a TMNT #1 was B/W in the interior pages printed 2 sided on a sheet fed press (web presses are for very large runs). the cover was printed in 2 colors, back and maroon on a coated white chrome stock, also sheet fed on a 2 color press. the cover more than likely made one pass through 2 color press that had 2 plates (1 for each color). then the cover and pages are collated and binded.

the cover art board looked similar to what you see, just black and white, then a sheet of rubylith is placed over the art board and with an exacto knife peices are cut away, thus leaving the spots intended to be maroon. in the printing process the maroon would get printed first and then the black, trapping the color. this process is spot color offset printing and you generally see upto 4 different colors, but with percentage screens in place of rubylith you can make green from blue and yellow. hulk #1 was spot printed as well as most early comics.

when an artist completes a work of art to be lithoed in a 4 color process it needs to be shot with a graphic arts camera with special filters and in the end results you would have a 4' x 5" transparancy and then it needs to be color seperated into 4 seperate negatives (i for each color, remember cmyk?) now the plates can be burned and mounted to the press, perhaps a heidleberg 5 color press, this press would print the book 1 side at a time in 1 pass and include a varnish coat, then off to the bindery.

today its all digital and the process is done with pretty much the same end results and arguably better quality, however the equiptment is big bucks to produce shot runs of vibrant color. there is actually no more camera room these days, images go direct to a plate right from the computer.

[PovertyRow]

what was in that brown stuff you slathered on film for years, anyway?

Rubylith?

 

The brown (actually reddish) was called "opaque". Kinf of a thickish paint. Rubylith is a clear deep red plastic that blocks the light. Red (at leats in my day) bocked the light so if the final negatives had scratches etc. you could paint them over with opaque and they would not be exposed on the printing plate.

 

If you look at old original art you will cee a lot of light blue notatgions etc. The light blue was invisible to the "stat camera" (photostat) that was used to make negative from the black line/black type boards (called "mechanicals").