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Eerie #1 Expert Needed
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246 posts in this topic

On 8/15/2021 at 6:42 PM, oakman29 said:

That might put some credibility to the story that Warren wanted to push the first prints out quickly to establish the copyright. Also for the 2nd prints that they were indeed printed at the Warren facility by a employee as was  presumed. 

Yes, for sure. It makes sense.

That's another "reward" for getting to the bottom of this (determining what a real copy should look like/measure), besides feeling good about authenticity. If there were some rock solid final answers/conclusions like "staple position of the firsts always varies and/or the blue staple edition does not vary", then we could guess how it was made and under what circumstances, like "it was a rush job and a group of us stapled copies together at the last minute".

I hoping for an easy tell with this, but of course not! I am just dicking around for now and will try to ferret out some "for sures" with this book. Even if it is: "for sure" no 2 copies are alike. :nyah:

Edited by CDNComix
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I bought a cheap Wi-Fi "microscope" and looked at the print of the ashcan under magnification. The goal was to determine if the ashcan was printed using litho or some other reproduction process like an early photocopy. See my very first images, text mainly (easy reference), but the "wavy roof lines" are also there.

The first thing that stands out is that ashcan is line process that uses no screens or halftones (little black dots that when their size and densities varies different shades of blackness can be achieved). No halftones means the print is either black or white and nothing in between. An unusual choice for a publisher to produce a commercial book, but this fits the "lack of time to make" story.

I am not qualified to comment on whether something is litho or some other obscure process that does not use halftones like an early photocopy, collotype, etc. So I sent the images to someone who worked in the pre-press department of one of Canada's national security printing companies (currency, stamps, passports, stock certificates). He started back in the early 70s and  retired around 2010. He has decades of experience with specialized printing techniques that most commercial printers do not. He is what he had to say:

"Weird but I’ve seen it before.

Seems like a cheap paper litho plate used for short runs on small presses. Horribly blurry and smeared kinda stuff. Circa 1970s ? I used to get stuff less than 250 pieces. The plates self destructed pretty fast.

Not the DIY type. . There’s a method I have heard of that does short run comics and art out of England.

Might have been Kodak. I’ll have to look into it."

It is litho, possibly a known process from Kodak that used paper printing plates for very short runs around the time of ashcan. Hopefully, my pre-press friend will be able to specifically re-identify the process they had used all those years ago and give it a name - like Kodak Process Plates XCX (developed for use by publishers who have a small run, do not care about print quality, are in a rush and want to confuse collectors decades later).

This fits "the legend" of the "night of the ashcan" perfectly. The walk away for us is that is very distinctive process (print wise) and should not prevent (but rather assist) someone or a certifying company from assessing a copy.

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Edited by CDNComix
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My pre-press friend just replied and the process is called the Pronto Plate which was around in the 60s as a commercial process - a means to print small litho runs, quick and dirty. In modern age, it has been all but phased out but is still taught as a specialist technique starting from scratch (instead of using an out of the box kit from a manufacturer like Kodak):

https://printscholars.org/alternative-lithography-pronto-plates-and-gum-arabic-transfer/

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On 8/19/2021 at 7:39 AM, CDNComix said:

My pre-press friend just replied and the process is called the Pronto Plate which was around in the 60s as a commercial process - a means to print small litho runs, quick and dirty. In modern age, it has been all but phased out but is still taught as a specialist technique starting from scratch (instead of using an out of the box kit from a manufacturer like Kodak):

https://printscholars.org/alternative-lithography-pronto-plates-and-gum-arabic-transfer/

I am completely fascinated with this subject. I am amazed how much information you have uncovered. I am hanging on to your every post on this.👍

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On 8/19/2021 at 4:20 PM, wombat said:

Can we do the same magnification of the other copies? It seems like this could be smoking gun if only copies we were sure of were legit look like this and none of the others do. 

Here are some random, known photocopied comics from my collection - ranging from the early 70s to early 80s. As you can see there is quite a range of characteristics - some use halftones (the first image) and those that do not (last 4 images) the print appears to be granular (use of solid toner vs liquid ink). Images #1 and #3 have directional streaks/scratches on top of the dark print (dirty platen).

I will try to identify some specific points on my copy that have something unique about them other than "it's dark print" . I will post these later in the week so that others can go to the specific area and compare 9if anyone is game).

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Edited by CDNComix
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I had a fine toothed comb look look at my copy under magnification and noticed something "unique" on pages #7-12. All of art and text on these pages are double imaged by a lighter shadow. Sometimes the shadow is above the real print and sometimes below. The odd thing is that the pages that make the other half of a 2 page sheet side (#13-18) later in the collated book are not double imaged. If the double image was caused by a press setting, then I would have thought both pages that make up a cut sheet would be affected. For example page 7 is physically attached to page 18 and would have been printed at the same time, since they are physically side-by-side.

Again I am not qualified and very much over my head without a printing background, but I think that there is a chance that these distinctive shadows were created during the pre-press phase of production (from paste-up art; to film; to plate - or whatever the process was). If that's the case (it may not be) then all real copies should have the shadowing.

The expectation for the blue staple unauthorized edition would be that there would not be the same shadowing (in the same way on the same pages at least), since it was a reset and used another starting point/process to achieve a finer print.

The expectation for "bootleg/fake" copies of the ashcan that used an original ashcan and reproduced it directly (unlike the blue staple edition, these crooks would no access to the Warren pre-press material) and would require a direct photocopy/scan/or something else. I doubt that the double image/shadow could be picked-up and reproduced exactly as shown in my images - it might appear as a uniform solid instead.

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Edited by CDNComix
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On 8/19/2021 at 10:39 AM, CDNComix said:

My pre-press friend just replied and the process is called the Pronto Plate which was around in the 60s as a commercial process - a means to print small litho runs, quick and dirty. In modern age, it has been all but phased out but is still taught as a specialist technique starting from scratch (instead of using an out of the box kit from a manufacturer like Kodak):

There's a correction with this.

"Pronto Plates" were developed in the early 90s and used polymer plates. It is the exact same process: "gum arabic transfer" as the "paper plate" lithography my friend alluded to that would have been in use in the 60s. So it is not correct to term "paper plate lithography" as "Pronto plate lithography" which is a very similar, improved process that was developed much decades later.

Here's an interesting thing, "paper plates" can be prepared directly from a photocopy, when it is then it is called "Xerox Lithography". This supports the rumour that Warren used an early photocopier to print the ashcan. Close. They might have have used photocopies to prepare the litho paper plates.

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Here's one anyone can do at home - staples.

The staples on my copy fold together in a straight manner and are a shiny silver. I have place a ruler as a placement reference, although it could be (see above) that copies were stapled by hand or at different times since the various copies of the "first edition" on Heritage do not share the same position (relative to the other edges of the book or the position between the 2 staples).

And if that is correct (ashcans were not stapled in same the way) then the actual staples themselves beyond their placement might be different physically from book to book. Again, we need participation from other owners to be able to get a "census" of books and learn how they are similar and different.

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Edited by CDNComix
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On 12/29/2023 at 2:54 PM, The Lions Den said:

At CGC I was the magazine guy...  

it only took you 2 years, 6 months and 12 days to respond to my post? And I felt bad about “ghosting” you this week after I came down sick with a cold. Please check your PM’s when you get the chance.:foryou:

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On 12/29/2023 at 6:24 PM, N e r V said:

it only took you 2 years, 6 months and 12 days to respond to my post? And I felt bad about “ghosting” you this week after I came down sick with a cold. Please check your PM’s when you get the chance.:foryou:

My initial response was a little vague, so I thought I'd be a little more specific this time. Sorry for the delay...  :sorry: 

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On 8/15/2021 at 7:23 PM, CDNComix said:

That's another "reward" for getting to the bottom of this (determining what a real copy should look like/measure), besides feeling good about authenticity. If there were some rock solid final answers/conclusions like "staple position of the firsts always varies and/or the blue staple edition does not vary", then we could guess how it was made and under what circumstances, like "it was a rush job and a group of us stapled copies together at the last minute".

According to what I've read, I believe that's exactly what it was...  

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