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What Causes This Color Variation?

Started by Ditch Fahrenheit,

42 posts in this topic

Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

Posted
Posted
This book was printed on a letter press. Not an offset press.

I'll explain what happened when I get home late tonight. :gossip:

 

 

Great! Looking forward to it.

 

Dr. Balls got me interested in reading more about offset printing today. But the more I read the more questions I have. It's amazing to me that all of the ink is successfully transferred to the paper. I would have thought some ink residue would remain on the offset blanket cylinder after each impression and would quickly build up and cause problems.

 

I'm looking forward to hearing Dice's take on it, too.

 

Yeah, lithography is quite the technical trade. I was a prepress technician for several years before I wound up in an agency - it was a great experience that gave me a very versatile background in production.

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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

Posted
Posted
This book was printed on a letter press. Not an offset press.

I'll explain what happened when I get home late tonight. :gossip:

 

 

:popcorn:

 

:popcorn:

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Dr. Balls

Dr. Balls

Posted
Posted
This book was printed on a letter press. Not an offset press.

I'll explain what happened when I get home late tonight. :gossip:

 

 

:popcorn:

 

:popcorn:

 

 

lol

 

I guess "no Dice".

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DiceX

DiceX

Posted
Posted

I have about a thousand things going on right now, so I'm sorry I keep forgetting to discuss this. For some reason it just popped into my head when I wasn't doing something else.

 

The cover on the Iron Man book in question was printed on a letter press. A letter press uses plates that are roughly 1/8" thick, made of lead and coated with nickle. Since the plates are not flexible they have to be bent to fit on the press cylinders. They look like this...

 

plates.jpg

 

There are four plates in the set because there are four colors of ink that make the image.

The areas on the plates that is silver is what would print on the paper of that particular color. The areas that have color are non-image areas and are colored because that's where the ink builds up. The image area is raised on the plate and the non image areas are cut down so that it doesn't transfer ink to the paper. Much like that potato stamp you made when you were a kid in art class, or the rubber stamp used to stamp your passport.

 

The way a letter press prints is that it basically has a roller on one side of the cylinder that puts ink on the plate. The plates that print the image on the top and bottom of the paper are touching and the paper is running through it so it gets printed on top and bottom at the same time.

 

Enough with the lesson, what caused the problem?

The area above the Marvel Comics strip at the top of the page is made up of what appears to be solid yellow and solid magenta (pinkish red) ink. When they are printed on top of each other it creates the illusion of that deep red color you see. On the books where it's just yellow is due to the magenta ink not being printed in that area.

 

What caused the magenta ink not to print?

It is possible that the actual plate was created incorrectly, but given the fact that these plates took hours to create, and that there seem to be relatively few copies printed this way, I'd think this is not likely. Possible, but not likely. Given the fact that two different errors have been found makes it even less likely.

 

No way did they shut the press down for a few hours, make a new plate, realize that someone made another mistake after it runs more books, shut the press down for another few hours to get a corrected plate then finish the production. I'm thinking this would be very unlikely.

Still they might have stopped after they found the mistake and pulled the plates for this job and ran some other cover in it's place while they fixed this one.

 

But then I found this on eBay...

 

ironman113.jpg

 

This one is missing the yellow ink in that area. This would make it a complete impossibility because now, after they have fixed the magenta plate, they start the press up and that area is missing in the yellow plate?

100% impossible.

 

During clean up of the plate when they are starting the press, for some reason something was put on the plate that made the ink unable to stick to the plate in this area. It probably corrected itself after running for a little while or they noticed it and fixed it. During the run they might have shut down a few times, which explains why there are several different variations, including variations in a different color.

 

Sorry that took so long to get back to you. Hopefully I gave enough of an explanation to make up for it.

 

 

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Ditch Fahrenheit

Ditch Fahrenheit

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Thanks for the information Dice!

 

There are four plates in the set because there are four colors of ink that make the image.

 

Just curious. Are there multiple plates for the same color, in order to make a full 360 degrees of print surface on the cylinder?

 

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DiceX

DiceX

Posted
Posted

There are other plates that fill up the remaining area around the cylinder. In the situation of the covers back in the time they printed these, they would run the cover to several different books at the same time.

Like you would have the cover to Iron Man, Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, etc, all running together.

 

 

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Ditch Fahrenheit

Ditch Fahrenheit

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I see.

 

I was trying to determine if multiple plates could have been involved in the color variation.

 

So it appears that a single plate caused all three variations. If it was an additive variation, meaning that ink was added that shouldn't have been, a piece of debri would seem likely (at least to my limited understanding). But since it's a subtractive variation, meaning that ink is missing that should be there, I wonder if that points to a chemical agent on the plate (like a solvent?) that prevented the ink from adhering to the plate. But then you would think that there would be transitional variations in existence that showed the defect slowly disappearing. (shrug) What do you think?

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DiceX

DiceX

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I suppose it could have been something sticking to the plate, but as you can see the printing surface is raised and actually makes contact with the paper. If something were stuck to the plate, odds are that object would accept ink and still print on the plate. Unless you're thinking a piece of cellophane or some other slick type object were stuck to it. I'd say no.

 

During the run they had to shut down and clean up the plates because the non image areas would start to build up ink. The solvents they used were made to cut that ink off and react violently to the ink to get it off. They also used an object that was about the size and flexibility of a credit card to quickly clean the plate off.

 

I'm not 100% sure of the answer, but now you know what the variables are and can make your own educated guess.

 

 

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Ditch Fahrenheit

Ditch Fahrenheit

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Sounds like we're on the same page then (pun). I was trying to make the point that debris, such as a piece of paper or something, would probably print; and since this is a subtractive variation, it would have to be something else.

 

I learned a lot in this thread. Thanks for the education on letter press printing!

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DiceX

DiceX

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It's quite possible they were having some sort of press problem during that time.

Even more likely that a vendor had given them a few sample bottles of some new type of plate cleaner, and they were trying it out at this point in history.

That could be the culprit.

 

 

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Ditch Fahrenheit

Ditch Fahrenheit

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I checked on eBay. Looks like it's much more common.

 

9 out of the 28 current listings for sale (32%) have this missing black area.

 

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Incredible-Hulk-190-1975-VF-8-5-Marvel-Comics-/00/s/NzYwWDUwMA==/$(KGrHqN,!p8E63Zwhd,sBOys(8ZV2g~~60_3.JPG

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/HULK-190-191-192-GLOSSY-FINE-/00/s/NDgyWDEwMjQ=/$(KGrHqF,!k0E6BgqnBg,BOn)-PMedg~~60_57.JPG

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/INCREDIBLE-HULK-190-RAINBOW-1975-TRIMPE-NM-9-2-/00/s/NjAwWDM5Ng==/$(KGrHqF,!lUE9mg+50u(BPmK13Dn!w~~60_3.JPG

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Incredible-Hulk-190-1975-Very-Fine-/24/!B1YmtSwBWk~$(KGrHqN,!hkEw5Fq8G4CBMeUZHiO!w~~_3.JPG

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Incredible-Hulk-190-Marvel-comics-1975-VF-4171-/00/$(KGrHqJ,!i4E2KIRigK7BNqyHw,WYw~~_3.JPG

 

http://www.fantasy-comics.com/images/thumbnails/M29616.jpg

 

 

Some are transitional.

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Incredible-Hulk-190-Marvel-Bronze-Age-Green-Giant-smash-Herb-Trimpe-vg-f-/00/s/MTAyNFg2OTc=/$(KGrHqR,!ioE6JDsln5WBOp)5FgYVQ~~60_57.JPG

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/Incredible-Hulk-190-Bronze-Age-comic-VF-1970s-NICE-/00/s/MTYwMFgxMTYz/$(KGrHqNHJCEE92!KG8IqBPfLoSW!wQ~~60_57.JPG

 

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/INCREDIBLE-HULK-190-/00/s/NjQwWDQ4MA==/$(KGrHqZ,!loE64s,sRPtBOwcBs8H1w~~60_3.JPG

 

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