Brave & Bold #28: Speculation on future pricing 4 4

[Chillax23]

Ya' know....in spite of all the press and movies and such......BB28 is STILL undervalued and underappreciated.

 

I'll prove it thusly:

 

Today was the first day in a long while that anyone joined or bumped the BB28 club. There hasn't been a single post in that dusty cob-web filled thread in deep time.

To boot even this thread has seen better days.

 

It took Mongkorn to shake it out of catatonia.

 

It seems like there's a never ending drove of folks with their Marvel keys. This key truly deserves a higher pedestal by now considering all that's transpired in the last few years.

 

 

I agree that is is likely still undervalued. But my problem is trying to find a nice low grade copy - I have been searching and it has been very difficult. Just not as abundant as Silver Age marvel keys - But I guess that is part of the challenge

[Mongkorn]

I think the general sentiment for this book is buy and hold. The movies timeline has made people buckle down. f you are buying now, you have to pay up to pry the nice low grade copies out, because otherwise sellers are holding for the "potential".

 

At least thats my experience. .

[ComicConnoisseur]

Haha. But even Vintage is buying the alternate cover theory too!

 

You're saying there are not two different colour schemes from the publisher?

 

 

 

Absent any definitive record from Sparta or DC that there were two printings, yes, I'm saying that the color differences people are pointing to here are the result of different scanning setups and/or different ink levels on press that day. The light blue can shift easily by either of those issues from blue to grey and even a greenish tint.

 

[thedude]

Haha. But even Vintage is buying the alternate cover theory too!

 

You're saying there are not two different colour schemes from the publisher?

 

 

 

Absent any definitive record from Sparta or DC that there were two printings, yes, I'm saying that the color differences people are pointing to here are the result of different scanning setups and/or different ink levels on press that day. The light blue can shift easily by either of those issues from blue to grey and even a greenish tint.

 

 

[Aman619]

All printed objects are only an optical illusion. What our eyes see is rearly the blurring together of tiny blobs of one of only four ink colors. It will get confusing to try to explain it and I think most of you already are aware of the basics.

 

On press though, the printers use a approved match print of what they are tasked to achieve on press. They start out by printing hundreds of sheets until the inks are full strength... Then they fine tune them , always comparing with the match print for tone and hue. Once they are ready, they lock in and roll the presses. But, even at that point, the ink levels can experience "gain" which cause a 20% sized dot to be printed heavier or lighter. In these cases, like the sky on BB28, if any of the inks takes over from the rest affecting the proportions of one to the other inks, we get a color shift like we are seeing here.

 

That's how two identical comics in hand would appear to be printed in two different color schemes. We see it with deep purple covers all the time.

 

Now, scanning issues: you take two identical comics in hand and scan each on a different scanner, you will get two different scanned images, depending on the scanners and also the software settings on each. We have all seen this. Scans are all over the map right out of the scanner, and too often we see over corrected scans too.

 

There is no way to trust a scan of a comic that has not been scanned under optimal conditions AND then tweaked with the actual comic in hand in order to achieve a "perfect" image of it.

 

And finally, however-- what I just said is a lie, because there is absolutely no way to achieve a scan that looks exactly like the comic in hand!! Too many extraneous factors at work, like the lighting in the room you are looking at the comic in, your monitors settings (that "perfect scan" was only perfect on the monitor the tweaked was tweaking it on. To see what that guy saw, you'd first need to match not only his settings and brightness, but probably buy the same exact monitor). But it's not possible mainly because eat life and monitors are using completely different science to create their colors we see.

 

Printing is reflective, and is based on the CMYK gamut. The gamut means the entire spectrum of all POSSIBLE colors achievable from any combination of the four printing inks. As a reflective medium, light actually works differently in real life than a monitor, which emits light. Reflective light is subtractive; that is, white light hits an object and the object splits the light like a prism. It holds back all frequencies except the color it is made of.

 

A monitor however, emits RGB from individual diodes that our eye adds up and sees the correct programmed) color based on what was emitted by each diode. RGB colors have a different gamut from CMYK. Many colors can look the same, but there are a significant number of shades that are impossible (IMPOSSIBLE) for both methods to reproduce. CMYK Colors are duller and darker than RGB.

 

Anyway, mumbo jumbo... I know. Bottom line, the images we have seen of BB28 can be explained easily (even if I failed here!) if you try to understand how the images came to be, scientifically.... It happened during the press run, or in the scanning.

Edited January 18, 2015 by aman619

[tth2]

(thumbs u Great post.

 

3 things I will never understand:

 

1. People who think they can accurately grade a book through a slab

 

2. People who think they can accurately grade a book from a scan

 

3. People who think they can accurately grade a book from a scan of the book in a slab.

[jimjum12]

All printed objects are only an optical illusion. What our eyes see is rearly the blurring together of tiny blobs of one of only four ink colors. It will get confusing to try to explain it and I think most of you already are aware of the basics.

 

On press though, the printers use a approved match print of what they are tasked to achieve on press. They start out by printing hundreds of sheets until the inks are full strength... Then they fine tune them , always comparing with the match print for tone and hue. Once they are ready, they lock in and roll the presses. But, even at that point, the ink levels can experience "gain" which cause a 20% sized dot to be printed heavier or lighter. In these cases, like the sky on BB28, if any of the inks takes over from the rest affecting the proportions of one to the other inks, we get a color shift like we are seeing here.

 

That's how two identical comics in hand would appear to be printed in two different color schemes. We see it with deep purple covers all the time.

 

Now, scanning issues: you take two identical comics in hand and scan each on a different scanner, you will get two different scanned images, depending on the scanners and also the software settings on each. We have all seen this. Scans are all over the map right out of the scanner, and too often we see over corrected scans too.

 

There is no way to trust a scan of a comic that has not been scanned under optimal conditions AND then tweaked with the actual comic in hand in order to achieve a "perfect" image of it.

 

And finally, however-- what I just said is a lie, because there is absolutely no way to achieve a scan that looks exactly like the comic in hand!! Too many extraneous factors at work, like the lighting in the room you are looking at the comic in, your monitors settings (that "perfect scan" was only perfect on the monitor the tweaked was tweaking it on. To see what that guy saw, you'd first need to match not only his settings and brightness, but probably buy the same exact monitor). But it's not possible mainly because eat life and monitors are using completely different science to create their colors we see.

 

Printing is reflective, and is based on the CMYK gamut. The gamut means the entire spectrum of all POSSIBLE colors achievable from any combination of the four printing inks. As a reflective medium, light actually works differently in real life than a monitor, which emits light. Reflective light is subtractive; that is, white light hits an object and the object splits the light like a prism. It holds back all frequencies except the color it is made of.

 

A monitor however, emits RGB from individual diodes that our eye adds up and sees the correct programmed) color based on what was emitted by each diode. RGB colors have a different gamut from CMYK. Many colors can look the same, but there are a significant number of shades that are impossible (IMPOSSIBLE) for both methods to reproduce. CMYK Colors are duller and darker than RGB.

 

Anyway, mumbo jumbo... I know. Bottom line, the images we have seen of BB28 can be explained easily (even if I failed here!) if you try to understand how the images came to be, scientifically.... It happened during the press run, or in the scanning.

 

.... colors produced by combining Primary colors are especially susceptible to variation from what I've seen.....purples, greens, and oranges. GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

[Aman619]

primary ink colors? or ROYGBIV primary colors?

[Aman619]

(thumbs u Great post.

 

3 things I will never understand:

 

1. People who think they can accurately grade a book through a slab

 

2. People who think they can accurately grade a book from a scan

 

3. People who think they can accurately grade a book from a scan of the book in a slab.

 

yup. Ive scanned many books with noticeable folds and other defects visible from an angle under a light source (ahem, the way CGC looks at our books when grading them) that never appear in a scan of the cover sitting directly on the scanning bed. Scans catch color breaking creases and many stains etc, but not everything worth noticing.

[Bomber-Bob]

Years ago, on the Boards, I showed my 7.5 copy of BB28 and a discussion followed about the apparent 'color variant' of my book. The blues appeared to be gray. Well, I went to my Bank Vault and in hand the blues were indeed blue, not gray. I agree that the difference in colors is about the scan, not the book.

[jimjum12]

You'd be better qualified to clarify that....... GOD BLESS....

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

 

..... I would imagine the significant variation in green shades in the logo box of different copies of ASM 9 and X-Men 1 (two that quickly come to mind) have something to do with the Cyan (?) plate ?

[Aman619]

Cyan and yellow in combination. Too little cyan or too much yellow will appear more bright green. Too much cyan or less yellow will look more forest green or even bluish. But any yellow with cyan gets you a greenish tint.

 

 

As for the grey vs blue sky, usually grey is just black dots, so it can never change color. Just get lighter or darker grey. But often, a light grey is made from even amounts of cyan yellow and even magenta mixed in. So the color can shift easily when one of these three inks gets laid down stronger or weaker by even a little, since a light sky would be made of 10/10/10 or 20/20/20 % of each ink. A 5% gain would be a big change to the eye.

[Aman619]

wow. I didn't want to take the lead in this color strike discussion, but ended up explaining some details about printing and scanning to make my point. I stand by everything I said.

 

But I must apologize.

 

Because I missed the forest for the trees on this BB28 cover printing issue. Looking at the side by scans posted a few pages back, the overall difference to me was clearly that the one on the right was much yellower than the left image. I assumed that was what people were pointing to about the color strike when printed.

 

But in creating an image to explain the 5% color shift in visible terms, I used the side by side covers to force the left half to match the right.

 

And after adjusting ,oat of the cover on the left to match the right, they STILL looked different, and THATS when it hit me! The difference wasn't the overall yellow tone, it was the GREY vs BLUE cape on John Johnzz, and Aquaman's pants, and WWs panties. AND the word AMERICA in the logo. If thats what you guys were talking about, I completely missed it.

 

The real problem is that there really are about 1 in 30 copies (according only a quick look at all copies sold on Heritage to date) that have a grayer (much less electric) blue ink than the rest.

 

Ive noticed this duller blue before looking at comics printing, because it was hard to get my scans to exactly match the covers in hand (on 40s and 50s books) and can only assume that they used a different "cyan" ink mix from the modern day Cyan. It has to have been a different ink mix because these blue area on the covers were printed 100%; that is, not made of dots, just 100% ink color. Yes all inks can always be printed not "up-to-strength" and appear different, lighter, but it doesn't go from the blue of Johnzz cape to the almost slate grey as we are seeing on these BB28s.

 

 

So, sorry guys for the misleading posts. I stand by my color theory etc, but looks to me now like someone on press ran out of CYAN and maybe swapped in a can of a different "cyan" ink.

 

And since we know covers were printed 4 up to a page back then, Im curious to look at the other 3 covers on press at the same time for the same BLUE swap.

 

 

Heres a link to al of DCs books that month. Only Adventure 269 looked like a candidate… but in this link, the BB28 is printed in blue so we can't judge by these sample images… perhaps 3 other covers here have alternate covers with different blues?

 

http://www.dcindexes.com/features/timemachine.php?site=dc&year=1960&month=2&sort=alpha&type=cover&checklist=off

[Action252Kid]

wow. I didn't want to take the lead in this color strike discussion, but ended up explaining some details about printing and scanning to make my point. I stand by everything I said.

 

But I must apologize.

 

Because I missed the forest for the trees on this BB28 cover printing issue. Looking at the side by scans posted a few pages back, the overall difference to me was clearly that the one on the right was much yellower than the left image. I assumed that was what people were pointing to about the color strike when printed.

 

But in creating an image to explain the 5% color shift in visible terms, I used the side by side covers to force the left half to match the right.

 

And after adjusting ,oat of the cover on the left to match the right, they STILL looked different, and THATS when it hit me! The difference wasn't the overall yellow tone, it was the GREY vs BLUE cape on John Johnzz, and Aquaman's pants, and WWs panties. AND the word AMERICA in the logo. If thats what you guys were talking about, I completely missed it.

 

The real problem is that there really are about 1 in 30 copies (according only a quick look at all copies sold on Heritage to date) that have a grayer (much less electric) blue ink than the rest.

 

Ive noticed this duller blue before looking at comics printing, because it was hard to get my scans to exactly match the covers in hand (on 40s and 50s books) and can only assume that they used a different "cyan" ink mix from the modern day Cyan. It has to have been a different ink mix because these blue area on the covers were printed 100%; that is, not made of dots, just 100% ink color. Yes all inks can always be printed not "up-to-strength" and appear different, lighter, but it doesn't go from the blue of Johnzz cape to the almost slate grey as we are seeing on these BB28s.

 

 

So, sorry guys for the misleading posts. I stand by my color theory etc, but looks to me now like someone on press ran out of CYAN and maybe swapped in a can of a different "cyan" ink.

 

And since we know covers were printed 4 up to a page back then, Im curious to look at the other 3 covers on press at the same time for the same BLUE swap.

 

 

Heres a link to al of DCs books that month. Only Adventure 269 looked like a candidate… but in this link, the BB28 is printed in blue so we can't judge by these sample images… perhaps 3 other covers here have alternate covers with different blues?

 

http://www.dcindexes.com/features/timemachine.php?site=dc&year=1960&month=2&sort=alpha&type=cover&checklist=off

 

 

Yep, it's the gray/blue color that everyone is talking about. Take a look at Action Comics #252 (almost a year earlier than B&B 28), and you see the same really bright blue on Superman on (most) issues and the (IMO less attractive) grayish-blue on others.

[Iceman399]

Not that anyone likely is but I highly caution about buying this copy:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281568326970?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

I looked into it and the back cover is wrong, yet there was no signs of opening the staples as the front cover also felt funny. Looks like it was intentionally damaged to make it look rough. Kudos to the seller though for listing it having CT/Pieces added.

[Columbia Comics]

Not that anyone likely is but I highly caution about buying this copy:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281568326970?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

I looked into it and the back cover is wrong, yet there was no signs of opening the staples as the front cover also felt funny. Looks like it was intentionally damaged to make it look rough. Kudos to the seller though for listing it having CT/Pieces added.

 

yes that's the wrong back cover.

[Iceman399]

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8133797&fpart=1

 

Here is the thread from before

[Columbia Comics]

http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8133797&fpart=1

 

Here is the thread from before

 

I don't come in here often enough.

 

if you look at the photo where it shows the interior of the back cover, you can see where a small piece was added at the lower staple to "attach" the cover, hence why the staples haven't been moved (IMO anyways as they probably have).

 

Looks like a bad copy job and then some junky aging process.

 

Just a coverless copy

[Aman619]

Years ago, on the Boards, I showed my 7.5 copy of BB28 and a discussion followed about the apparent 'color variant' of my book. The blues appeared to be gray. Well, I went to my Bank Vault and in hand the blues were indeed blue, not gray. I agree that the difference in colors is about the scan, not the book.

 

Dont confuse me! Im now pretty convinced there are grey/blue covers out there!

[VintageComics]

Haha. But even Vintage is buying the alternate cover theory too!

 

You're saying there are not two different colour schemes from the publisher?

 

 

 

Absent any definitive record from Sparta or DC that there were two printings, yes, I'm saying that the color differences people are pointing to here are the result of different scanning setups and/or different ink levels on press that day. The light blue can shift easily by either of those issues from blue to grey and even a greenish tint.

 

It's definitely not different scanner settings. I've seen two consistently different colour schemes side by side more than once.

 

Whatever the reason, I'm fairly sure it happened during printing.