Digitalizing and preserving comics

[eman13]

So I wanted to digitalize my older comic books and pulps for a few reasons:

-Paper only lasts so long

-I actually want to read them, but not damage the books in the process

-The books I collect are fairly rare (I like Gerber 8 and rarer) so in many cases there are no digital copies

 

So going from that I began the process of doing research on how to scan in books and almost all the methods I read about were highly destructive and included cutting off binding and feeding pages through a normal printer/scanner combo

 

After refining the search to non-destructive means, I found the guidelines of digitalization of medieval manuscripts by ecodices here. For those who wish not to click off the site the guidelines are:

 

•Minimal manipulation of the manuscript itself, except as required for actual page turning; that is, no pushing back and forth, no turning over or flipping of the item.

 

•The angle at which the bound book or the cover itself is opened may in no case exceed 140°.

 

•No mechanical pressure to flatten the pages, such as with a glass plate, is allowed.

 

•Lighting must remain at levels at or below those of exhibition: only UV-free lighting at the lowest possible levels.

 

•Atmosphere must be controlled in the digitalization lab during the eight-hour maximum work period for one item. Temperatures must remain 18° to 25° C (66° to 79° F), relative humidity 40-60%.

 

 

That was doable. So I began construction of a device that would open at 100°, no mechanical pressure would be applied, low light would be used with flash photography for the picture taking only (as mentioned in this newsletter ) and the temperature and humidity is easy to maintain in Ohio inside with air conditioning.

 

I started with a 1" 3 ring binder that I cut the three rings out with a bolt cutter:

 

I then cut wood support for the binder and angled the cuts to have a 100 degree angle:

 

The supports were then screwed in:

 

Legs were then attached:

 

Support for the camera holder is attached to the legs:

 

The camera stand attached to the wooden support:

 

The Mylar sheet (emergency blanket ) is laid and glued into place:

 

The Mylar is trimmed and glued to the wooden supports on the side:

 

I will continue to update as the project progresses as long as there is interest. I plan to also use this as a table for de-acidifying paper on anything that uses newsprint for the pages (so all of my pulps and golden age books).

I am no means an expert on any of this I am just a guy that likes to read his books, but doesn’t want to damage his books in the process. The books I plan to scan and de-acidify (in no particular order):

-Blue Circle #6 (normal cover)

-Blue Circle #6 (“featuring Bugsie Seigal” cover)

-Amazing Stories: March and May 1939 (pulp)

-Astounding Science Fiction July 1939 (pulp)

-Captain Science #4 and #6

-Fantastic #8

-Battle #33

-Classics Illustrated #17 (the Deerslayer)

-Popular Comics #66

-Batman: Crimson Mist (ashcan and not GA, but still interesting)

-World’s Fair 1940

-Blue Beetle #40

-Space Ace #5

-Return of Joe the Genie of Steel

-Atomic Bomb #1

-If Science Fiction Dec 1964 (pulp)

-Worlds of Tomorrow March 1965 (pulp)

-Second Foundation 1953 (Gnome Press, hardcover)

-Astounding Science Fiction Dec 1945

 

If you see a mistake in my design, an improvement that can be made, or have a comment that would improve it: please tell me. I want this to be as efficient as possible and not damage my books in any way during the process. If you want a digital copy of any of the things listed above, please PM me; I am happy to share. Thanks for your interest!

 

[jaybuck43]

Are you looking for an automatic page turn scanner, so that you set the book open and when done it's scanned all pages and you've never touched it or do you want a system for scanning your books one page at a time with you turning the pages? I've done the first system before.

[eman13]

I am actually doing it by hand. The reasoning behind this is that way I can turn the page and feel whether or not it can move the way I want it to without damage. A problem I find with some of the older books is sometimes pages stick or don't want to move. The system I made is also very simple so it allows for easy repair and replication. how do the automatic page turners work exactly?

 

I also have software that will take a large set of pictures (in this case book pages) and does mass cropping, rotating, and inter lacing of the even and odd pages. I will post a link later if anyone is interested.

[jaybuck43]

It's kinda complicated. It's a custom job. It's a 5 foot long plexiglass pyramid. Book or comic is placed in a sled which gently holds the book (there is no pressure placed on the book. There are two scanners inside the plexiglass pyramid. Basically you remove the gearings from two scanners (I used canon but it doesn't matter which) and place it into the pyramid. When you start the software, it runs the scanners simultaneous and scans the first two pages. Once the pages are done a signal is sent and it pulls a pulley which pulls the sled. As the sled moves there is an opening which lets the page enter, when it enters a vacuum gently pulls the page securely against the other side of the pyramid and as the sled continues to move it reaches an "exit" slot. Then the sled resets back to its original spot, the scanners run again and the process is repeated. It's the same system that Google uses for the Google Books project.

[eman13]

I looked some of them up, they are fascinating! I can't really build one of those but the system I have built should serve my purposes. If I could get a hold of a few old scanners, I could probably make something similar, but for now I can make due

[markseifert]

GREAT post. Please do update us as things progress.

 

If you haven't seen it, you may also be interested in this relatively low-cost method that a google engineer developed for scanning rare books, for which they have open-sourced the plans:

 

https://code.google.com/p/linear-book-scanner/

[pmpknface]

This is very interesting. Look forward to updates.

[eman13]

Quick Update:

 

Count your pages. I finished scanning a comic (Blue Circle #6, normal cover) and couldn't figure out why the interleaving wasn't aligning right: I missed not one but TWO pages. The book did get deacidified though, so that is a plus.

 

I am still experimenting with lighting and how to interleave the pages with software available ( I am now using a bastardized mix of Scan Tailor, IrfanView, and Book Scan Wizard). If anyone has an easy to use software in mind to crop, rotate, and interleave pages of a book (in batch format of course), give me a heads up.

 

I will be posting more pictures soon, the rig is going to get modified to give "flatter" scans of each page.

Thanks for the interest!

 

[Yellow Kid]

I admire your effort to save our comics. Long ago, I was part of a group under the leadership of Pat Iacavone who felt the same way and put thousands of old books on color microfiche, which was the best medium of the day. Pat and his children did all of the work, the rest of us just sent him our books for filming, and today nearly all of the main GA titles have been saved, even if reading them is a bit onerous.

[eman13]

I admire your effort to save our comics. Long ago, I was part of a group under the leadership of Pat Iacavone who felt the same way and put thousands of old books on color microfiche, which was the best medium of the day. Pat and his children did all of the work, the rest of us just sent him our books for filming, and today nearly all of the main GA titles have been saved, even if reading them is a bit onerous.

 

It is funny you mention that, I have almost all of the digitalized microfiche from that, and I am trying to update a few of those (I have nowhere near the collection) with higher definition digitalized images. It means a lot to me and many, many people that that project was undertaken, but I had no idea the story behind how it happened. Thank you for sharing.

 

My focus right now is to cover books that were not by that project and not covered by ComicBookPlus. It leaves very few books, but they are a doozy to find. That is why I am always looking for the rarer comics (gerber 8 and up) so that even the rarest of books can be read 50 years from now, even if the books themselves are gone from the paper deterioration cause from their high acidity and oxidation. I can only do so much though because of my limited resources but I really am enjoying what I can do!

[eman13]

Update!

I have officially scanned a book in its entirety with good results without harming the book itself! The Blue Beetle #40 is a book I got recently with 2 detached cf, a nearly detached cover, fragile pages that are torn throughout (maybe brittle), cream colored, spine roll, and did I mention fragile?

 

I wanted a challege like this to see if I could do a scan with an easily damaged book before moving on with the project. I also implimented a means of keeping the pages flat via very thin plexiglas (plastic and 1/8") sheets that I sanded the edges round so it would not damage the books. No mechanical pressure is applied of course, just the weight of the plexiglas kept the pages from being rolled or "wavy" for the scan. I will upload a few random pages, but if anyone wants a copy of it, send me a PM.

 

Here is the plexiglas plates implimented:

 

Here is a few pages of the scanned book:

 

 

[HRCostigan]

Impressive!

[eman13]

So I am now waiting on a few things in the mail, but I have resolved another problem with the scanner thus far: the plates do seem to have too much pressure for books with a spine roll or are thicker than a normal comic book (such as a pulp book). So I have come up with a means of keeping the page flat without allowing the Plexiglas needing to apply pressure or having its full weight placed upon the book. This will start up again Monday when everything gets in.

 

I am getting in 2 mil Mylar sleeves and acid free boards for the books in this project as well as oxygen absorbers for a later component of this project. I have a plan to improve the shelf life of the comics (high acidity of the comics themselves and oxidation damage concerns me in these older books), so not only am I attempting to preserve them via digitalization, but also through specific storage methods that seem to be have some science behind it. Details (and sources) are to follow with that shortly.

 

The method of keeping the pages flat without applying mechanical or gravitational pressure of the Plexiglas was a bit of a challenge, so I will give you guys a list of supplies needed to do it and see if you come up with the same layout:

- 1’x2’ 22 gauge steel sheet

- JB cold weld

- Four 2” C clamps

- Course sandpaper

- Drill

- Four ¾” wood screws

- Staples

- Dremel

- Elbow grease

 

I will update in a few days depending on when things get in!

 

[eman13]

So I have been tinkering and I have modified how the scaning process will go, I was able to get a used, high quality scanner for free from a friend to dismember and modify to scan the books in extremely high quality. It will be raised and lowered with C-clamps and secured with a metal plate on the back of the scanner. It will feed data directly to a computer and allow for on the spot image cleaning and editing. I also got in the mylar sleeves for everything and can now better store the books as they are in queue for digitalizing, which will follow with deacidification.

 

I can test everything right now on less fragile books (such as normal bound books and other easily replaced items). All results with pictures will be posted here. I can really begin the digitalization process once I finish moving in a few months in mid-August but I will continue making the machine until then. Like I said before if you guys want digital copies of the books I scan please PM me, and I will put them at the top of the list to do!

 

Thanks again for the interest!

[OtherEric]

I'm following with interest; thanks for the updates

 

Just for the Public Domain books, I cannot encourage you highly enough to share the scans with the Digital Comic Museum:

 

http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php

 

Just glancing quickly at your list, the copy of Fantastic 8 we have is almost half from fiche, actual paper scans would be enormously welcome.

[eman13]

I'm following with interest; thanks for the updates

 

Just for the Public Domain books, I cannot encourage you highly enough to share the scans with the Digital Comic Museum:

 

http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/index.php

 

Just glancing quickly at your list, the copy of Fantastic 8 we have is almost half from fiche, actual paper scans would be enormously welcome.

I will move that to the top of the list then, thanks for the interest! I will share whatever I do scan (within public domain) with Digital Comic Museum and probably Comic Book Plus as well.

[Cat-Man_America]

So I have been tinkering and I have modified how the scaning process will go, I was able to get a used, high quality scanner for free from a friend to dismember and modify to scan the books in extremely high quality. It will be raised and lowered with C-clamps and secured with a metal plate on the back of the scanner. It will feed data directly to a computer and allow for on the spot image cleaning and editing. I also got in the mylar sleeves for everything and can now better store the books as they are in queue for digitalizing, which will follow with deacidification.

 

I can test everything right now on less fragile books (such as normal bound books and other easily replaced items). All results with pictures will be posted here. I can really begin the digitalization process once I finish moving in a few months in mid-August but I will continue making the machine until then. Like I said before if you guys want digital copies of the books I scan please PM me, and I will put them at the top of the list to do!

 

Thanks again for the interest!

 

Excellent work.

 

I hope you don't mind, but I borrowed one of your images just to demonstrate what can also be achieved post-scanning using the Photobucket Edit function (enhance > color fix, then boost contrast & brightness approx. 50%; nothing else done). Here's the A/B comparison...

 

 

 

While I couldn't eliminate the tanning through color correction, it's possible to obtain a balance much closer to the original without over saturation or edge enhancement. Hope you approve. (thumbs u

[eman13]

That is fantastic David! I can do the exact same thing in a batch photo editor and it almost seems to get detail back with that (thumbs u I will be sure to do this with future scans (and old ones). That second image is much closer to the actual color of the page, the picture caused it to look more tan than it actually was.

[Tivo32]

This is really, really cool to read and watch as it progresses! As someone who loves the idea of preservation, I think it's awesome that you're doing this. Good luck with your project!