get some tongues wagging...

[vodou]

FIRST WATERCOLOR REMOVAL FROM ART? Flash #277 Splash (1979) by Alex Saviuk

http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1286176&GSub=171440

 

Pretty amazing, assuming the final piece is chemically stable (now). At 100 hours labor this has to be an expensive proposition. There are some Byrne Avengers coves that could use this improvement.

[Terry Doyle]

Lot of man hours . . . can't have been cheap.

[BrianR]

Interesting. My main thought was this comment "What happened to all the writing in the margins and Saviuk's signature?" and does this mean the original line/ pencil work was removed as well?

 

I am all for restoration if it doesn't destroy various aspects of a piece of work.

[JadeGiant]

Wow!

 

I would imagine this to be cost prohibitive on all but high end pieces.

 

How does this process work? Is it taken down to a near raw page and built back up? Or is only to color removed and all the original pencil/ink work left on the page? What about the top margin?

 

Very cool end result – would love to hear more about the process and how it got there. Any WIPs?

 

[eewwnuk]

was it that the original colorist didn't color that page? otherwise why go through something like this?

[Terry Doyle]

was it that the original colorist didn't color that page? otherwise why go through something like this?

 

Probably a desire by the owner to restore the art to how it was originally created (b&w).

 

 

[vodou]

was it that the original colorist didn't color that page? otherwise why go through something like this?

Because having Steve Oliff color it in the first place was in bad taste. Being that this stuff was $25/page back then doesn't make it any more 'tasteful'. Cheeeee-zeeee. Not every piece will be worth the expense of this treatment but I think it's great that somebody figured it out.

 

I noticed the loss of the upper margin markings too, wondering what else was lost that we can't see...maybe not such a good idea after all, once we know the full story!

[*paull*]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

[Terry Doyle]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

 

If the splash was framed and on display, natural light would bleach away most of the colours over time (reducing the work of the restorer, perhaps?). Not sure if that would be a step in the right direction, though . . .

 

Albert Moy has one of Frazetta's hand-coloured Weird Science-Fantasy # 29 prints for sale, with very little colour remaining. I'll try to organize an image to follow.

[Terry Doyle]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

 

If the splash was framed and on display, natural light would bleach away most of the colours over time (reducing the work of the restorer, perhaps?). Not sure if that would be a step in the right direction, though . . .

 

Albert Moy has one of Frazetta's hand-coloured Weird Science-Fantasy # 29 prints for sale, with very little colour remaining. I'll try to organize an image to follow.

 

Here you go:

 

[Bronty]

I can't imagine that sun bleaching the color on purpose is a good idea.

[Terry Doyle]

I can't imagine that sun bleaching the color on purpose is a good idea.

 

Probably not, but people do frame and display colour art (as was the case with the owner of that hand-coloured print - so look what happened there).

[malvin]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

 

Pencils were always gone, inkers typically erase them after they ink.

 

Malvin

[oceans11]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

 

Pencils were always gone, inkers typically erase them after they ink.

 

Malvin

 

Not always true though. I have pages where you can see remnants of pencil marks on the page.

 

I'd like to hear more about how the color was removed from this page. From what I understand, the coloring of the page was done by Alex Saviuk while ago out at a show, while he was sitting at his table space. That's the story I heard at least. I had it offered to me and would have bought it, as this falls right in the range of my favorite period of The Flash, but the coloring bugged me and I wasn't sure anything could be done about it. Seems like it was able to be restored, but like everyone else here, I have questions about the process and any possible affects that it had on the page. It was done by a reputable restorer, though it couldn't have been cheap to do, and I probably wouldn't have been able to make that happen if I had ended up with it. Great to see it back to the original black and white, and look forward to finding out more info on the process.

 

 

[Michael Browning]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

 

Pencils were always gone, inkers typically erase them after they ink.

 

Malvin

 

The pencils were VERY visible under the inks on this one. It's how I determined that it was the real deal after I bought it so many years ago.

I bought this piece nearly a decade ago on eBay; it was actually one of my first purchases of art on eBay. The owner had it mislabeled as a print. I emailed and told him what it might be (I wasn't sure, because the photo wasn't the best, but it really looked like either a stat that had been colored or original art) and he offered to sell it to me for $75 plus $15 shipping. I took a gamble and bought it on the chance that it was the original art. I was not disappointed after I got a few dealers to help me determine that it was, indeed the original, Alex Saviuk-penciled and Frank McLaughlin-inked artwork.

The previous owner said he was at a convention in 1987 where Alex Saviuk had a table set up. He said Alex colored it right there at the table, because he was bored. Alex later confirmed this to me.

Alex really wanted this piece back and asked me to trade it back to him, but we never could come to an agreement.

I had it for all those years and loved it, but it really bothered me that it was colored. It wasn't a bad coloring job at all, but it had been altered from its original black and white state.

I finally decided to trade it away, maybe, three or four years ago. It's such a great piece of history, and I hated to let it go, but I got a fairly good deal for it, so I traded it away. I have regretted letting it go, but, I knew that the coloring had always bothered me so badly, that I probably wouldn't ever try to get it back.

Seeing this last night, I smiled.

I am so glad that Robert was able to remove the watercolor and restored it to its original black and white.

Congratulations to the current owner on getting a great Flash splash that looks even better now that it has been restored.

Michael Browning

[oceans11]

 

Alex really wanted this piece back and asked me to trade it back to him, but we never could come to an agreement.

 

Alex most likely wants this back as he has the rest of the pages from this issue and isn't selling them. At least that's what he was telling me when I had a conversation with him several years back at NYCC about his Flash artwork. This was the one issue he was saying he had kept intact; well except for the splash page I guess.

[ashrael]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

 

If the splash was framed and on display, natural light would bleach away most of the colours over time (reducing the work of the restorer, perhaps?). Not sure if that would be a step in the right direction, though . . .

 

Albert Moy has one of Frazetta's hand-coloured Weird Science-Fantasy # 29 prints for sale, with very little colour remaining. I'll try to organize an image to follow.

 

Unless that one was one of the later Frazetta colored prints in which Frank was just tired of coloring and didn't do much coloring on it in the first case.

[Terry Doyle]

Since the margin writing and signature is gone, I'm going to make a guess that all the pencil is gone, too. Is this a good trade?

 

If the splash was framed and on display, natural light would bleach away most of the colours over time (reducing the work of the restorer, perhaps?). Not sure if that would be a step in the right direction, though . . .

 

Albert Moy has one of Frazetta's hand-coloured Weird Science-Fantasy # 29 prints for sale, with very little colour remaining. I'll try to organize an image to follow.

 

Unless that one was one of the later Frazetta colored prints in which Frank was just tired of coloring and didn't do much coloring on it in the first case.

 

Definitely looks faded to me. I've seen others and can't imagine Fritz taking on the job and slacking-off with the work.

[pemart1966]

I'm not sure what all the fuss is about here and over on Comic Art list about the "desecration" of this piece.

 

So what if the original artist hand coloured it and not the original "colourist"? It was the original artist! Someone who was directly involved in the creation of the piece in the first place.

 

I don't see owners rushing out to have their hand coloured Hogarth Tarzans un-coloured; nor their hand coloured Gasoline Alley Sundays - these pieces can and do in fact bring premiums.

 

If Steve Ditko hand coloured one of his Spider-Man covers neatly would the consensus be that he had "ruined" it?

[zhamlau]

Honestly, if i was going to get a Ditko Spiderman page, and someone INCLUDING Ditko had colored it out of boredom....yeah it would kind of ruin it for me.

 

This splash page was created as a black and white piece of production art, the coloring was added years later at a show as a way to kill time. Nothing sacred about that at all, looks good with it removed.

 

Returning it to its original design, is perfect. Good job.