Okay boys and girls, we get to see how "dead" Marvel Comics 1 is

[batman_fan]

HA just listed a blue label 3.0

 

Marvel Comics 1

 

Just looked at it more closely, registration =

[Point Five]

... Paging Billy Parker!

 

 

[piper]

I'd love to own a copy.

[Junkdrawer]

The registration is whack.

[jimbo_707]

...drekky November copy.

[lpsunburst]

Yes, the registration is particularly noticeable on the Torch so I think you could say that whatever price this brings for a 3.0 Blue there will be an "asterisk" so to speak on the hammer price.

[Ameri]

It's not out of registration. This is the 3D version with the glasses. Seriously, does anyone know why the guy holding the gun is ALWAYS in perfect registration yet the Torch is often out of whack? Are there multiple printing plates at play here? One slips and the other is stationary?

[Ameri]

The distortion on this book and other copies appears to be caused by a image that is blue in color that is not properly aligned with the rest of the Torch. Depending where the blue image falls, either above the Torch image or below, it either blackens the eyes of the Torch altogether or doubles them up so it looks muddy. There are copies out there where the blue aligns perfect and the Torch is crystal clear (not many though).

[Mr. Lady Luck]

When I first became passionate about comic collecting back in 1978, this was the most valuable book.

 

#nostalgia

[Bronty]

The distortion on this book and other copies appears to be caused by a image that is blue in color that is not properly aligned with the rest of the Torch. Depending where the blue image falls, either above the Torch image or below, it either blackens the eyes of the Torch altogether or doubles them up so it looks muddy. There are copies out there where the blue aligns perfect and the Torch is crystal clear (not many though).

 

Can you expand on that? I don't quite get it. If I look at the blue plate it is clearly too far left on the entire cover (uniformly). See smoke wisps far right where you can see blue is out of whack or wisps far left.

 

I can't on my phone at least see blue on the torch so I'm a bit

[Ameri]

Yes, that's it. Just zeroing in one part as an example, there are two long shadows on the left of the Torch head (under his ear)...one is a bluish/green and the other is black. There should only be one shadow so the plates slipped. Every copy has different "slips." Sometimes it's above the head, sometimes it's below, sometimes it's left, sometimes it's right and it distorts the Torch image differently from one copy to another. The guy with the gun never seems to be affected by these slips though.

[Primetime]

Yes, that's it. Just zeroing in one part as an example, there are two long shadows on the left of the Torch head (under his ear)...one is a bluish/green and the other is black. There should only be one shadow so the plates slipped. Every copy has different "slips." Sometimes it's above the head, sometimes it's below, sometimes it's left, sometimes it's right and it distorts the Torch image differently from one copy to another. The guy with the gun never seems to be affected by these slips though.

Well we know this book had a more pulpy look to it because it was printed in process colors (magenta, yellow, cyan, and black) instead of the normal primary colors (red, yellow, blue, black) typically used for comic covers during the GA. This gave it a wider chromatic range. Perhaps this color process and plate slippage resulted in the common off registration on this book. As to why the Torch is typically blurry and not the gunman at the bottom--not sure Frank. It's another Goodman mystery. The printing problem drove Goodman nuts though and that's probably would prompted him to change the cover up starting with issue 2.

[sfcityduck]

The guy with the gun never seems to be affected by these slips though.

 

The guy with the gun is out of register. The blue is shifted to the left so he's got yellow visible by his collar instead of green, and blue to the left of his arm. He just looks better because the black lines on the guy are much thicker (and thus cover up some of the out of registration) than the thin lines used on the torch.

[Bronty]

^ that's what I was thinking as well. I see the blue shift as uniform

[Bronty]

Yes, that's it. Just zeroing in one part as an example, there are two long shadows on the left of the Torch head (under his ear)...one is a bluish/green and the other is black. There should only be one shadow so the plates slipped. Every copy has different "slips." Sometimes it's above the head, sometimes it's below, sometimes it's left, sometimes it's right and it distorts the Torch image differently from one copy to another. The guy with the gun never seems to be affected by these slips though.

 

Ok there must be blue in the shadow that I can't see on my phone - thx

[Ameri]

^ that's what I was thinking as well. I see the blue shift as uniform

 

The thicker inks on the thug's clothing probably obscures the distortion. His face isn't double-imaged though.

[Bronty]

Yeah I think the issue is present there too you just don't get the same visual effect. If you look to the left of his face there is white space where there shouldn't be. On the right side of his head there is no doubt excess blue but its hidden by the black of his hair. The torch figure doesn't have a strong black outline on the right hand side like the guy with the gun does.

 

The double image thing must be some blue used for an outline on the torch figure instead of black

 

Edit: I just blew up the image on my phone and there's no doubt. Torch has a blue in the facial features. Guy with gun has no blue in the facial features. So the double image face would logically only happen on torch if you shift the blues left.

[cousin itt]

I think what's going on is someone felt the need to do the outline on the torch in both color and the black plate. These don't line up, which is why the torch looks so bad. They didn't try to do the outline of the other guy in color, just black, so the misregistration is there but not so obvious.

[Silver Surfer]

A perfect low grade copy.

[rainmaker]

A perfect low grade copy.