PHOTOCOPY Comics from eBay......... 2 2

[Cat-Man_America]

On February 21, 2017 at 2:16 PM, N e r V said:

I've purchased reprints like the Moon Girls, etc. above to have as readers so my originals can stay intact. I've also purchased comic cover repos for coverless books. Never bought a photocopy before and was one of those annoyed when searching for original material.

I might have to rethink that and try one. Is Suspense comics #3 available? My friends for some strange reason won't let me crack their copies open to read. I usually wipe most of the peanut butter off my hands too before reading books. Some collectors are ssooo picky when it comes to their books....

I think I've seen photocopies of Suspense Comics #3 from the vendor we've been discussing.  I've noticed that books are often rotated at the end of each auction.  Also, books & scans appear to be upgraded as better sources come available.  The seller used to have several scans up to judge reproduction (F/B covers and one or two interior pages), now most listings have seven or eight to help the buyer decide. 

Over the last year the seller's store listings increased in number from several hundred to several thousand and the BIN price just dropped 10% ($9.99 > $8.99).  The packaging is first rate and shipping in quantity is relatively cheap and prompt.  I have no idea how much profit the seller makes given the work, materials and color copying, but it can't be much.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Cat-Man_America

[29dukedog]

I'd like to be clear exactly what kind of reproductions we are talking about when we say, "Photocopy comics".  To me, a "color photocopy" is what you produce when you place an actual comic face down on the bed of a color "Xerox" machine.  I collect color photocopies of comic covers, made directly from actual comics.  To my eye, there is no superior reproduction. 

I doubt these "Photocopy comics" we've been discussing are made in that manner, as it would be very time consuming.  Rather, they are laser printouts made from scans of comic covers and pages.  They would more accurately be called, "Scan printout comics".  My cover collection does include this kind of reproduction.  When I'm not able to make a color photocopy directly from a particular book, I'll go hunting for the highest quality scan of the cover I can find, clean it up as best I can, crop it as needed, and take it to our local print shop on a disc, and have them run off a copy on a laser printer.  The result is good, but nothing beats a true color photocopy, imo.  

[Cat-Man_America]

48 minutes ago, 29dukedog said:

I'd like to be clear exactly what kind of reproductions we are talking about when we say, "Photocopy comics".  To me, a "color photocopy" is what you produce when you place an actual comic face down on the bed of a color "Xerox" machine.  I collect color photocopies of comic covers, made directly from actual comics.  To my eye, there is no superior reproduction. 

I doubt these "Photocopy comics" we've been discussing are made in that manner, as it would be very time consuming.  Rather, they are laser printouts made from scans of comic covers and pages.  They would more accurately be called, "Scan printout comics".  My cover collection does include this kind of reproduction.  When I'm not able to make a color photocopy directly from a particular book, I'll go hunting for the highest quality scan of the cover I can find, clean it up as best I can, crop it as needed, and take it to our local print shop on a disc, and have them run off a copy on a laser printer.  The result is good, but nothing beats a true color photocopy, imo.  

All this may be true, but we probably shouldn't get too wrapped up in the minutiae.  We're discussing what amounts to "filler" books or reader copies, not replacements for valuable collector books.  The thread starter referred to these as PHOTOCOPY comics because the eBay seller describes them as such and does so in some detail in his/her listings.  I've gotta admit, in some instances these are superior to HC archival books comic publishers put out ...notably GA Marvel Masterworks with bad colors & lost detail or late DC Archives (after cost cutting initiatives).  In some cases colors are reproduced more accurately and interior line work retained with less visual loss in the seller's product ...regardless what we call it.  Note: The fact that "photocopies" are slightly oversized compared to typically undersized hard cover archive editions may be a factor, but the jury's still out on that. 

The biggest issue with the vendor's "photocopies" are occasional books shot from microfiche and copies originating from books with dark, faded or heavily worn pages.  These can be awful. The seller would be well advised to pull poorly imaged copies from inventory altogether.  For instance, the photocopy of Fawcett's Whiz #2 (1) is horribly out of focus as are a number of the early Whiz's and Capt. Marvel's, but some of key Masters (with Mac Raboy's Capt. Marvel Jr.) look spectacular.  Obviously, these were shot from different sources.  I've had no problem getting refunds or selecting alternates for copies which didn't live up to my standards.  What amazes me is that a number of less common books from Quality, MLJ, Ace, Prize & Fox are reproduced well.  Are these worth it?    I suppose this is one of those eye of the beholder kinda things.

[BB-Gun]

I have purchased some Phantom Lady copies and a Pep 22 and a few others.  I like reading the stories and would buy more if I wasn't buying so many other original comics that are only slightly more expensive.  Maybe its because the smell of rotting paper jogs my memory but fresh ink does not.

 

Edited March 3, 2017 by BB-Gun

[BB-Gun]

By the way, one of those Phantom Lady comics is real and the other two are photocopies.

[29dukedog]

3 minutes ago, BB-Gun said:

By the way, one of those Phantom Lady comics is real and the other two are photocopies.

I'll bet the 18 is the real one?

[Ricksneatstuff]

On 2/21/2017 at 7:48 AM, Shrevvy said:

 

Thanks Jayman! Yes, we have done a number of our "Flashback Replicas" over the past couple years. They are produced from my personal collection and start as 600 DPI scans which are then cleaned up. Sometimes, i have had to source an image from fellow collectors. My cover to Black Cat 50 had some problems and Jayman helped me out with a scan. I have not used the digitalcomicmuseum or similar because those scans do not provide high enough resolution. We do restore our scans. I'll post some images later this evening next to the originals for comparisons. Most of our sales come through Diamond.

My company, Canton Street Press, produced Moon Girl #5 (our first replica). We have or are in the process of doing the entire Moon Girl run. The run will also be collected in a hard cover book once completed. A handful of EC books are in the public domain and Moon Girl is one of those series. We research each book we do with the US Copyright Office.

I have some of @Shrevvy stuff from canton street press.  Very impressive work from someone who truly appreciates and loves the medium. He also can put down some Mexican food

[Cat-Man_America]

It's nice to see so many forms of PD reprinting available to collectors.  Each has pluses and minuses, but in an age where collector comics are often permanently intombed to preserve their survivability, the advent of reasonably priced full color copies serves the hobby.  Those who were curious about the golden age but unable to justify the cost of admission to the GA collector club, now have access and a means of appreciation while bench-warming.  Having reader copies means that the stories and interior art can be valued as well.  This bodes well for future collecting. 

Here are a bunch of "photocopy" reprints that arrived today from a recent auction...

[vaillant]

On 3/3/2017 at 7:42 AM, 29dukedog said:

I'd like to be clear exactly what kind of reproductions we are talking about when we say, "Photocopy comics".  To me, a "color photocopy" is what you produce when you place an actual comic face down on the bed of a color "Xerox" machine.  I collect color photocopies of comic covers, made directly from actual comics.  To my eye, there is no superior reproduction. 

I doubt these "Photocopy comics" we've been discussing are made in that manner, as it would be very time consuming.  Rather, they are laser printouts made from scans of comic covers and pages.  They would more accurately be called, "Scan printout comics".  My cover collection does include this kind of reproduction.  When I'm not able to make a color photocopy directly from a particular book, I'll go hunting for the highest quality scan of the cover I can find, clean it up as best I can, crop it as needed, and take it to our local print shop on a disc, and have them run off a copy on a laser printer.  The result is good, but nothing beats a true color photocopy, imo.  

Actually, the Xerox (or other) copier should have correct color settings, otherwise even a direct photocopy will have colors that are entirely altered.
The replicas are very well done, but I suppose it is digital printing of better quality than the one you have with basic color laser copies, or am i wrong?

[29dukedog]

10 hours ago, vaillant said:

Actually, the Xerox (or other) copier should have correct color settings, otherwise even a direct photocopy will have colors that are entirely altered.
The replicas are very well done, but I suppose it is digital printing of better quality than the one you have with basic color laser copies, or am i wrong?

Nowadays, I think even color "Xerox" copiers digitally scan the image and send that data to the mechanism that applies the colors to the paper.  So I think it's all "digital", today.  I've been using color Xerox machines for a few decades, and all I can say is that, however they work now, I still believe they produce the truest reproductions. 

[vaillant]

11 hours ago, 29dukedog said:

Nowadays, I think even color "Xerox" copiers digitally scan the image and send that data to the mechanism that applies the colors to the paper.  So I think it's all "digital", today.  I've been using color Xerox machines for a few decades, and all I can say is that, however they work now, I still believe they produce the truest reproductions. 

Yes, but there is a big qualitative difference (in terms of faithfulness or color reproduction) depending on the models. And Xerox is not the only brand doing copiers, that’s why I said "others". Regardless of the acquisition device (be it a copier or a flatbed scanne, of varying hardware quality) it’s also very important to have the color settings costantly balanced, otherwise you will have a "color shift" or worse, and not a faithful reproduction. Sorry about my bad english, but these technical things are hard to articulate as I do not know certain terms in english.

[Jayman]

2 hours ago, vaillant said:

Yes, but there is a big qualitative difference (in terms of faithfulness or color reproduction) depending on the models. And Xerox is not the only brand doing copiers, that’s why I said "others". Regardless of the acquisition device (be it a copier or a flatbed scanne, of varying hardware quality) it’s also very important to have the color settings costantly balanced, otherwise you will have a "color shift" or worse, and not a faithful reproduction. Sorry about my bad english, but these technical things are hard to articulate as I do not know certain terms in english.

I happen to work with and use what I consider the top 3 digital color printers. Canon, RICOH and Xerox. These are high end commercial printers. We do calibrate them for accurate color from job to job, but for accurate color correction, to compare to an original sample, you still have to tweak the colors manually most of the time as the software only can do so much.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Jayman

[Mijael.Levy]

The worst is when you find the original book with a photocopy cover. Sometimes its slabbed.. It looks awful and its very irritating. 

Edited May 1, 2017 by Mijael.Levy

[BB-Gun]

18 minutes ago, Mijael.Levy said:

The worst is when you find the original book with a photocopy cover. Sometimes its slabbed.. It looks awful and its very irritating. 

I disagree.  I think there are a lot of really good extra covers that are photocopies.  I like my Adventure comics 64 cover especially well.  Here is a group shot with 5 other "real" covers and the 64 still looks pretty good.  However, I don't think there is any reason to slab a comic with a photocopy cover unless it is only a portion of the cover.

 

[29dukedog]

5 hours ago, vaillant said:

Yes, but there is a big qualitative difference (in terms of faithfulness or color reproduction) depending on the models. And Xerox is not the only brand doing copiers, that’s why I said "others". Regardless of the acquisition device (be it a copier or a flatbed scanne, of varying hardware quality) it’s also very important to have the color settings costantly balanced, otherwise you will have a "color shift" or worse, and not a faithful reproduction. Sorry about my bad english, but these technical things are hard to articulate as I do not know certain terms in english.

I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying:  all devices that make copies have color settings that can be properly, or improperly, set, whether they are laser printers, inkjet printers, or photocopy machines.  And copy quality will depend on proper settings, and will also vary between different models and manufacturers.  That is all absolutely true. 

I think, all I'm trying to say, is this:  all things being equal, assuming a comparison using state of the art, top of the line hardware, all with proper and optimum settings... my experience has been that photocopy machines (those that make reproductions directly from physical images) tend to be the best.  That's just my opinion.  

[vaillant]

On 1/5/2017 at 5:41 PM, 29dukedog said:

I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying:  all devices that make copies have color settings that can be properly, or improperly, set, whether they are laser printers, inkjet printers, or photocopy machines.  And copy quality will depend on proper settings, and will also vary between different models and manufacturers.  That is all absolutely true. 

I think, all I'm trying to say, is this:  all things being equal, assuming a comparison using state of the art, top of the line hardware, all with proper and optimum settings... my experience has been that photocopy machines (those that make reproductions directly from physical images) tend to be the best.  That's just my opinion.  

I see, but being digital, there is a digitization regardless. Of course, it’s "one pass less" by photocopying directly, but the copier really needs to be balanced.

Then there is better quality digital printing, but this is for print runs…

[Yorick]

On 2/17/2017 at 3:32 PM, OtherEric said:

A lot of those listings aren't really from photocopies, they're from the free scans at the Digital Comic Museum or Comic Book Plus.  A good quick example would be the Target v2 n5, the damage on the cover is clearly from my scan of Jim Vadeboncour's copy.

To be fair, the listing does admit this.  But why buy a book via eBay you can read on line free?

 

On 2/17/2017 at 5:44 PM, Sqeggs said:

Are they all the public domain or are some of these guys violating copyright? 

I am not a lawyer, but when someone scans a copy of a public domain book - don't they own the rights to the scan/digital file?  And if that's the case, isn't the seller then violating copyright law by making a profit off of the original scanner's efforts?

After finding out about DigitalComicsMuseum, I went over there and downloaded a whole lot of stuff I'll never get the chance to read otherwise.  I might print a few myself (I prefer paper reading rather than digital), but I won't sell the prints.

[OtherEric]

2 hours ago, Yorick said:

 

I am not a lawyer, but when someone scans a copy of a public domain book - don't they own the rights to the scan/digital file?  And if that's the case, isn't the seller then violating copyright law by making a profit off of the original scanner's efforts?

After finding out about DigitalComicsMuseum, I went over there and downloaded a whole lot of stuff I'll never get the chance to read otherwise.  I might print a few myself (I prefer paper reading rather than digital), but I won't sell the prints.

As I understand it, to get copyright in a copy of a public domain item you need to have done something transformative to it.  While it does convert the work to a new format, I do not think that (in general) the act of scanning actually qualifies.  But I'm not a lawyer either.

At least in the case of my scans, I absolutely and pointedly do NOT claim any copyright in the work.  I may be annoyed when I see somebody selling scans of what I'm sharing freely as the Digital Comic Museum, but to me it's actually important that they have the right to do so.  And if somebody is willing to pay for somebody to print it out for them, more power to them.