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No gloss covers

Started by bobpfef,

17 posts in this topic

bobpfef

bobpfef

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Many of the Four Color Dells I have before about 1950 have a matte sort of finish on them. I just assumed that this was because the gloss had wore off these books over the years, but even some of the higher grade books I've gotten have the same lack of gloss. At the Chicago con I had a dealer tell me that these comics where manufacturer without a glossy cover. Can that be correct? I know some giveaways and promos have "dull" covers, but I assume a Dell Four Color would have a glossy cover when it was originally released.

 

Bob

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Scrooge

Scrooge

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A while back I had mentioned that a lot of my Fiction House look like they never had any gloss and people corrected me mentioning theirs from the same time period had gloss. Gary (Moondog) at the dinner confirmed that, yes FHs had gloss but the paper stock's quality / ink quality was so low that they are losing their reflectivity faster than others. Gary told us that DCs (and to some extent Dells) had best paper quality and that Fox had the drecks but I was surprised when he mentioned ECs are down towards the bottom. Upon reflecting on the ECs I have, they do tend to have cream pages one and all.

 

Bob, yes I'll concur as one of my "early" FC Bugs has no gloss while the other does IIRC.

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bobpfef

bobpfef

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I agree about the cover gloss. I recently came into a bunch of Roy Rogers Comics, in various shape, and only a few of the later ones have gloss. Here's a scan of the nicest one, Four Color #153:

 

ddg104.jpg

 

Wow, nice book. If a book is in that nice of shape you would assume it would still have gloss if it had it from the beginning.

 

Now I guess the question is did all the Four Colors from a particular time frame have non-glossy cover or was it hit and miss? When did they start with the no-gloss covers, when did they stop? I've never seen any kind of comic index that noted if a comic was printed with a dull cover or not.

 

Bob

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Jeffreykli

Jeffreykli

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Great Roy there Jef. I also notice it is one of those 1 staple book. Is there possibly any correspondance between the staple situation and the gloss situation for Dells?

 

I don't think there's a correspondence between one/two staples and gloss/non-gloss. Here's another Four Color Roy Rogers, #166, so the same year as the previous one, yet this one has two staples and again, no gloss. It's really tough to say with these books; you can hardly make it out on the scan, but there's a color breaking crease on the lower corner that has been color touched. Without gloss, it's a little harder to detect the color touch because the covers feel like heavy paper.

 

ddg105.jpg

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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Many of the Four Color Dells I have before about 1950 have a matte sort of finish on them. I just assumed that this was because the gloss had wore off these books over the years, but even some of the higher grade books I've gotten have the same lack of gloss. At the Chicago con I had a dealer tell me that these comics where manufacturer without a glossy cover. Can that be correct? I know some giveaways and promos have "dull" covers, but I assume a Dell Four Color would have a glossy cover when it was originally released.

 

Bob

 

Comic companies used a variety of coated/lightly coated paper stock for their covers. Most of the time a company would stick with a particular style for a couple years before switching, but you sometimes have situations like Fox where they switched back and forth on the same issue (this was brought up in a different thread). Many of the Dell covers from the 50s were printed on high quality stock such that they almost look like they were varnished. Many of the earlier ones were (1940s were on paper stock). While I'm curious and notice this kind of stuff, I'm not anal about it so I've not bothered to write down the exact year/month that these change. I definitely be interested to hear if anyone else has.

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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A while back I had mentioned that a lot of my Fiction House look like they never had any gloss and people corrected me mentioning theirs from the same time period had gloss. Gary (Moondog) at the dinner confirmed that, yes FHs had gloss but the paper stock's quality / ink quality was so low that they are losing their reflectivity faster than others. Gary told us that DCs (and to some extent Dells) had best paper quality and that Fox had the drecks but I was surprised when he mentioned ECs are down towards the bottom. Upon reflecting on the ECs I have, they do tend to have cream pages one and all.

 

Bob, yes I'll concur as one of my "early" FC Bugs has no gloss while the other does IIRC.

 

Even the cover stock and the inks on the FH comics varied over time. In the early part of the runs (early 40s) they have nice gloss/inks, then they switch to pathetic/inconsistent inks/low gloss, and finally in late, late 40s, they are glossy again. There was not "one way" that they were printed during that time.

 

As far as EC comics go, the standard word has been that they are poorly printed. They are not, however, markedly different than other companies from that era. Most of the 50s comics do not have nice paper or nice cover stocks when compared with 40s comics. I have an uncut sheet of covers from about 1954 that includes 8 covers from EC, DC, and Atlas. They were printed on the same press, with the same inks, on the same cover stock. EC comics varied the type of cover stock they used over the years so I can't prove that the 1951 EC issues were the same as the DCs, but from what I've seen and own, they aren't as nice as the best of the 40s.

 

(BTW, I would be interested in someone charting the changes in EC comics printing as well. The early issues New Direction issues are on matt-finish paper stock while the later ones are on a noticeably glossier paper stock.)

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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I have an uncut sheet of covers from about 1954 that includes 8 covers from EC, DC, and Atlas.

 

That sounds way cool, can we see a picture? 893crossfingers-thumb.gif

 

I don't have a picture or digital camera. I'll see if I can find one this weekend.

 

gossip.gif I think it's pretty cool too!

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tth2

tth2

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Posted

I have an uncut sheet of covers from about 1954 that includes 8 covers from EC, DC, and Atlas.

 

That sounds way cool, can we see a picture? 893crossfingers-thumb.gif

 

I don't have a picture or digital camera. I'll see if I can find one this weekend.

Just fold it up so you can fit each cover onto your scanner. confused-smiley-013.gifdevil.gif

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adamstrange

adamstrange

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Posted

I have an uncut sheet of covers from about 1954 that includes 8 covers from EC, DC, and Atlas.

 

That sounds way cool, can we see a picture? 893crossfingers-thumb.gif

 

I don't have a picture or digital camera. I'll see if I can find one this weekend.

Just fold it up so you can fit each cover onto your scanner. confused-smiley-013.gifdevil.gif

 

Actually it is folded up -- which is how you usually find them as it would be pretty hard for these puppies to survive otherwise. I've only unfolded it 3 times since I bought it.

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