Will a Pressing help this? 0

[MARVELous Fan]

Hi,

I would like to purchase this book, but wanted to know if a press could restore this badly aligned wrap around, back to its former self, or would it cause any stress or damage to the spine?

Thanks in advance,

Andy

 

[SOTIcollector]

1 hour ago, MARVELous Fan said:

Hi,

I would like to purchase this book, but wanted to know if a press could restore this badly aligned wrap around, back to its former self, or would it cause any stress or damage to the spine?

Thanks in advance,

Andy

 

Hi, Andy,

I think you may have inadvertently posted the incorrect back cover photo.  That looks like an ASM back cover (#42 perhaps). But I understand the question you're asking.

It's important to distinguish between two types of imperfections that comics can have: spine roll, and miswrap.

When a spine is rolled, typically due to storage under less-than-optimal conditions, the pages get fanned out because the book's spine is shifted from where it started out.  When your FF57 was new, it probably didn't have those pages sticking out along the right side (pronounced at the top right edge, but absent from the bottom right edge).  That's likely to be spine roll.

A miswrap is when the cover is stapled in a way such that the spine of the cover printing doesn't align with the printed spine of the comic, where the front cover image meets the back cover.  On the books you pictured, there's probably a staple going through the "comics group" in the box in the upper left corner of the comic.  A miswrap happened at the printing plant, and is not something that happened to the book later in its life. 

A press can fix a spine roll, so that the pages align well.

I have seen cases where press can "fix" a miswrap, so that the image on the cover presents fully, and the comic is folded where the cover SHOULD have been folded, rather than where the comic actually was folded.  This isn't actually restoring the comic to its former glory, but giving it a brand new spine location that it never had when it was new.  Doing this would result in the staples being somewhere other than the spine, and the pages in the front half of the book would not be even with the pages in the back half of the book.  In the case of your FF57, the staples would end up in the front cover rather than on the spine.  I personally wouldn't recommend trying to "fix" a miswrap this way, but I'd be curious as to what others with experience addressing miswraps may have to say.

It's important also to recognize that pressing involves a lot of human effort.  An inexperienced presser can make a comic worse than it was to start with.  Even an experienced presser can make mistakes. because they're human.  And when pressing involves more than just squishing the comic exactly as it is, the paper is gets stressed.  There's a danger that staples could pop, or other imperfections could be introduced.  So to answer your question of "would it cause any stress or damage to the spine", the answer is "it could."

Best of luck, whatever becomes of your book.

 

Edited May 16, 2021 by SOTIcollector

[joeypost]

4 hours ago, MARVELous Fan said:

Hi,

I would like to purchase this book, but wanted to know if a press could restore this badly aligned wrap around, back to its former self, or would it cause any stress or damage to the spine?

Thanks in advance,

Andy

 

The mis-wrap...in most cases marginally or no. 

Structurally (the front cover scan) the book seem sound and a press will marginally help in getting it to lay flat. The correct back cover scan will help to answer your initial question. 

[MARVELous Fan]

SOTIcollector and joeypost,

Thank you so much for your replies, knowledge and helpfulness.

I am certainly more enlightened than I was before about all this, so thank you.

Kind regards,

Andy

[theCapraAegagrus]