1st (Very) Amateur Comic Cleaning Attempt 1 1

[Axelrod]

The George Perez signing got me motivated to finally, possibly, send in some comics to CGC.  But as all my comics are old and not necessarily in the best condition, I thought I would probably want to try and clean them up a bit before I did, if possible.

There are obviously a million videos on Youtube of people doing this type of thing, but I thought I would post my first example for the curious.  This is NOT a comic I was intending on sending in, for obvious reasons.  Thankfully, I have a much nicer copy.  But this one seemed like a good candidate to practice on.  

It's got shmuck and dirt and fingerprints all over it, and maybe some staining/mildew?  I'm not sure what it is, but again, I thought it would make a good book to practice on.  I used regular cotton wipes, a white eraser, an Absorbine pad and Absorbine putty.  I had a Magic Eraser, but it didn't seem good for this cover.  

After gently rubbing the book with the cotton, I started down on the DC logo at the bottom, using the white eraser.  This was where I thought I might get the best result, and so far it has worked okay

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You can see where I tried to erase between the DC Logo and the top of the "Where" and got color loss beneath the star.  Not everything cleaned up, but I assume it could/would improve if I kept at it longer.  I was trying to go slowly and not rub too hard.  There is a huge temptation when you think something is working to go faster and rub harder.  I should add that I also went over this area with the absorbine pad and also the absorbine putty (rolled into a small tube like Youtube videos suggested).  I wanted to see if the pad/putty would help improve the colored areas, but I didn't really notice anything.  Possibly it's not improvable.  Possibly my technique is just wrong.  

Then I went up to the price box area, the pink lightning bolt, and Superman's red cape.  I wanted to see if I could improve the cape with the absorbine and not get color loss.  I worked on the cape for a bit.  It was very difficult to tell if anything was happening, and I'm still not sure if I did it correctly, but I feel like there was some improvement in the red cape area, but also some color loss.

  

The price box was especially challenging because of the spacing.  It seemed virtually impossible to get in the areas with the numbers, even with my very fine point eraser.  The above is what it looked like just going around the large white areas I could do without touching the other parts.  But then I was like, I guess I have to go into the letter/number area and just see what happens.  I tried to be very gentle and slow.  This is what it looks like atm (also went over some of the white areas in the pink lightning bolt.)

So, again, it seems a little better.  Not sure how to really get in those super tight areas, and there is some color loss on the "75."  I also went over the colored parts of this area, including the part at the bottom of the title with the absorbine pad/putty, but again, they didn't seem to do much.  I think all that white smudging/fingerprinting might be actual color loss and not fixable?  

Anyway, I thought it was interesting so I'm posting it, warts and all.  Curious if people have other ideas for ways this could be improved/if it can be improved.  Or other products to try on it that might do something, especially in the black/colored areas?  

 

Edited January 9, 2022 by Axelrod

[joeypost]

The oils from the fingerprints did irreversible damage. In a few of the areas you are not really cleaning dirt, but smudged ink. Best to look for a better copy to send in. CGC hammers fingerprints. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

TBH those dirty-ace fingerprints almost make me wanna gag.