Tips on improving the quality of old comics for free? 2 2

[stormflora]

I'm not a seller, just a rookie collecting some comics for myself.

Is the only possible means of improving the quality of the comics for free to just realign the book neatly and then squash it between two textbooks and leave it sitting for weeks?

I've been doing some searches regarding ironing, and there are mixed results regarding to whether or not it is safe. Naturally, it is better to err on the side of caution and just not do that.

Also, does anyone have any advice on how to cover up pen marks on the front cover without resorting to white-out?

I noticed that a black ballpoint pen works incredibly well for black outlines, but that's about it. I don't have anything for the white or coloured areas, and markers don't seem to work.

Thanks a bunch.

[Lightning55]

You don't want to be touching up colors, or outlines, or anything. It will be considered Restoration, and significantly drop the value of your comics. Like by 50%, possibly more. 

[stormflora]

On 11/13/2023 at 3:06 AM, Lightning55 said:

You don't want to be touching up colors, or outlines, or anything. It will be considered Restoration, and significantly drop the value of your comics. Like by 50%, possibly more. 

Hi, thank you for your reply. I am not trying to fix the comic for resale. It's just for my own collection and visual appeal. (This might sound strange considering we are on the CGC forum, haha.)

The pen marks really bug me, and although I could spend the time and money to buy a replacement copy, I'd like to see whether there are alternatives I could try to just get rid of them or hide them and make the cover less ugly. I do believe that it is old ink, so it has most likely seeped into the paper already.

[aardvark88]

On 11/13/2023 at 9:13 AM, stormflora said:

The pen marks really bug me, and although I could spend the time and money to buy a replacement copy, I'd like to see whether there are alternatives I could try to just get rid of them or hide them and make the cover less ugly. so it has most likely seeped into the paper already.

Head of CGC Matt Nelson speaketh about conservation/restoration at Collector's Summitt, HA, Dallas, TX Nov, 2023:

 

[LowGradeBronze]

Please don't take this unkindly, but buy some colouring in books to satisfy your urges and leave the comics as they are. Two wrongs don't make a right where pen marks on comics are concerned. Welcome to the boards! :-)

[stormflora]

On 11/14/2023 at 10:04 AM, LowGradeBronze said:

Please don't take this unkindly, but buy some colouring in books to satisfy your urges and leave the comics as they are. Two wrongs don't make a right where pen marks on comics are concerned. Welcome to the boards! :-)

Well, it is not a particularly expensive comic and is for my own personal collection (I only paid $3.65 USD for it), so I should be personally satisfied with how it looks, not somebody else I'd never actually sell to. If it was actually meant for resale, then yeah, not only would I not touch it, but I would also not even bother wasting time trying to fix it.

In any case, I have managed to touch up and fix the pen marks to a palatable state with some white acrylic gouache paint and amateur marker tinting. I got rid of the egregious drawings on the faces, even though I still need to do a bit of work with the coloured clothes, which still have the drawings on them. With time and patience, I'll be able to build up enough experience to tackle these harder fixes with better painting skills. But for now, I like what I've achieved and I'm fine with it for now. At a distance, it is not noticeable.

In my most honest opinion, I would say that the comic itself hasn't actually changed in grade. It started off as a Good and stayed as a Good. But at least now it doesn't have ugly pen drawings blatantly scribbled on top of it anymore. So optimistically it might even be a slight net positive. But it is still a Good nonetheless.

I've attached some photos of the before and after. I didn't actually take a photo of the before, but I sketched back on what it used to look like before I did any touching up on it (to the best of my memory), without any deceit. You can tell that I've fixed a lot of it up, even though there's definitely still room for improvement.

Edited November 15, 2023 by stormflora

[LowGradeBronze]

In the light of those pictures, I apologise and take back my rather flippant sounding original comment. I'd say you've done a pretty decent job of reducing the scribble that was spoiling the cover. If this is a comic you'd like to have a clean copy of, you could go onto Mycomicshop website and place an 'add to want list' marker on this book. (This exact issue 26 is currently out of stock there.) Then, when it comes back in stock, you'll get an email to notify you. They are not expensive books. Thanks for showing us your resto example!

Edited November 15, 2023 by LowGradeBronze

[LowGradeBronze]

I dabble in repairs when necessary and only recently bought a Doctor Strange 180 with covers detached and full length spine split. Library film rather than tape on the inside of the covers has been used to rejoin them and original staples reused after reinforcing the staple holes at the centrefold. Then as you say, heaviest books in the house to weight it down and I have a one piece book rather than 3 separate parts. I can handle this book as much as I like without harming its very low grade. What's not to like?

[stormflora]

On 11/15/2023 at 3:02 AM, LowGradeBronze said:

In the light of those pictures, I apologise and take back my rather flippant sounding original comment. I'd say you've done a pretty decent job of reducing the scribble that was spoiling the cover. If this is a comic you'd like to have a clean copy of, you could go onto Mycomicshop website and place an 'add to want list' marker on this book. (This exact issue 26 is currently out of stock there.) Then, when it comes back in stock, you'll get an email to notify you. They are not expensive books. Thanks for showing us your resto example!

I actually purchase quite a lot of comics from Lone Star (MyComicShop), so I know all about how their store works . But a lot of the issues I need in the series do not pop up that often, so this is just a compromise. However, judging from what I've done with the restoration so far, I may actually end up sticking with this issue, since the rest of the comic is actually in good condition (it's just the front cover that's messed up).

On 11/15/2023 at 3:09 AM, LowGradeBronze said:

I dabble in repairs when necessary and only recently bought a Doctor Strange 180 with covers detached and full length spine split. Library film rather than tape on the inside of the covers has been used to rejoin them and original staples reused after reinforcing the staple holes at the centrefold. Then as you say, heaviest books in the house to weight it down and I have a one piece book rather than 3 separate parts. I can handle this book as much as I like without harming its very low grade. What's not to like?

Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at as well. If a comic is already a low grade (Good or lower), it's not that easy to make it worse. And as long as you aren't planning to resell it, why not feel better about the issue that you own? If it would please you to fix it up the way you personally prefer, then go for it. You paid for the issue and you're the one who owns it, after all. Hell, some rich person could buy a $1M comic and throw it into a grinder for all they care, as long as it would make them happy.

To grading authorities like CGC/CBCS, they probably only start to care about restorations if a comic reaches Fine or higher, as they would start to be concerned about tampering and are no longer briefly grading a low quality comic with a 1-2 minute visual inspection. There are so many possible reasons why a comic may be ruined, and if a kid genuinely painted or used correction fluid on top of a comic, does it automatically make it "restoration" grade? Not necessarily. But it does keep its grade low.

As mentioned, with the restoration that I made, I genuinely feel that it was a net positive, even if it started off as a Good and still ended up as a Good. At least I don't hate looking at it anymore. But I still need to spend a bit more time with it to fix it further. Hypothetically speaking, if I bought a new copy that was also graded Good, there's always the chance it may actually be worse than the copy I have. And even at Very Good, there's always the chance of a misgrading or certain imperfections being considered acceptable that might not actually be in my eyes. A bit of a gamble and increased investment required. At least this way, any restorations I make are controlled and within expectation.

Edited November 15, 2023 by stormflora

[LowGradeBronze]

You've sounded this all out very thoughtfully. I used to have a lot of really high grade raw comics. I never even looked at them apart from the cover, since their high grade got in the way of enjoying them properly. Now, I have a lot of lower grade books as well and I do like to them for the smell, the artwork and the overall nostalgia. Books I have repaired do feel much more 'mine' than some high grade books that only ever come out on rare occasions. Enjoy the journey! 

[stormflora]

On 11/15/2023 at 4:15 PM, LowGradeBronze said:

You've sounded this all out very thoughtfully. I used to have a lot of really high grade raw comics. I never even looked at them apart from the cover, since their high grade got in the way of enjoying them properly. Now, I have a lot of lower grade books as well and I do like to them for the smell, the artwork and the overall nostalgia. Books I have repaired do feel much more 'mine' than some high grade books that only ever come out on rare occasions. Enjoy the journey! 

I can definitely sympathize with the conundrum of handling higher grade comics. You have to be extremely gentle with them, which can reduce or even frustrate the reading experience. You may never know if 50+ years down the line it ends up being worth millions, and your mishandling of it now makes it only worth a fraction of that for your kids. So you refrain from touching it. At least with a low grade comic, it is not going to significantly change in quality as long as you don't utterly destroy it. But you can use it as a reading copy, however many times you wish.

I don't necessarily choose to buy low grade comics, but I do try to stay under a budget for each issue, as I do not value comics as highly as my other hobbies. So I grab whatever is the best available grade of an issue within my budget at the time. And this ranges anywhere from Good to Near Mint, but on average, the Very Good spectrum. I try to avoid Good whenever possible as the damage on them can turn out to be unexpected, unless there are explicit photos available to show its appearance. Most issues I encounter tend to be Very Good or Fine, but there are some misgradings here and there (both in a good and a bad way).

I toobid you good day  

[stormflora]

Well... It's time for Comic Wars: The Return of the Scribble.

It's going to be a frustrating yet funny experience having to deal with this one as well.