SUPERMAN #1 different printings 7 7

[pemart1966]

On 3/28/2024 at 3:46 PM, sfcityduck said:

I have heard of the "Pay Copy" of MC 1 which is a Nov. copy. But I have seen "checking copy" stamped on other GA comics.

Right, BUT Vintage_Paper specifically referenced the MARVEL COMICS #1 CHECKING copy which I've never seen or heard of.  

When the Pay Copy surfaced, I don't recall any mention of a CHECKING copy.  So the question remains - has anyone seen or heard of it?

Edited March 29 by pemart1966

[BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES]

On 3/28/2024 at 9:20 PM, sfcityduck said:

Misplaced dot clearly was the earlier part of the print run because the misplaced dot was in the pre-Batman 1 house ad based on the cover proof. The notion that the misplaced dot was misplaced after DC first ran a bunch of no dot copies fails the old Occam's razor test. That would be an absurd coincidence.

 

 

If the misplaced dot had been replaced with a properly placed dot, then Occam's razor would clearly support the idea that misplaced dot came first.

But occam's razor does not support the idea that someone would notice a dot is misplaced and go to the trouble of removing the dot without then putting the dot in the correct place.  

The simplest explanation is that as they ran off covers of Batman 1 somebody noticed early on that the dot was missing and it looked like it said "no one" instead of "number one" and they added a dot.  Somebody was clearly told to "fix it". And then they made cover proofs with the change.  All of which likely occurred within the same day, within minutes.  

So, which makes more sense?  That somebody fixed it by putting a dot after the "No" (and incidentally put it a bit further to the right than they should have)?  Or that somebody "fixed it" by removing the dot?  

Calling the latter more likely flies in the face of occam's razor.  And paints an image of a production person who behaves like a "dumb guy" in a bad sitcom

 

 

Edited March 29 by BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

[sfcityduck]

On 3/29/2024 at 1:45 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

If the misplaced dot had been replaced with a properly placed dot, then Occam's razor would clearly support the idea that misplaced dot came first.

But occam's razor does not support the idea that someone would notice a dot is misplaced and go to the trouble of removing the dot without then putting the dot in the correct place.  

The simplest explanation is that as they ran off covers of Batman 1 somebody noticed early on that the dot was missing and it looked like it said "no one" instead of "number one" and they added a dot.  Somebody was clearly told to "fix it". And then they made cover proofs with the change.  All of which likely occurred within the same day, within minutes.  

So, which makes more sense?  That somebody fixed it by putting a dot after the "No" (and incidentally put it a bit further to the right than they should have)?  Or that somebody "fixed it" by removing the dot?  

Calling the latter more likely flies in the face of occam's razor.  And paints an image of a production person who behaves like a "dumb guy" in a bad sitcom

 

 

Respectfully, I disagree.  To clarify, I believe the house ads are probably shot off the original art or a temp print (like the Action 1 silver print). They are a paste-up of a shrunken copy/stat. That they often come out a month or more before the comic in the ad comes out, suggests that the the covers have not made it to print before the ad is printed. Thus, that a house ad in a preceding book shows the misplaced dot strongly evidences that the misplaced dot was there originally and was removed not added.

The printing plates I remember from my childhood visiting an old style newspaper press at the paper my dad worked used lead plates. Very easy to pop something out. Very hard to add something in. (My dad had one melted down to use for an anchor of his drift boat). As I said, Occam's razor. (Who was Occam? I got this from reading too much Heinlein as a kid.)

I should ad, I don't think Batman 1 is like Superman 1. It is not separate printings. Just an interruption to the print run. And it may even be the no dot are rarer. I've not seen any price discrimination on this issue and I would not worry about any.

Edited March 29 by sfcityduck

[Daveb25]

I think the easiest and most likely explanation is it was designed to have the dot in the wrong place as the house add shows and at some point during printing the dot broke off the plate and was not replaced. The dot was clearly meant to be in the spot it was in as proof by the house add. 

[sfcityduck]

On 3/29/2024 at 2:19 PM, Daveb25 said:

I think the easiest and most likely explanation is it was designed to have the dot in the wrong place as the house add shows and at some point during printing the dot broke off the plate and was not replaced. The dot was clearly meant to be in the spot it was in as proof by the house add. 

That is a brand new and maybe plausible theory I have not heard before.

[Yorick]

No Dot is second state.  Broke off or chiseled off...  either way.

In order to add a dot to the plate, they'd have to re-make the plate (at the very least that whole line "No .1").  If they remade the plate, surely they'd get it correct that time ("No. 1" - see where the space is?).  Structurally, I feel that you can't rely on just drilling a new post (dot) into the plate and it withstanding the 100k's print run.

[Aman619]

Keep in mind that printing plates are like 3D topographical maps of an ocean with islands. Acid eats away the metal everywhere the artwork is blank/white on the artwork. Leaving scooped out areas and high points. The high points are like the islands — “mountains” attached to the ocean floor. Ink is applied to the plates and only sticks to the mountains. This ink is transferred to the paper.

I only mention this to suggest that you can’t “add the dot” to an existing plate and expect it to remain in place after a few impressions are made. So “adding a dot to the plate” isn’t a quick fix a printer would use. 

[Yorick]

Any other BIG books out there with differences that can only be seen on the inside?  Differing prints that are visible through the case don't bother me as much as the Superman 1.

[jimbo_7071]

On 3/29/2024 at 7:50 PM, Yorick said:

Any other BIG books out there with differences that can only be seen on the inside?  Differing prints that are visible through the case don't bother me as much as the Superman 1.

My sentiments exactly. 

[BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES]

On 3/29/2024 at 2:00 PM, sfcityduck said:

Respectfully, I disagree.  To clarify, I believe the house ads are probably shot off the original art or a temp print (like the Action 1 silver print). They are a paste-up of a shrunken copy/stat. That they often come out a month or more before the comic in the ad comes out, suggests that the the covers have not made it to print before the ad is printed. Thus, that a house ad in a preceding book shows the misplaced dot strongly evidences that the misplaced dot was there originally and was removed not added.

The printing plates I remember from my childhood visiting an old style newspaper press at the paper my dad worked used lead plates. Very easy to pop something out. Very hard to add something in. (My dad had one melted down to use for an anchor of his drift boat). As I said, Occam's razor. (Who was Occam? I got this from reading too much Heinlein as a kid.)

I should ad, I don't think Batman 1 is like Superman 1. It is not separate printings. Just an interruption to the print run. And it may even be the no dot are rarer. I've not seen any price discrimination on this issue and I would not worry about any.

I would agree that the dot and no dot are part of the same printing.  That the dot would be deliberately removed relies on the supposition that a sitcom-level stewpid guy was told he must stop the print run because the dot was the wrong place, and "fixed it" by removing the dot. 

 

I totally get why people who own a Bat 1 might want to work backward from that conclusion and why they will never back down from it, or simply switch to another just as unlikely reason.  I am not expecting to change any minds. But I am curious about how people argue and why and when people abuse or ignore logic to make conclusions and sway others.  And, at least on this issue the fate of mankind isn't hanging in the balance.     

 

Edited March 30 by BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

[sfcityduck]

On 3/29/2024 at 5:27 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

I totally get why people who own a Bat 1 might want to work backward from that conclusion and why they will never back down from it, or simply switch to another just as unlikely reason.  I am not expecting to change any minds. But I am curious about how people argue and why and when people abuse or ignore logic to make conclusions and sway others.  And, at least on this issue the fate of mankind isn't hanging in the balance.     

 

Curiosity is always good. An open mind is better. 

If you want to delve into abuse of or ignoring logic, I'd suggest you bone up on logical fallacies, starting with ad hominem, straw man, and hasty generalization.

[BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES]

On 3/29/2024 at 5:45 PM, sfcityduck said:

Curiosity is always good. An open mind is better. 

If you want to delve into abuse of or ignoring logic, I'd suggest you bone up on logical fallacies, starting with ad hominem, straw man, and hasty generalization.

I'm well acquainted with them all.  

Occam's razor, for example, essentially states the simplest answer that explains all the questions is the most likely answer.  It's why I say that in this case one mistake, imperfectly corrected, early in the print run explains everything better and more simply than the suggestion that there was a lesser mistake that went uncorrected until late in the print run and was considered important enough to correct late in the print run, but was then "fixed" with an even worse mistake.

 

This so much more fun than trying to figure out why people seem to want to propel mankind to its doom. 

 

Edited March 30 by BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

[buttock]

On 3/29/2024 at 7:14 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

I'm well acquainted with them all.  

Occam's razor, for example, essentially states the simplest answer that explains all the questions is the most likely answer.  It's why I say that in this case one mistake, imperfectly corrected, early in the print run explains everything better and more simply than the suggestion that there was a lesser mistake that went uncorrected until late in the print run and was considered important enough to correct late in the print run, but was then "fixed" with an even worse mistake.

 

This so much more fun than trying to figure out why people seem to want to propel mankind to its doom. 

 

Depending on who you ask mankind is either saved or doomed by a missing period. 

[MattTheDuck]

On 3/29/2024 at 6:14 PM, BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES said:

why people seem to want to propel mankind to its doom

There's a decent argument to be made that things would be much better.

[jimbo_7071]

On 3/29/2024 at 6:29 PM, Aman619 said:

Keep in mind that printing plates are like 3D topographical maps of an ocean with islands. Acid eats away the metal everywhere the artwork is blank/white on the artwork. Leaving scooped out areas and high points. The high points are like the islands — “mountains” attached to the ocean floor. Ink is applied to the plates and only sticks to the mountains. This ink is transferred to the paper.

I only mention this to suggest that you can’t “add the dot” to an existing plate and expect it to remain in place after a few impressions are made. So “adding a dot to the plate” isn’t a quick fix a printer would use. 

Since you seem to know something about printing plates, I'll direct this question to you. Anyone else who is familiar with printing should feel free to chime in.

Take a look at these 8 snips from Batman 1s. Do you see how the red along the bottom of the G in "SPRING" looks a bit blurry? (You can see a similar characteristic on other letters, too, such as on the bottom of the S in "SPRING.") Do you know what could cause that? Could it be from burrs on the plate early in the print run? Could it from wear to the plate or buildup late in the print run?

 

Edited March 31 by jimbo_7071

[Aman619]

Sorry to disappoint, but no.  I thought you were gonna ask an easy one, like why there is yellow around the black letters!  Lions Den worked on presses and has more direct experience as to how ink behaves when transferred from the plates to the “blankets” to the paper.

[jimbo_7071]

On 3/31/2024 at 11:01 AM, Aman619 said:

Sorry to disappoint, but no.  I thought you were gonna ask an easy one, like why there is yellow around the black letters!  Lions Den worked on presses and has more direct experience as to how ink behaves when transferred from the plates to the “blankets” to the paper.

OK. The reason I ask is that those 8 snips are all from "No-Dot" copies.

Any thoughts, @The Lions Den?

The copies with the dot all have much cleaner lines around the letters. (A couple of them have a tiny bit of red below the G, but less than what's seen on the "No-Dot" copies.) These snips are from the first 8 blue-label "Dot" copies that I found on HA. You can see how much cleaner the lines are. The last image is one that's closest to the "No-Dot" copies; I suspect that one was printed around the time in the print run when the plate changed.

Edited March 31 by jimbo_7071

[Yorick]

On 3/31/2024 at 8:24 AM, jimbo_7071 said:

The copies with the dot all have much cleaner lines around the letters.

I'd say that's another bit of evidence that points towards the dot being an error and subsequently removed for later prints.  The plate should be perfect when it's created.  When someone is tasked with making alterations to the plate, it would be easy to mishandle it (especially at the top edge of the plate) and create tiny trenches on the raised letters which, in-turn, create pools of ink which bleed over.  Those bleed points are all in the same spots...  so it does not seem to be an operator error.

[The Lions Den]

On 3/31/2024 at 1:43 PM, Yorick said:

I'd say that's another bit of evidence that points towards the dot being an error and subsequently removed for later prints.  The plate should be perfect when it's created.  When someone is tasked with making alterations to the plate, it would be easy to mishandle it (especially at the top edge of the plate) and create tiny trenches on the raised letters which, in-turn, create pools of ink which bleed over.  Those bleed points are all in the same spots...  so it does not seem to be an operator error.

This is along the lines of what I was thinking---a little bit of ink bleed.

And while I'm certainly honored to be held in such high esteem, I've never actually worked with printing plates, though I once worked in a printing factory. But I certainly have worked with various types of ink (and paint) over the years, mostly as an aspiring artist.  

Still, ink is ink, and sometimes it can be pretty darn messy...  

[buttock]

On 3/31/2024 at 12:48 PM, The Lions Den said:

This is along the lines of what I was thinking---a little bit of ink bleed.

And while I'm certainly honored to be held in such high esteem, I've never actually worked with printing plates, though I once worked in a printing factory. But I certainly have worked with various types of ink (and paint) over the years, mostly as an aspiring artist.  

Still, ink is ink, and sometimes it can be pretty darn messy...  

Maybe the dot was just a smidge lower in elevation on the plate and the early part of the run had a heavier amount of red ink, so the 'G' bled a little and there was enough on the dot to contact the paper.  Then as the ink got thinned out or less in volume the dot didn't contact the paper and the 'G' cleaned up.  

Endless ways to speculate, no way to be sure.