ASM 300 Spain Production Error discovered 2 2

[HotKey]

Hello, as some of you know I specialize in foreign comics and recently came across this beauty.

This is the ASM 300 from Spain, and as you can see CGC graded it a 4.5 C-2 with color touch on cover in the notes.

There are a few noteworthy areas on this but the main 2 are the top where the black ink is on top of the white text, instead of behind it, and the text to the left of the bar code on the bottom, where the black ink is also covering the white text.

My initial opinion was that they printed the layers on this in the wrong order, and everything I have examined has confirmed that belief. CGC disagreed, but it is also worth noting that this is a previously unknown production error, so it's understandable just seeing it and thinking someone drew on it, as the owner I got it from thought as well. 

I have looked at it under a black light and under a microscope, and between my business partner and I we have right around 10 hours combined of careful examination of this comic through different methods, mostly with the microscope. We are both fully convinced of this being printed in the incorrect order.

I'll add pics in a few different replies to break them up into different sections so its easier to discuss each part.

Another really cool thing we found were the 2 O's/0's that we found with the microscope. They appear to only be there intentionally and we have no idea for the explanation of them, although we have a couple theories. We had another comic 12 issues later from the same series and was not able to find any on that cover.

The one in the black area is much more visible, but there's one in the red area as well to the left of the tear in the middle. They are both in the upper right area of the cover, with the black one being a bit more towards the center.

So if anyone can think of any potential explanation for this outcome that isn't a production error, let me know, or if you agree this is definitely a production error feel free to weigh in as well.  Also if you have any info about the tiny Os/0s please help with this puzzler!

I've posted about this a few times over the last couple months and I haven't seen anyone else post that they have one too, but I would imagine there are at least a few others out there, just by the odds, but maybe they were thrown away when someone bought them.

I think this should be a blue label noted as a production error though, I'm just not sure the best way to make sure CGC sees everything, so I figured this was a good spot as well. Pics to follow in replies, let me know what you think a production error of the most collected foreign comic cover there is would be worth! 

 

 

Edited April 12 by HotKey
fixed words

[HotKey]

Regular pics:

 

[HotKey]

Black light pics:

I marked on the superman with a sharpie for comparison.

[HotKey]

Microscope pic of several different areas, showing printing dots in some methods and solid ink in others.

Also of note is the corner with the color breaks, if someone was going to color touch this, wouldn't they do that obvious spot?

 

[BlowUpTheMoon]

On 4/12/2024 at 6:38 PM, HotKey said:

My initial opinion was that they printed the layers on this in the wrong order, and everything I have examined has confirmed that belief. CGC disagreed, but it is also worth noting that this is a previously unknown production error, so it's understandable just seeing it and thinking someone drew on it, as the owner I got it from thought as well. 

Your Spanish ASM #300 was printed using four colors:  Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, in that order. 

If the order in which the inks had been printed varied, the below are the results.  Given your close up photos of your ASM, we know all four colors were printed, as we can see the dot patterns.   Given that your ASM doesn't exhibit any of the "mis-colored elements" shown in the FF #110 and the Avengers #10, we can determine that your ASM #300 was printed using the color colors in the correct order. 
 

[HotKey]

On 4/12/2024 at 7:50 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

Your Spanish ASM #300 was printed using four colors:  Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black, in that order. 

If the order in which the inks had been printed varied, the below are the results.  Given your close up photos of your ASM, we know all four colors were printed, as we can see the dot patterns.   Given that your ASM doesn't exhibit any of the "mis-colored elements" shown in the FF #110 and the Avengers #10, we can determine that your ASM #300 was printed using the color colors in the correct order. 
 

So how do you explain the black ink being above the white text ink, when it's below the white text ink on every other known copy?

Also, the dots weren't used on every section, so what other type of printing was used that resulted in a solid color without dots that was consistent across the entire cover?

[HotKey]

Heres a regular copy for comparison, best pic I could find online right now

[BlowUpTheMoon]

On 4/12/2024 at 9:13 PM, HotKey said:

So how do you explain the black ink being above the white text ink, when it's below the white text ink on every other known copy?

These is no "white ink", only Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black inks.

 Can you show a picture of what you are referring to? 

These two pictures show that Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black inks were used.




Maybe @Kevin76 can explain it better. 

[shadroch]

It looks like the black should be first, the red on top of it . His book seems to have extra black added on top of the white writing, where it doesn't belong.

[HotKey]

On 4/12/2024 at 11:33 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

These is no "white ink", only Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black inks.

 Can you show a picture of what you are referring to? 

These two pictures show that Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black inks were used.




Maybe @Kevin76 can explain it better. 

I misspoke saying "ink", just remove that word and the rest makes sense, black ink over white text when regular copies have white text over black ink.

[rjpb]

Look at the areas of black where the white should be overlaid. The edges where the red 300s meet the black background clearly have black marker distorting the smooth curves. It looks to me like someone carefully filled in the white webbing and lettering that was over black with a black marker, though they missed the interiors of the 300 at the top right. Further evidence is at the top where there are black marks on the thin white strip and various places where the marker didn't completely cover the white webbing and the path can faintly be seen, as above the RM in the logo.This is likely why despite the "small amount" of color touch notation, the grade box say "slight/mod"

[BriD.]

I might guess that the black plate was made without the knockouts for the white text areas and webbing at the top so instead of the white paper showing, it's printed black in those areas. Why only there and not other areas? Who knows but a mistake like that can happen. I would think that would have been noticed pretty early and a new black plate would have been made. So if true, I would say a production error. 

The tiny Os could be what some call a hickey. It's when a small hardened bit of ink gets on the plate or blanket and prevents the ink from fully covering that spot. So it creates a ring around it.

As far as the suggested marker used to fill in spots, I would think that would be easy to see from the inside of the cover. Obviously it would have to be cracked out to check. 

[HotKey]

My business partner and I are going to crack this open Wednesday during our meeting so we can see the inside of the front cover and I will post pics here after for everyone. Will that be definitive? Does color touch to that possible level have to show some bleed through somewhere?

[Kevin76]

On 4/12/2024 at 11:33 PM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

These is no "white ink", only Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black inks.

 Can you show a picture of what you are referring to? 

These two pictures show that Cyan, Yellow, Magenta, and Black inks were used.




Maybe @Kevin76 can explain it better. 

Ok, 1st of all.  The register is out to lunch.  

The black is printed first, at least all the presses I've worked on have been that way and then the color plates have some kind of black % in them...Think that's forest green you're printing?   Nope...It's black, blue and yellow.  There's a certain % amount of black ink on that black plate where blue and yellow go.  The full image of what you're printing can be on the black plate,  different areas of the plate are meant for lighter areas where other colors go, same goes for the color plates.  Think ASM 252....background color is a brownish color, cause it has a black screen on it, yet spider-man is a deep dark black.  

[stock_rotation]

I worked in printing for about 20 years starting in the 90s. My suspicion here is due to the heavy black coverage on this cover, there were two black plates of varying screen percentages. It would be very hard to maintain that heavy black Spidey in the center on a single plate without starving the press of black ink below it (or, alternately, having too much black ink above it). You could do it with a double hit. I suspect one of the black plates did not have the proper knockout.

In this image, you can see a little of the white web knockout in the black; if it were a straight black overprint you wouldn't see any of it. So one black plate had the knockout and the other didn't. I also suspect if you look at this area with a loupe, you'd see the dot pattern on that partially covered web knockout.

Edited April 14 by stock_rotation
spelling

[HotKey]

First look at the inside front cover. Anyone still think that its someone with a marker or sharpie?

I also got a regular copy this week for a minute, so I have microscope pics of a non error to compare as well, those will be added this weekend.

[Dr. Balls]

Thanks to all the pressmen who responded here - valuable information that is slowly starting to fade away with time.

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

On 4/12/2024 at 9:13 PM, HotKey said:

So how do you explain the black ink being above the white text ink, when it's below the white text ink on every other known copy?

Also, the dots weren't used on every section, so what other type of printing was used that resulted in a solid color without dots that was consistent across the entire cover?

Regarding "the dots"; when you're doing 4/C printing, the inks being used are cyan, magenta, yellow, and black, as noted. To get the full range of color you see printed, all colors are some percentage of those four inks. A vibrant red might be 0 cyan, 100 magenta, 100 yellow, and 0 black. A vibrant green might be 100 cyan, 0 magenta, 100 yellow, and 0 black. But when we're talking about lighter colors, they're not the full 100% of those inks. But the ink isn't diluted, so to show the lower percentage of the color, solid dots of varying sizes (depending on the percentage) are used to create all of the colors you see. For example, this is a square with three cyan columns at 25%, 50%, and 75%, and four  magenta rows at 0%, 25%, 50%, and 75%.

When it's reproduced in the typical 4/C printing process, it's going to be broken down into solid cyan or magenta, but using dots at varying sizes to replicate the percentage, like this:

And when you mix in percentages of yellow, you get a much wider possibility of colors:

[comicwiz]

On 4/12/2024 at 6:38 PM, HotKey said:

The two rounded/circles look like what are referred to as "hickeys" in printing - for those who have never heard this term before, for brevity here's a quote from Google: "occurs when a piece of dust or random mote sticks to either the plate or blanket of the offset printing press or the printing medium, which causes an imperfection on the printed page"

Edited April 19 by comicwiz

[HotKey]

I got my hands on a regular non error copy and did some comparison pics, along with a few more inside front cover pics. On the left is a regular copy, on the right is the error. I tried to get as close to the same spot as I could on both and was mostly successful.

I really appreciate everyone's input and I'm sure there will always be some who disagree with what this is, but I am fully convinced it is a production error now that I've cracked it out of the slab and looked even closer at it again and my business partner agrees, along with many others I've talked to and asked their opinions.

I'm going to keep this for sale raw through our booth at Motor City Comic Con, and if it doesn't sell by then I will resubmit it to CGC with a detailed note and follow up phone call once they receive it to make sure it gets labeled correctly.

Feel free to discuss further, you never know what can come to light through good discussions!