Evidence that Silver Marvel books vary in width

[fantastic_four]

A few people were debating whether comics can vary in width. Take this Spidey #20 I own as evidence that they do:

 

 

The book is 7" wide up top and very gradually tapers off toward the bottom by 1/16" to be about 6 and 15/16" inches towards the bottom; most Silver Marvels are 6 and 3/4" wide. This one wouldn't fit on a Standard-sized E. Gerber full-back like the rest of my Silver Marvels do so I used a Golden-sized board for it.

 

Below are partial scans of two comics. The first is a 9.6 copy of the issue taken from Heritage's web site; the second is my copy without the ruler on it. You can see that there is almost exactly the same amount of space to the right of the comics code symbol, but my copy has a lot more space to the right of the "Marvel Comics Group" label on the left.

 

[blowout]

I don't think there are too many people who would dispute the fact the Silver Marvels vary in size quite a bit. There was just not too much quality control going on at the printing stage in those days.

But thanks for posting some examples. Did you buy that Spidey 20 knowing about the mis-cut and did you get it cheaper if you did?

[fantastic_four]

I didn't know about the miscut, and I hesitate to call it that because the book being too wide doesn't detract from the aesthetics. It's easy to argue that wider books are more desirable because there's more room to fit the artwork into. The back cover wrapping to the front detracts, but that part I knew about. Think I paid about $250 for it sometime in late 2001 and I grade it at either 8.5 or 9.0.

 

The top being wider than the bottom is almost entirely unnoticeable; I didn't notice it until I put the two rulers on the top and bottom for the scan. 1/16" width variance is more than acceptable to me; a lot more books have that than you'd think but most people don't notice it. I've seen books with 1/2" variance in width, and that is quite noticable and I don't like it at all. I just noticed that the scan with the rulers makes it look like the right edge is uneven, but it isn't; it looks that way because the middle is drooping down about 1/4" onto the scanner's surface since it's restling slightly high on the rulers. Here's the book without the rulers being in the way:

 

[Jagull]

 

is the book curving outward halfway down the comic (first image)?

[fantastic_four]

No...I explained why it looks that way in my last post

[OldGuy]

http://comics.drunkenfist.com/

 

See the posts on Monday and Tuesday.

[Aman619]

I really dont understand what these collages are supposed to illustrate...? The cover art doesnt have to be trimmed in the same exact places (meaning that the art can float around) IF the trim size is always constant. The trim dimensions all all that count. So pointing out varying distances from cover boxes boxes and the trim is meaningless. If theres less on one side, there would be more on the other to compensate...Just like stamping out baseball cards and comparing the centering.

 

...unless Im missing something here...

[Aman619]

btw..is it just me or does the top one look trimmed? the pages dont stick out in a V liek ther other, and the cover isnt as wide as the pages at the top.

[rob_react]

If you're talking about the images that I put together then yes, you are missing soemthing. Especially with the second one where I lined all the books up on the spine/ across the high edge and show the whole book. That image shows 6 or 7 random Daredevils that are ALL cut to slightly different widths and shapes. I'm not sure that I can illustrate it any better for you if you can't see it in that one.

 

The 1st one was mostly to illustrate that eyeballing any cover landmark is meaningless. People were doing that in the thread about the ASM 11 that spurred me to start doing these.

 

Is anyone else having a hard time seeing what I was trying to illustrate? I've had a couple of people comment that they thought they were great posts, so I know at least those people saw what I intended them to see.

[Aman619]

Im sorry React --- I still dont see it. The art bounces around but I dont see how it shows the books were different overall trimmed sizes. How about a serioes of scans of the books with a transparent acetate with grid lines at 1/8th" so its possibe; to see th e dimensions of each book.

 

And while we are on the subject of varying trim sizes. Baseball cards were also produced on crappy presses with just as little quality control as comics (which is apparently the best reason given here why all comics arent the same exact size at manufacture...) So are all 50s and 60s baseball cards normally all different sizes too?? Or are the smaller ones in fact trimmed?

 

I for one was very convinced by DiceX posts a few weeks back as being the hands-on gospel on comics manufacturing. But posted again to say that he's coming back with new info that may be different than what he said then.... So whats the real deal neal?

[rob_react]

Im sorry React --- I still dont see it. The art bounces around but I dont see how it shows the books were different overall trimmed sizes.

 

It shows it pretty obviously when one book extends further than another book. It's not the art that you're supposed to be looking at it's the edges and the edges are quite obviously all over the place. With that example, it maybe only be an eight of an inch difference from left to right and a quarter of an inch from top to bottom, but just that much difference means that measuring a book to see if it's trimmed is useless, which is the point of this whole excercise.

[supapimp]

Evidence that Silver Marvel books vary in width

 

especially after comic_keys gets a hold of it....HOO HA!

[Aman619]

okay...walk me thru it please! Which image shows the entire width of each book on top of each other from SIDE to SIDE. The one I see has only the corners showing. Are all of the books on different layers in photoshop and just masked out to show the corners?

[rob_react]

Yes. Each scanned book was placed into a different layer in photoshop and aligned so their spines were matched. Then I cut out a corner from each unveiling the book beneath it in the stack.

 

Here are my two full book examples just so everyone can have it in context..

 

 

Anyway, here's a quick and dirty example from my own boxes. The spines are lined up against the edge of the scanner bay. The smaller book is not, in my semi-professional opinion, a victim of an after-market haircut. The page edges match interior page color EXACTLY, the cut edges of the two books match up pretty well under magnification (implying that they were cut with the same type of tool) and the trademark =======> shape of the right edge is preserved. All of that matches up, but yet...

 

 

 

Here's a full version of the Daredevil comparison. All the books were squared as well as I could. Then spine edges were then matched and I matched the highest point on the top edge to a line at a right angle to the spine edge. Sometimes that highest point was simply the top edge. Other times it was to the left or to the right, depending upon which angle the book was cut.

 

[Aman619]

okay now I see what you have done. well it sure looks like the sizes varied as you say. makes me wish someone would come up with a picture of a delivered bundle of comics from the 60s so we could wee if the stack had a uniform edge or bounced around as these widths suggets it would.

 

If this is definitive proof, it sure lets CGC off the hook for not catching trimming more often! Since the width of the comic no longer matters.

[fantastic_four]

Not sure, but I would think the bundles would tend to be the same width since they were probably cut at the same time then stacked up off the line as they were produced. I would expect the very noticable variances to occur at different printing times of day as the machinery got more and more out of alignment.

 

But who knows? (PRESSMEN!)

[Aman619]

thats a good point.

I withdraw the stupid question.

[ghoulaid]

Not sure, but I would think the bundles would tend to be the same width since they were probably cut at the same time then stacked up off the line as they were produced. I would expect the very noticable variances to occur at different printing times of day as the machinery got more and more out of alignment.

 

But who knows? (PRESSMEN!)

 

Comics are so flimsy that even if the machinery remained "locked down" (so to speak) the comics would still have slight variations in the cut as they made their way through the process. In other words, the individual comics shift before the machinery does.