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Post by badwolf on Dec 2, 2019 21:47:59 GMT -5
I thought Mando was the thin paper that gave us the super-garish colors and was used only briefly in the 80s, and Baxter was the thicker, matte white paper that was used for premium titles like Doctor Who (U.S.) and the Epic books.
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Post by tartanphantom on Dec 2, 2019 22:09:20 GMT -5
I thought Mando was the thin paper that gave us the super-garish colors and was used only briefly in the 80s, and Baxter was the thicker, matte white paper that was used for premium titles like Doctor Who (U.S.) and the Epic books.
I think you have it right for the most part, but I didn't find colors to be overly garish on mando paper just because of the paper-- look at the mid-80's issues of Animal Man for an example. However, I suppose it depended on the skill of the colorist AND the source material to some degree... The Quality/Fleetway issues of Judge Dredd were also printed on mando paper, and the coloring on them is truly horrible, so I can see your point.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
Posts: 9,528
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Post by Confessor on Dec 2, 2019 22:16:40 GMT -5
The Quality/Fleetway issues of Judge Dredd were also printed on mando paper, and the coloring on them is truly horrible, so I can see your point. Agreed. The colouring on the earlier Eagle Comics' Judge Dredd reprints was much better (although hardly amazing even then), but they were printed on newsprint. And personally, I like my comics on newsprint.
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Post by tartanphantom on Dec 2, 2019 22:22:54 GMT -5
The Quality/Fleetway issues of Judge Dredd were also printed on mando paper, and the coloring on them is truly horrible, so I can see your point. Agreed. The colouring on the earlier Eagle Comics' Judge Dredd reprints was much better (although hardly amazing even then), but they were printed on newsprint. And personally, I like my comics on newsprint.
I think the Eagle editions are darn near perfect-- considering what they are-- even better quality than the original 2000 AD tabloids.
And let me correct myself from earlier-- Animal Man was supposedly printed on Baxter Paper according to GCD.
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Post by berkley on Dec 2, 2019 22:33:24 GMT -5
Another thing about changing formats from the original to the reprint: now in my late 50s, I sometimes have trouble reading captions and dialogue from 2000AD stories reprinted and collected in a slightly smaller size, e.g. the Rogue Trooper "phone book" editions or DC's Halo Jones collection - actually the glossy paper of the latter seems to make it worse, for some reason, not just the glare from the page but the printing seems to come out a bit messier, with less crisp lines in both the artwork and the lettering.
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Post by brutalis on Dec 3, 2019 7:37:09 GMT -5
Comes to mind for me, that without reprints I would have NEVER read the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer as they were just before my time as a reader/collector and already coveted collector items bringing big money if you could have found them. By the time of the 80's and the LCS I was certain to never afford purchasing the originals.
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Post by badwolf on Dec 3, 2019 10:55:37 GMT -5
I specifically remember this March 1985 issue of The Thing as being printed on the super-thin, garishly colored paper. Maybe it was all the green that was used. I also remember someone, an editor I guess, joking in a later column somewhere that the grading of the paper should have been "NL" or "near liquid"!
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Post by tarkintino on Dec 3, 2019 11:52:55 GMT -5
I never once thought I missed out on seeing an edited for television movie when I saw it, because it was the only version of it available at the time. Same with reprint comics. Hindsight is one thing, but being spoiled how things were years in the future does not affect the value of having something available in any format in the past where it was essentially the only way to see those stories at all (unless you were somehow tapped into the tiny back issue market which was not the case for about 90% of the customer base). I think it spoils it when the original work is encountered, and suddenly you see that you never had the big picture. This happened to me back in '73 when reading The Amazing Spider-Man #116-#118, which reprinted the story "Lo, This Monster" from the magazine Spectacular Spider-Man #1 (1968), but had several panels omitted, redrawn and dialogue altered to fit within (sort of) then-current TASM continuity. A few years later, I finally bought the magazine, and the differences were occasionally glaring, as the changes to even the more adult tone of the magazine were not in the reprints. The magazine was the superior version of that story, so it did feel as if I had read (speaking of the reprints) a recollection of the story, rather than the complete work. Regarding the idea that publishers either print abridged versions or no versions: well, that's not entirely true, since many of DC's 80Pg Giants did reprint entire Golden Age stories, since I had the original issues to know they were complete. The same was apparent in DC's Famous First Editions and other tabloid-sized collections from the 70s. Why Marvel--who did print entire stores years earlier in Fantasy Masterpieces--move toward edited versions is anyone's guess, but it was not always a financial concern since some of those edited versions required new pencillers, inkers, and colorists to create new panels, embellish preexisting work (e.g. the aforementioned Spider-Man issues and The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #9--a reprint of Spectacular Spider-Man magazine #2), and editors to try to make sense for the demands of the new format. Those talents had to be paid, so its not as though Marvel was strictly concerned with cost. Altering work--especially if it was reprinting issues that were only a couple of years old at the time of its printing--always ran the risk of readers eventually discovering the original work and then dropping the reprints altogether.
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 3, 2019 14:11:30 GMT -5
Comes to mind for me, that without reprints I would have NEVER read the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer as they were just before my time as a reader/collector and already coveted collector items bringing big money if you could have found them. By the time of the 80's and the LCS I was certain to never afford purchasing the originals. I collected '60s comics in the early '80s and Silver Surfer was out of reach and rarely seen then. I remember looking at #1 and the price of $70 on it... I probably don't want to know what it would have on it now. I had most of the Fantasy Masterpieces vol. 2 issues anyway though. Which reminds me, I have a huge problem just finding #3 and 4 of that reprint! Like the originals I wonder if they also had a lower print run?
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Post by brutalis on Dec 3, 2019 15:21:18 GMT -5
Comes to mind for me, that without reprints I would have NEVER read the Lee/Buscema Silver Surfer as they were just before my time as a reader/collector and already coveted collector items bringing big money if you could have found them. By the time of the 80's and the LCS I was certain to never afford purchasing the originals. I collected '60s comics in the early '80s and Silver Surfer was out of reach and rarely seen then. I remember looking at #1 and the price of $70 on it... I probably don't want to know what it would have on it now. I had most of the Fantasy Masterpieces vol. 2 issues anyway though. Which reminds me, I have a huge problem just finding #3 and 4 of that reprint! Like the originals I wonder if they also had a lower print run? MyComichsop.com has both listed as available for between $3-13 depending on what condition you you wish.
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Post by beccabear67 on Dec 3, 2019 16:38:36 GMT -5
MyComichsop.com has both listed as available for between $3-13 depending on what condition you you wish. I looked, #4 is around three times the price of #5, and #3 is also up there. I don't think I want to pay $9 (or $7.20 on #3) for a VG+ which looked like the lowest conditions I'd still enjoy. A half grade or so up to FN is $11-13, would a near mint then be $25, 30, 40? Mile High also has a VG+ #4, but at $16, yikes! Now I think I really lucked out finding Marvel Tales #98 & 99 in nice VF-NM conditions at a normalish price (part of a lot). If Lone Star is this high on what are really somewhat inferior reprints I'll just be happy to have #1 & 2. Those J C Penney's editions are often listed at crazy prices I see as well... reprints used to have a stigma as non-'collectable', but I guess that day must be long gone.
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Post by Slam_Bradley on Dec 3, 2019 17:19:14 GMT -5
I never once thought I missed out on seeing an edited for television movie when I saw it, because it was the only version of it available at the time. Same with reprint comics. Hindsight is one thing, but being spoiled how things were years in the future does not affect the value of having something available in any format in the past where it was essentially the only way to see those stories at all (unless you were somehow tapped into the tiny back issue market which was not the case for about 90% of the customer base). I think it spoils it when the original work is encountered, and suddenly you see that you never had the big picture. This happened to me back in '73 when reading The Amazing Spider-Man #116-#118, which reprinted the story "Lo, This Monster" from the magazine Spectacular Spider-Man #1 (1968), but had several panels omitted, redrawn and dialogue altered to fit within (sort of) then-current TASM continuity. A few years later, I finally bought the magazine, and the differences were occasionally glaring, as the changes to even the more adult tone of the magazine were not in the reprints. The magazine was the superior version of that story, so it did feel as if I had read (speaking of the reprints) a recollection of the story, rather than the complete work. Regarding the idea that publishers either print abridged versions or no versions: well, that's not entirely true, since many of DC's 80Pg Giants did reprint entire Golden Age stories, since I had the original issues to know they were complete. The same was apparent in DC's Famous First Editions and other tabloid-sized collections from the 70s. Why Marvel--who did print entire stores years earlier in Fantasy Masterpieces--move toward edited versions is anyone's guess, but it was not always a financial concern since some of those edited versions required new pencillers, inkers, and colorists to create new panels, embellish preexisting work (e.g. the aforementioned Spider-Man issues and The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #9--a reprint of Spectacular Spider-Man magazine #2), and editors to try to make sense for the demands of the new format. Those talents had to be paid, so its not as though Marvel was strictly concerned with cost. Altering work--especially if it was reprinting issues that were only a couple of years old at the time of its printing--always ran the risk of readers eventually discovering the original work and then dropping the reprints altogether. There's no reason to guess. The answer is simple. The number of story pages in comics were lowered and the number of ad pages were increased. So they either cut pages out of the story or they didn't publish them. You're comparing apples and oranges when you compare 80-page Giants or Tabloids with standard format comics in the 17-page era.
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Post by tarkintino on Dec 4, 2019 1:37:13 GMT -5
You're comparing apples and oranges when you compare 80-page Giants or Tabloids with standard format comics in the 17-page era. Ah, but The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #9 was no 17 page monthly. And yes, there were more ads in that annual, but with the standard, greater page count, the magazine story was altered/edited in ways that made no sense. In the same period in question (the 1970s), DC's100 page specials of their various titles reprinted Golden and Silver Age stories in their entirety, while Gold Key's Star Trek reprinted some of that title's 60s stories into the 70s with no editing, aside from an "originally published in" marker on the splash page. So there were choices for some of the publishers.
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Post by Chris on Dec 4, 2019 4:08:54 GMT -5
I thought Mando was the thin paper that gave us the super-garish colors and was used only briefly in the 80s, and Baxter was the thicker, matte white paper that was used for premium titles like Doctor Who (U.S.) and the Epic books. Mando was a type of paper that DC started using instead of newsprint circa 1983. The super-garish colors weren't a result of the paper, but of a new printing process DC started using called Flexographic Press, which first appeared in comics dated early 1985, I believe. Some examples of each... Newsprint Mando Flexographic Bob Rozakis, who was DC's production manager at the time, wrote a piece for Dick Giordano's "Meanwhile..." column about Flexlographic. Yeah, Flexographic was wonky. Oddly, though, I thought it kind of worked with newer books, like Booster Gold, and space or sci-fi books like Conqueror of the Barren Earth. But by the start of 1987, it was pretty much out of use. This is probably more information than anyone wanted.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Dec 4, 2019 4:38:54 GMT -5
You're comparing apples and oranges when you compare 80-page Giants or Tabloids with standard format comics in the 17-page era. Ah, but The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #9 was no 17 page monthly. And yes, there were more ads in that annual, but with the standard, greater page count, the magazine story was altered/edited in ways that made no sense. In the same period in question (the 1970s), DC's100 page specials of their various titles reprinted Golden and Silver Age stories in their entirety, while Gold Key's Star Trek reprinted some of that title's 60s stories into the 70s with no editing, aside from an "originally published in" marker on the splash page. So there were choices for some of the publishers. Wow. From the GCD: "Pages 1 & 2 and pages 45 & 46 have been condensed to one page each. Pages 4,5,8,9,10,11,17,21,23,24,27-29,33 and 36 were not reprinted. Page 22 panels 2 & 3 and page 25 panels 3-5 are not reprinted."
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