Look! Up on the Screen!

Here we go again, waiting for the once-and-for-all best restoration of the Fleischer Superman cartoons.

https://gizmodo.com/superman-fleischer-cartoons-restoration-1851342887

One of the complaints about the Blu-ray set released last year was with color shifts compared to the source material. On the left is supposed to be the correct color of Lois’ suit.

This screen grab from the new restoration shows the original suit color has been retained.

But hold on. Enlarge the right frame that is supposed to be “wrong” according to some hardcore fans.

Now compare it to this screen grab from the restoration. It looks terrible, even taking the low-res quality into account. The Warner Archive team needs to get involved with this project.

Dead Heads

These talking heads are all deceased now, but fortunately they were interviewed before it was too late for them to share their EC memories.

Wait, don’t go away yet! What about the other comic book companies that were publishing horror comics along with EC? This video features my dearly departed pal Joe Sinnott.

The earliest known surviving original art that Joe drew for Stan Lee is from a horror story. It’s page 1 of “The Terrible Trunk”, published in the Atlas pre-code comic book Adventures Into Weird Worlds #5, April 1952.

https://pappysgoldenage.blogspot.com/2007/12/number-233-terrible-trunk-from-atlas.html

Thanks to comic art dealer Mike “Romitaman” Burkey, the page now belongs to Joe’s son Mark.

Gaiman’s Giveaway

I have been Patreon-izing artist Colleen Doran for years. She is one of the entries in my Links list. Click the link and you will see Colleen’s most recent project with Neil Gaiman, illustrating his novel Chivalry, making it a graphic one.

Gaiman is auctioning off some of his worldly, fannish possessions. Some of the proceeds will go to The Hero Initiative, a comics-related charity.

All in Color for 12¢ – Part 2

There is a dark side, literally, to digital comic book coloring. Having more colors to work with meant more finely shaded tones. But what looks great on a computer screen can appear muddy on the printed page. This video is about the opposite problem, with colors being too bright.

Chris at Comic Tropes apologizes to José Villarrubia for not crediting him as the source for some of the images he used. Here are a couple of Jim Steranko examples that José posted on Facebook.

For this one I’m adding a Heritage Auctions image of the original art. Looking at it full size, you can see that most of the white lettering is a negative image made on a stat camera and pasted onto the art. In a past life I was proficient at stat camera and paste-up work. Never had a chance to try preparing color separations.

I’m not a fan of glossy paper for comic books. The Marvel Omnibus volumes are guilty of both overly bright colors and glossy paper, along with some poor restoration of linework.

Comic book letterer Todd Klein has this view on the subject of coloring. Todd mentions his use of #3 Winsor-Newton Series 7 brushes, which was also Joe Sinnott’s favorite brush.

https://kleinletters.com/Blog/coloring-comics-old-school/

Winsor-Newton Series 7 #3 brush and Hunt 102 pen nib, from the Joe Sinnott estate.