tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post2895335781511378328..comments2024-01-13T03:39:50.711-08:00Comments on Sekvenskonst: Buz Sawyer reviewJoakim Gunnarssonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06766623855317974467noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-38793460729452614082012-08-09T04:49:59.147-07:002012-08-09T04:49:59.147-07:00Yves: I just checked the preview pdf of the second...Yves: I just checked the preview pdf of the second volume. It looks much better than the first volume, so I guess the problems are solved now. :)<br />The pdf can be downloded here: http://www.fantagraphics.com/browse-shop/buz-sawyer-vol.-2-sultry-s-tiger.html?vmcchk=1Joakim Gunnarssonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06766623855317974467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-83256725591045780172012-08-09T00:24:31.477-07:002012-08-09T00:24:31.477-07:00Thanks a thousand, dear Joakim, for having made po...Thanks a thousand, dear Joakim, for having made possible for future re-publishing of Buzz Sawyer (and maybe others) much better reproduced.<br />(What a sentence! sorry!)<br />Thanks dear Rick Norwood for taking so much time and so much care in answering these somehow harsh comments concerning your work. You are very tolerant and very open. It's wonderful.<br />This being said — and I'm very grateful to you, dear Rick, for the Buzz Sawyer book and for your other projects — the book is definitely a terrible disappointment.<br />a lot of resolution-, moiré-, clutter-problems could have been easily solved, or at least enormously amneded, if the book had been printed 20% bigger.<br />Too bad, too bad!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16038329756025304842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-14652718214021761412011-05-16T05:24:57.882-07:002011-05-16T05:24:57.882-07:00Thanks for a serious reply to my question, and for...Thanks for a serious reply to my question, and for the offer of proofs of later years. We have complete proofs of most of the strips after the first three years, but if any of them are defective, I'll take you up on your offer. In reprinting comic strips, as I'm sure you know, the problem years are the early years and also the last few years (if the strip lasts so long that only a few newspapers carry it all the way to the end).<br /><br />Most of your suggestions are things I did in the case of Buz Sawyer Book One. Certainly, I looked at all previous reprints. The problem with them, as your samples show, is that for most strips they were missing the bottom quarter inch of the art. The Fantagraphics book is the first reprint to include all of the art. By the way, the change in the proportions of the art which you mention often occurs when a strip is printed on newsprint, and for many of the very early Buz Sawyer strips, newsprint is the only complete art I could find. Even the Syracuse proofs of the early strips are missing the bottom quarter inch. <br /><br />If I could go back and change anything in Buz Sawyer Book One, it would be to rely more heavily on material from Syracuse University. I spent two days there. I wish I'd spent two weeks. Book Two will probably be almost entirely from material in the Syracuse collection. They assure me that their later proofs all have the bottom quarter inch, which many of the proofs at Ohio State are missing. <br /><br />I'm glad to hear that you have located original art for your Modesty Blaise books. As I'm sure you know, almost all Modesty Blaise reprints except for the original Titan series have problems, and even the original Titan series skiped a few strips, as does the new Titan series. Both the proofs from Atlantic Syndication Partners and the proofs in Peter O'Donnell's personal collection have serious defects. I lent all the material I have in my collection to Titan for their current reprints, but clearly original art is a much better source.<br /><br />Best,<br />RickRick Norwoodnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-78781802356528847932011-05-15T07:38:55.423-07:002011-05-15T07:38:55.423-07:00Regarding Holdaway's Modesty, it should noted ...Regarding Holdaway's Modesty, it should noted that the work locating and scanning as many dailies as possible from the original artwork was a lot easier than imagined, as three collectors sitting on a very large portion of the artwork all contributed.Germundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14523115450698561674noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-33046068278106610682011-05-15T05:36:46.718-07:002011-05-15T05:36:46.718-07:00Allan: I didn't know they squashed strips back...Allan: I didn't know they squashed strips back in the day. Thanks for that info!<br /><br />Rick: Nice to hear from you even though my post wasn't positive about the book. <br />The answer to your question about what I would do:<br /><br />As I work at a publishing house here in Sweden (Egmont Kärnan) I've been involved in a few restoration projects myself. (Like the big Modesty Blaise project: http://sekvenskonst.blogspot.com/2009/07/calling-all-modesty-blaise-collectors.html )<br />First of all what we do is to check all previous reprints. Are they any good and possible to scan from? If they are we try to track down the publisher of those to get first hand ources to scan from. <br />If we can't find proofs we try to find as much original art as possible to scan from. (When it comes to Jim Holdaways Modesty I believe ca 1000 dailies were located. And when Romeros run begins we are scanning from uncensored material provided by the artist himself.)<br /><br />This means we use blogs, forums and mailing lists to get in touch with as many collectors as possible. There's always someone somewhere who comes up with unexpected rare material or who can give us a lead on where to find better material. <br />When all of this is done, when we feel that theres no more stones to turn and we are sure to at least make a better reprint than the previous ones we begin to scan. <br /><br />Now we use high resulution: 400 - 1200 dpi. Depending if we scan in color or line art. Scanning dailies in color helps when we are removing dust etc. to make a long story short. Different source material has to be treated different ways. But we always scan in resolution high enough to avoid pixels to be seen and making sure the lines are sharp. <br /><br />Some pieces has to be assembled from different sources but we always use the best available piece in high resolution. On one project I had to scan some sundays from originals with a different language pasted on, some from proofs and some from printed pages in color. What a puzzle to get the book done... <br />That book ("Bamse - den kompletta veckoserien") even carried a list in the back of the book with the sources listed for every sunday so that the reader would understand why the quality was inferior in some cases. <br /><br />Hmm, that was a long answer, but that's how I do it.Joakim Gunnarssonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06766623855317974467noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-24498019827851924652011-05-14T14:01:01.601-07:002011-05-14T14:01:01.601-07:00Thank you for the review of Buz Sawyer, which I ed...Thank you for the review of Buz Sawyer, which I edited. The choices I faced were these. Should Buz Sawyer be reprinted at all, given that excellent proofs of many early strips were not available? Second, if Buz Sawyer should be reprinted, was it better to use incomplete art of higher quality or complete art of lesser quality? I decided that complete art was a must. As I think Johan realizes, Crane drew the strip with that art included. The syndicate cut the bottom quarter inch off of one set of proofs so that newspapers who wanted to could crowd more strips on a page. Most of the proofs from King Features are missing that art. <br /><br />For each daily, I used the best quality complete art I could find, comparing two almost complete runs of clipped strips, a set of copies provided by Bill Blackbeard, some proofs from King Features (mostly unusable), some material from Ohio State, and some material from Syracuse University. I never, never blacked in trouble spots -- unless the trouble spot was a white blob in the middle of black, and there were a lot of these. For white blobs in the zipatone, I cut a piece of good zipatone and pasted it over the white spot, using photoshop. Sometimes, I combined two or more strips to get the best quality I could. Other times, I did not do this, because when I tried it left a visible line between the two pieces. <br /><br />I've reprinted a lot of comic strips. I always use the best strip I can find. But I reprint complete runs even when I can't find a good quality strip.<br /><br />What would you do?<br /><br />Best,<br />RickRick Norwoodnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-9974109319349681932011-05-14T01:38:56.653-07:002011-05-14T01:38:56.653-07:00It even almost looks as if the "restored"...It even almost looks as if the "restored" bits are newly-drawn extensions rather than restorations, considering the lack of detail in the added parts. (No, I don't think that's what happened, but it's the visual impression I get.)Johan Ahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10908066751077487536noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-48552885339578356812011-05-13T13:17:56.020-07:002011-05-13T13:17:56.020-07:00Hi Joakim --
A big part of the problem here seems ...Hi Joakim --<br />A big part of the problem here seems to be moire patterns in the toned sections. Because of Crane's use of duotone this is a pitfall that is pretty easy to fall into if you don't know to avoid it. Very sad, and someone at FG surely should have exercised some oversight. An amateur restorer (like myself) doesn't necessarily know all the ins and outs of prepping for book reproduction -- luckily I've had the benefit of expert guidance with the publishers I've worked with. <br /><br />On the other hand, a restorer who simply throws up their hands and blacks in trouble spots? Wow. That's unforgivable. There are relatively simple (if time-consuming) ways to deal with bad areas of tone. <br /><br />As for the squashing, the producers of the book may not be to blame. Their source tearsheets could have been formatted that way. In the 40s papers were desperately trying to save space, and monkeying with strips, even beyond simply clipping off the bottoms, was not unheard of.<br /><br />Thanks for going to all the trouble to do such an informative show-and-tell!<br /><br />Best, Allan HoltzAllan Holtzhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09888151821396553652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4143358193155190838.post-90047349352136331832011-05-13T13:04:59.966-07:002011-05-13T13:04:59.966-07:00Thanks for this honest review. We need these, my h...Thanks for this honest review. We need these, my hope is that more fans will do so as well.<br />There are to much buddies that only give polite reviews, and that is not a thing we want!IpComicshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12141876760676604628noreply@blogger.com