Comic Book Plus Forum
About The Comic Books We Have => Comics Uploaded => Topic started by: OtherEric on November 23, 2008, 02:25:52 AM
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I just got the first box of books from JVJ and am looking forward to starting scanning on Monday. I thought I would post a few opening thoughts here, though, since this is somewhat different from scanning my own books.
First of all, just a quick list of what I have to work with this time: Several issues of Target, a couple from v2 and a lot from v3. ALL the missing issues of Authentic Police Cases. And Happy comics 32 and 33; both of which have Frazetta stories in them! When it gets closer to picking the second group of books I'll open up to suggestions from the group here; I plan to gradually work through most of the Targets as I go along among other things. But I want to get books for everybody, not just my personal choices. I don't know enough about old comics to know everything I would want to see!
Some technical notes on how I'm approaching the scanning. Since this is my only chance at the books, I will be scanning everything at 300 DPI and keeping files of the raw scans for myself, in case anybody ever needs to get at them later. If you ever have a need for those, just ask me. I'll be posting at more normal sizes unless there is some reason to use the bigger scans. JVJ was nice enough to throw in a copy of Photoshop Elements, as well. So I'll be trying my hand at more extensive cleanup than I have in the past. I trust you all to keep an eye on me and correct me; I really do need the advice. With that said, I would also be delighted to hand over some of the editing to others if you wanted to take a crack at it. Just let me know.
Also, I want to thank everybody who has been contributing to the postage fund!
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Sounds Great Eric!
I've never used Elements but if it's anything close to as powerful as it's older brother PhotoShop CS - you've got yourself a good app. But there will be a learning curve for sure. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have a question. I'll do my best to answer them.
:)
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If you'd like I could edit out a few books.
If so, you could send me one book at my email addy and see how it pans out.
Cheers
I just got the first box of books from JVJ and am looking forward to starting scanning on Monday. I thought I would post a few opening thoughts here, though, since this is somewhat different from scanning my own books.
First of all, just a quick list of what I have to work with this time: Several issues of Target, a couple from v2 and a lot from v3. ALL the missing issues of Authentic Police Cases. And Happy comics 32 and 33; both of which have Frazetta stories in them! When it gets closer to picking the second group of books I'll open up to suggestions from the group here; I plan to gradually work through most of the Targets as I go along among other things. But I want to get books for everybody, not just my personal choices. I don't know enough about old comics to know everything I would want to see!
Some technical notes on how I'm approaching the scanning. Since this is my only chance at the books, I will be scanning everything at 300 DPI and keeping files of the raw scans for myself, in case anybody ever needs to get at them later. If you ever have a need for those, just ask me. I'll be posting at more normal sizes unless there is some reason to use the bigger scans. JVJ was nice enough to throw in a copy of Photoshop Elements, as well. So I'll be trying my hand at more extensive cleanup than I have in the past. I trust you all to keep an eye on me and correct me; I really do need the advice. With that said, I would also be delighted to hand over some of the editing to others if you wanted to take a crack at it. Just let me know.
Also, I want to thank everybody who has been contributing to the postage fund!
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It might be easiest for Eric just to upload it to your FTP folder Rez and let you grab the raw scans from there.
:)
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Duh, of course. What was I thinking?
It might be easiest for Eric just to upload it to your FTP folder Rez and let you grab the raw scans from there.
:)
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I'll send you one or two books later today, once I've gotten them scanned to start with! And thanks for the offer of help.
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Eric-
I'm working with pretty basic tools and don't know how to crop a page after it has been sent in large form as I always cropped the books before the initial save which helps simplify the copy/paste work when cleaning up the book.
Example on the interior pages before saving I would crop to like a quarter inch or so outside the perimeter panel lines, save large, do the copy/paste work, then save and resize to 1024.
Does it complicate things on your end when scanning to crop before the save?
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Rez, what program are you using. It would be an unusual image editing program in which cropping wasn't pretty easy to do.
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Hey rez, I just installed a old version (3.0) of Photoshop Elements from 2004. It came free with a graphics tablet, but I've also gotten copies with every scanner I ever bought. Your scanner may have come with some comparable software to manipulate images after scanning.
The point is that this "ancient" (in software years) software has a rotate and crop tool, a healing brush, a clone tool, and adjustment layers - all of which are more powerful that the first version of Photoshop I had back in 1997. If you don't have something that came with your scanner, I'll be happy to send you this disc, which also has Corel Painter Essentials 2 and nik Color Efex Pro 2.0 G.E. (all with serial numbers).
There should be no reason to struggle with correcting scans.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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I just use irfanview to do what editing I've done so far; the main reason I didn't crop is because different people have different tastes in how much to crop. I generally view leveling the pages as fairly important for myself, because of that I crop the artwork fairly close so the borders are _relatively_ uniform. When I send a book to somebody to edit I'm trusting their tastes and judgment, and some people like to crop based on the original page shape, rather than the artwork. So I don't crop before I send them out; I leave that for the editor to choose.
If you would like me to level and crop the pages and send you out an updated version I can do that, just let me know. Or you can grab irfanview, it's a free program.
Also, my scanner software automatically saves; the only changes I made before sending you the files was to flip the upside-down scans.
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There are two factors that I personally insist upon in my own scanning:
1. Don't let the scanning software do ANYTHING! No rotating, no resizing, no descreening, no sharpening, no NOTHING! Scanners are at their best when they capture an image - EVERYthing else can be and should be done better in post-processing software, be it Photoshop, Elements, or Corel or whatever. Letting your scanner make decisions for you will guarantee a lesser-quality scan than you can do yourself. It may take a little practice, but believe me you can do better than the "averages" that are used by the scanning software.
2. Never scan in .jpg! JPEG is a lossy compression format which means that your scanner is going to decide to throw some pixels away when it saves the file in that format. I'll repeat that: When you save in JPEG, you're not getting all the information that your scanner took in. And, even worse, if you RE-save in JPEG later, the compression throws MORE pixels away in its attempt to compress the file even further. JPEG should be the FINAL conversion you make after scanning, straightening, cleaning, etc. Scan in TIFF, PNG, PSD or whatever, but not JPEG and not GIF. If you're sending your scans to someone else to be edited, it really is better to send them larger files in TIFF format than it is to convert to JPEG, let them edit the files and then have them convert them to JPEG again. Honest.
If you have Photoshop or PS Elements 3.0 or later, you have access to adjustment layers and they can allow you to do non-destructive editing and color correcting - which is great. If anyone wants to discuss how to use them, I'll be happy to explain.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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I had already figured out 1. Unfortunately, while 2 makes sense, I hadn't been doing that. I'll start doing it from here on out, but won't rescan anything unless somebody editing something specifically requests it. Thank you for the heads up, Jim. Even if it should be obvious, most of us here are at best talented amateurs. I'm learning new stuff almost every book I scan still.
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I always cropped the pages during the scanning process before saving.
Thus the pages are saved in the intial large size already cropped.
Receiving large scans thru the FTP are too large for the cropping tool thru what I am using Paint in XP Pro as I must scroll around to see the total page and the cropping tool is limited to the monitor size.
If I shrink the page down to within the cropping tool size and then enlarge it back it will affect the detail quality of the image, no?
Hey, This Bulletin just in. Now I read down the other posts in this thread and see JV's and OtherEric's comments seeing perhaps I will try using the Irfanview cropping tool as I didn't even know it had one.
I will experiment a bit and get back later.
Ok, this is later and the Irfanview will not open the files.
I am willing to learn better methods and if needed download the necessary programs.
Will be out of town away from the puter for the T-weekend but will hit the ground running upon return.
Rez, what program are you using. It would be an unusual image editing program in which cropping wasn't pretty easy to do.
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Irfan will work just fine Rez.
I use it as the last step in my scans. After doing all my PhotoShop edits and saved as PNG.
I do a final tweak if needed and then crop and save with Irfran as a jpg.
Draw a box around the image area with the mouse and hit 'Y' to crop. Then 'S' to save.
-Yoc
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The zipfile is raw of jpegs. Attempts to open with Irfanview bring up a window citing 'Unknown File Format or File Not Found'.
editted to add: Wait! oh, new plugins.
Nope, that didn't change anything. Same window.
Irfan will work just fine Rez.
I use it as the last step in my scans. After doing all my PhotoShop edits and saved as PNG.
I do a final tweak if needed and then crop and save with Irfran as a jpg.
Draw a box around the image area with the mouse and hit 'Y' to crop. Then 'S' to save.
-Yoc
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You're dealing with two different display tools, rez.
I don't know irfan at all, but here's the technical aspects of viewing your scan on the display:
1. Your monitor displays either 72 of 96 pixels per inch - PERIOD. Let's round that to 75 ppi for this discussion, okay? So, if you post a scan at 150 ppi it displays as twice as large as the original comic and you have to use the scroll bars to see it all. Post it at 300 ppi and it is FOUR times the actual size. At 75 ppi, if you have a monitor that will display 800 ppi vertically, you'll see the entire pic of a 10 inch comic scan.
a. Every editing software that I've encountered (and I have to admit that only includes the Photoshop and Elements family, and Painter Essentials) allows you to view the image at different sizes. It's a DISPLAY change.
b. Suppose you want to see a 300 ppi scan on your monitor that only displays 800 pixels in the vertical direction. Somehow you tell the software to display it 75 ppi or 25% of whatever criteria the software asks for - sometimes it's simply "fit to screen". The software looks at each group of 16 pixels (4 pixels by 4 pixels) and averages the color into ONE pixel and then DISPLAYS the results on your monitor. NO pixels are harmed or changed in this method, the software just makes the image fit on your screen at a lower resolution with less detail.
2. If you change the resolution to 75 ppi (the proper term is "downsample") you take those 16 pixels and actually CHANGE them to one pixel. Yes, you then accomplish the task of getting the entire image on the screen for your crop tool, but you can never recapture the detail that you threw away to get there.
a. I recommend that you NEVER do this.
b. Your software must have some implementation of method 1 above. Someone in the group should be able to tell you how to access it.
c. In Photoshop (I know, I know, but it MIGHT work the same way in irfan, too), when the image is too big for the display, when I drag the corner of the crop tool towards the part of the image that is offscreen, the display pans the image until I can see the other corner. All I do is drag towards the part of the image I can't see. Try it, it can't hurt.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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You will need to unzip the zip file to get to the jpegs, then you can open the images with irfanview. The zipping is just to make it easier to send them all together.
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Got it!
Sometimes I just have to play around the creek bank 'til I fall in.
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Eric-
I zipped a finished page and placed it in your file on FTP as a rep to see if it will meet the specs or not. Under pg3.
You will need to unzip the zip file to get to the jpegs, then you can open the images with irfanview. The zipping is just to make it easier to send them all together.
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Looks good to me, Rez.
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And, after nearly a page and a half of discussion, we have my first upload from the JVJ collection:
Target Comics v2 n5 is now available for download.
I'm VERY interested in feedback on the editing on this one; in addition to my usual trimming and leveling of pages I used Photoshop to do some color leveling. Mostly the auto leveling, to be sure. This may not be the best looking scan I've ever done, I do think it's the most improved from the source material scan I've done yet. Like I said, let me know. I'm sure I'll get better as I get more practice, but I want to go relatively slowly so I don't screw things up on the way.
One minor note: I did keep the files in TIF form until the final save; due to the size of the files I'm only keeping my unedited reference copies at 150 DPI for space reasons. But if we need to go back to them that's probably still better source material than 300 DPI JPEGs. Once again, input from others is appreciated. I don't expect in most cases to need them; but like I said it's not a bad idea to keep the raw scans for the rare case when we will since I won't have the books to rescan.
Most importantly, enjoy the book. Wolverton Spacehawk and a lot of other fun stuff in this one.
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A Fun book and for once a text page worth reading.
Scan wise its hard to fault, looks like it may have been a challenging job.
Hard to comment on the colour without seeing the original, it reminded me a little of some of the better archive reprints, NOT a problem as far as i'm concerned but not everyone will agree with me.
Of course it IS a fact that many of the original Golden Age books WERE somewhat over coloured anyway, case in point many of the Quality titles, this was said to be due to the fact that Busy Arnold was colour blind and did'nt really know what he was approving !
If your future scans are of this standard you won't get any complaints from me.
-Nigel
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That Dick Cole blurb on the inside back cover makes me want to go find that issue of BlueBolt!
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As I mentioned in another thread, I liked them, Eric, except where they showed what a piece of junk my copy is (I liked your very tactful "most improved from the source material"). Three important aspect of [Levels][Auto] that you should know:
1. The first is that you can apply it as an "Adjustment Layer" - just click the half-black/half-white circle at the bottom of the layers palette and choose [Levels] and then [Auto] as before. Try moving the gray triangle adjustment to the left or right to mitigate or accentuate the intensity.
2. The "Adjustment Layer" appears above your Background Layer in the palette AND you can adjust the "Opacity" of the adjustment by changing the opacity of that layer. Play with this if you find the colors too intense.
3. With an Adjustment Layer, you can go back into the file tomorrow and change the Levels that you set with [Auto] or even remove the adjustment layer completely and start over.
And I'd urge you to rethink saving at 150 ppi (not Dpi - a completely different measuring unit that has NO application to computer scans - it's nonsensical, like saying your scan weighs 50 grams). A gigabyte of storage goes for about 20
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I think with my Thanksgiving overtime money I'll grab myself an external hard drive so I can store comic scans. Like you said, it's a good idea to keep decent archives if I do the work. I'll keep playing with photoshop; I'm working on the Target v2 n1 now. There I'm playing with adjusting the brightness and figuring how to lighten up the pages without washing things out. I think it will look pretty good; I am learning.
Actually, most of your books are quite good for scanning; the big problem on the early Targets is how dark the paper has gotten. A lot of that has to be the original paper because those books aren't brittle at all despite the paper color. The "most improved" was not a dig on your books, it was the fact that until recently my scans were very dependent on the quality of the book for the quality of the scan. I just happened to have a few stray nice books, more by accident than anything else. :)
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Happy Comics 32 is now in the FTP.
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And it's ready for download now. It looks wonderful, Rez. Thank you.
The highlight here is a seven page Bruno Bear story by none other than "Fritz" Frazetta! He also contributes a couple of text illos to the issue. And just wait until you see 33...
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Target Comics V2 N01 now ready for download.
This one is coverless; but Yoc found us a nice scan of the front cover, at least. I think you'll find this interesting for several reasons; from an unexpected crossover between features to another wonderful Wolverton Spacehawk.
Once again, I'm very interested in feedback on the editing. I got a bit more ambitious on the color correction here. Personally, I think it looks really good. But I need to know what others think; as I'm learning I need feedback because I'm just one set of eyes.
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Eric,
Love the Target. I don't mind the bright colors at all, but if you want to tone em down, reducing the saturation a few points is probably the way to go. Reds and Yellows are the colors that seem to be affected the most by changes in saturation (and they are also the colors I've noticed fade the most over time, Yellow being the trickiest of colors to deal with imo because grunge seems to show up very easily in it).
While we are on the subject of storage and format, I'd like to recommend .tif as a working format to anyone that is listening. I used to do my cover restorations in .jpeg until I started to notice a lot of decay during the process. After numerous saves in numerous sessions on needy covers, I noticed that cover images were degrading before my very eyes :'(. The scanning community is very tied to the .jpeg format in part I think because their small size makes it easy to transfer them to editors and partly out of habit. .Tifs are huge (my raws are about 20MB a piece) but they handle very quickly in photoshop. In fact, one of my .tifs handles faster than a uncompressed 100% quality .jpeg (about 7MB from my scanner).
My personal view is that because these comics are so valuable and that many of these issues will probably only be scanned once that keeping a nice raw at at least 300 dpi .tif is the way to go. As the accepted file size continues to go up and up along with advances in monitor and storage technology, I think it's smart to keep the raw materials around in case we ever feel the need to return for a new edit. I think it's safe to say that countless comics have already been scanned that will someday be rescanned which might have been prevented if the original scanner kept their raws.
In my files, I keep one file of raw .tifs for posterity, unaltered (which eases my mind about "preservation" as any alterations I make might improve the comic for viewing but also takes away from what the thing looks like in it's natural state). This way, if someone else would care to re-edit the comic in a different fashion (less saturation, more white, whatever - a lot of that is a matter of taste), the raws are around so this is possible. I also keep one copy of my edited .tifs, so that in the future if for some reason I'd like to share a higher resolution image of my hard work, there it is. My last step in the editing process is to convert the .tifs to .jpeg for sharing. I guess what I'm saying is that space seems like a meager consideration compared to the labor and value of the comics we are scanning. The cost of a single DVD to house this raw material is in my estimation miniscule compared to the labor involved not to mention the value of the comic or pulp itself. I'm sure this sounds crazy to some, but I have around 400gigs of working files (sadly many of which are uncompressed jpegs and I wish I'd always used .tif)
I'm rambling now, but my point is that these golden age comics are treasures and if some of them are only to be scanned once, I like the idea that the raw scans will be around large and uncut!
Cheers,
Darwin
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My current plans are to scan the remaining 28 books in the first group I got from JVJ at 300 DPI .tif files. I'm definitely concerned with having the raw scans available in case we need to go back to them. With that said, none of the first four books were scanned like that; I am dithering on going back or not. I'll probably talk myself into it before I send the books back, but I need the time to convince myself. While the major focus of the JVJ project is to get nice, readable scans of rare books out to everybody I think keeping good reference copies of the scans is definitely prudent, to say the least.
I tend to like the bright colors myself as well; but I don't want to go overboard and I'm not doing this just for me. There is probably no one universal standard and my personal biases will show through, of course. I'll figure it out. It's worth noting that the early Targets really are very bright books even if the paper is darkish; the colors on Spacehawk in particular are unique for an early 40's book.
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Eric, Love the Target. I don't mind the bright colors at all, but if you want to tone em down, reducing the saturation a few points is probably the way to go. Reds and Yellows are the colors that seem to be affected the most by changes in saturation (and they are also the colors I've noticed fade the most over time, Yellow being the trickiest of colors to deal with imo because grunge seems to show up very easily in it).
I agree with everything you said, Darwin. Your workflow makes pretty good sense. I would only take exception with using "Saturation" to adjust the colors, especially if not applied as an Adjustment Layer. It's not that it's a wrong way to do it, just that you can accomplish the same thing when you apply Levels (as an Adjustment Layer or otherwise) by moving the gray middle slider to the left to soften the intensity AND you can adjust EACH COLOR separately, too, should you want to pump up the yellows (play with the Blue channel in the Levels channels dropdown menu).
I'm glad to hear you're thinking about an external hard drive, Eric. Darwin is perceptive in noting that someday the technology is going to advance to a point where we'll want to re-edit some of these books. Just think of where we were ten years ago! What file sizes could be transmitted over the fledgling Internet? If you had a 1998 scan of a key book at 1998 file sizes, wouldn't YOU want to re-edit it with what you know now and the tools you have now to take advantage of the increased modern transmission capabilities? If we're preserving these books for the future, let's be perceptive enough to preserve the raw scans, too, for the future Internet.
If you want to compare file sizes, consider the scans that I make for my magazine, ImageS. I scan all of my material at 400 ppi, except for line art with is scanned at 1600 ppi (but in grayscale, not color). The raw scans range from a low of 50 MB to around 300 MB and my current network here has about 3.5 Terabytes of disc space available. The biggest "problem" with Photoshop is that it requires up to 8 times the file size in RAM to process the file for you. So with a 300 MB file, it wants 2.4 GB of RAM or else it uses disc space for RAM and slows down considerably. But 20 MB files only need 160 MB of RAM which is a piece of cake on modern computers.
(If you ever want to know why line art should be scanned at such high resolution, take a gander at the first GA Marvel Masterworks reprint of Marvel Mystery Comics. The line art there was scanned at 300 ppi, and when it was converted to pure black and white, every line got the jaggies and was stairstepped to the point of muddiness. Even the second issue was only scanned at 600 ppi and it still wasn't enough to avoid the jaggies. Pure B&W (as bitmap, not grayscale) requires a lot of data to compensate for the lack of anti-aliasing that "fools" your eyes into perceiving smoothness of line in grayscale reproductions. 1200 to 1600 ppi will do it.)
Speaking of Spacehawk colors, Eric, do we know if Wolverton had any input to the coloring of his stories? I'm noticed that they are somewhat different than the other features in the books and was wondering why
And I am VERY aware of the sad condition of many of my books, but, hey, at least I don't have to worry about them getting too much worse during the scanning process - which is one reason why I'm comfortable loaning them out...
Keep up the good work.
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There is a reason I only bought the first book of the Marvel Mystery Masterworks. Did they fix the problems on the later books? Because I was NOT happy with spending $50 on that mess. (At least the 'best' stories in terms of reproduction were the Sub-mariners, which was what I wanted most. But even that's a VERY relative 'best')
I don't think I've ever read that Wolverton had coloring input but I'm inclined to think he did, just because of how different they are. It's too bad that the only remotely recent reprints of the strip are B&W; color is a large part of the effect on some of the stories.
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See, it was relatively easy to recognize the difference, Eric. The early Sub-Mariners were all done in grayscale because Everett used toned paper, so they couldn't reproduce them in line. Hence, the 300 ppi scans were sufficient. The second Masterworks was somewhat improved --- the 600 ppi scans helped, but I don't think they are consistent. By Daring Mystery (vol. 3), they seem to have gotten some of it right, but the different art reconstruction houses had various levels of success. They DID get better, but they still have lots of room for improvement.
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After following Cimms and JVJs conversation of StrWorld5 scanning techniques I'm hesitant to say this but...
For all you late night animals and folks on the other side of the globe there's a mediocre copy of Happy Comics 33 sitting in the FTP.
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There you go again, rez,
being so generous with your descriptions of my comics. "Mediocre" barely covers it with Happy 33. Still, isn't that Frazetta fairy tale GREAT? Some of that stuff is straight out of Prince Valiant. Glad other people are getting to see it. Now back to my Photoshop book. Yuck!
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I'm so glad I threw those two issues of Happy onto my scan wish list at the last second. The 32 is fun enough, the 33 is spectacular. Not only do you get a 6 page funny animal story and 2 text illos by Frazetta; you also get a 6 page fairy tale by him. I think this one is an authentic lost classic; EVERYBODY should give this one a look.
Thank you both, Jim, Rez.
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Have to admit that previously I had never given any funny animal stories a second glance but having edited these two books and thus seeing them close I am appalled at my narrowmindedness concerning these gems.
I only wish I had more experience to make a better presentation of a scan is what was meant by mediocre.
I freaking fell over myself reading those fairy tale stories!
Cheers.
There you go again, rez,
being so generous with your descriptions of my comics. "Mediocre" barely covers it with Happy 33. Still, isn't that Frazetta fairy tale GREAT? Some of that stuff is straight out of Prince Valiant. Glad other people are getting to see it. Now back to my Photoshop book. Yuck!
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Rez you will find Tiff files for Yellowjacket 9 and Merry Comics in your ftp folder. I think all YJ needs is a little straightening as mentioned by Jim. The Merry did not scan as pretty. I will go ahead and put the Merry up for those who do not mind raw scans then I will replace it after your edits. Same with YJ.
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Target Comics v3 n01 uploading as I type this, if it's not there yet try again in a few. Wolverton Spacehawk and a lot of other fun stuff; enjoy!
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Thanks Eric!!
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Authentic Police Cases 1 now available. One of the pre-Baker issues, but still a nice issue to have. Enjoy!
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Target Comics v3 n05 uploading as we speak. Wolverton Spacehawk, Mickey Spillane Text story, and lots of other fun stuff.
Once again, I really need feedback on the editing on this one. I got a bit more ambitious, even doing some very limited art restoration. Some page borders, and 4-5 panels where small chunks were missing on the edge. Luckily all I needed to fill was a single color plus the panel border and page border. I need to know if that looks right; I'm not the best judge of my own efforts.
Mostly, though, just enjoy the book!
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It looks great to me Eric.
Looked through it all and never noticed your restoration work which is the best compliment one can get on that type of thing. :)
-Yoc
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Authentic Police Cases 1 now available. One of the pre-Baker issues, but still a nice issue to have. Enjoy!
Eric, Did you by nay chance get Authentic Police Cases #17 from JVJ? Remember I restored the text pages on the ifc & ibc but was unsure of two words. Wondering if you had it to verify.
The questioned words were:
ifc 2nd column line 5 last word "jab"?
ifc 2nd column line 11 last words "behind his hip"?
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Target Comics v3 n05 uploading as we speak.
Great issue! Thanks, Eric! :)
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Authentic Police Cases 1 now available. One of the pre-Baker issues, but still a nice issue to have. Enjoy!
Eric, Did you by nay chance get Authentic Police Cases #17 from JVJ? Remember I restored the text pages on the ifc & ibc but was unsure of two words. Wondering if you had it to verify.
The questioned words were:
ifc 2nd column line 5 last word "jab"?
ifc 2nd column line 11 last words "behind his hip"?
No, although I thought of it later that I should have asked for it for just that reason. I also forgot to grab #4 when what we have up on the site is a mislabeled #8. I'll try and fill in both holes in my next batch.
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Hey you're a moderator -- what's #4 still doing up there. Delete it :-)
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Yep, you can removed files like that Eric.
Go zap that thing. :)
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HEY, GUYS!
I'm still lurking around here, so I can actually answer your questions, Jon, without sending the Authentic Police Cases 17 to OtherEric.
The answers are "yes" to both. "jab" and "hip." are correct.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Oh, sure. If you want to do things the EASY way...
Thanks, Jim.
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Just this ONCE, Eric.
See Jim's Law #1.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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LOL
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Thanks, Jim. I didn't know how easy it would be for you to get to just the one comic so didn't want to ask you directly.
It's given me a real "high"* though to know I reconstructed that ifc correctly. I don't think I put the restored version on the site because I wasn't sure, but will do so this weekend
*It was sorely needed -- looks like I'm heading back for more surgery before Xmas, probably the end of next week. A minor procedure as they call it, but I say anytime they put you under it's major to you.
I'll either have more (if I'm moping at home) or less (if I'm real bad -- unlikely) time to scan JVJ's but I will get to them.
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Be well, Jon. We'll all keep you in our thoughts.
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Hang in there Jon, we're all rooting for you.
-Nigel
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Good luck Jon!
:)
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Best of luck, Jon,
Keep us posted on your progress.
And, for the record, I can get to ANY of my comics by moving at the maximum ONE box. Here's some shots I took awhile ago of just part of my comic book collection.
(http://www.bpib.com/temp/attic-photo-1.jpg)
(http://www.bpib.com/temp/attic-photo-2.jpg)
(http://www.bpib.com/temp/attic-photo-3.jpg)
So it's never a hassle to get at a specific book. The comics are flat in the boxes and they are not in plastic bags, so I just stand the boxes up and thumb through to the book I want.
As I've said many times here, I'm a bit crazy.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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you know how they show people in movies rolling around in money. Jim can I come to your house and roll around in comics :P ;D
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People have, narf, people have!
If you're ever in the area, don't hesitate to call.
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What a lovely picture Jim.
I can just SMELL all those comics..... *drool*
:D
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Best of luck and prayers for Jon the Scanner.
And I can imagine Jim burrowing thru his comics like a gopher, and throwing them up, and letting them hit him on the head...
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I "feel" your pain Jon, I too have been having some problems with my health, I just found out I have arthritis (don't know which kind yet, just hope it's not the bad one, but having either one is bad enough). Nice way to go into the "golden years" huh, and then I just past a kidney stone this past week (can it get any worse?) so I've been off work most of the week, just laying around.
Anyway Jon may God be looking out for you and Bless you that you come out fine on the surgery. You'll be in my and the wife's prayers.
Geo
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Are my comics destroying the scanners? Geez, guys,
please get well ASAP. Okay?
I hate to be the one to break the bad news, but the reason that time seems to go by so fast after you hit 50 is... wait for it... it's ALL downhill! Just kidding, but you really better get used to some additional aches and pains.
As someone famous (or at least very smart) once said, "If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself when I was young."
On the other hand, I have to chuckle when I read a novel that contains a line like "The elderly gentleman must have been in his early sixties, at least." I may have more aches to deal with, but "elderly" is NOT how I think of myself. And I hope Jon and Geo never think that either. Take care, guys, and think positive thoughts -- like how many more comics you will get to see when you come back to full speed.
Best.
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Certainly not your comics, JVJ. For those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer a year ago May. (And all of you males over 40 should have PSA tests.) My prostate was removed last July (i.e. 2007). The cancer is completely gone, but I've had healign problems (Scarring) from the surgery. It happens in about 5% of the cases I'm told. The corrective surgeries aren't too bad, but they're just annoying as is the problem if they arent' done.
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A few extra prayers can't hurt. I may get a cancer but probably not prostate as my psa was below the chart.
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Wow, sorry to hear about your problems Jon, but it's good of you to share them with us. Someone might get the message and look into these things.
GL with the recovery!
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Just as a heads up, while I've gotten several books scanned this week I was running behind and am late handing them off to editors or doing them myself. But in addition to two issues of Phantom Lady I've done several of JVJ's Authentic Police Cases issues You'll see some of that soon; I just didn't want people to think I was slacking off.
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Authentic Police Cases No.3 is now in the FTP.
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Authentic Police Cases No.3 is now up.
Thanks guys!
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And, as the holidays approach I seem to have less and less time to scan, or do anything for that matter. But I was able to get at least a couple books scanned and edited for your enjoyment, thanks to JVJ's generosity:
Authentic Police Cases 13, with a Baker cover and 8 page story.
Target Comics v3 n8, highlights here are Wolverton Spacehawk and a Spillane text story.
Enjoy; sorry I wasn't able to do more this week.
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Thanks Jim and Eric! Lovely to see new Target material!
:D
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Target Comics v3 n8, highlights here are Wolverton Spacehawk and a Spillane text story.
Thanks for adding this Target Comics issue, Eric (and to JVJ, of course). Fun to read the stories about Niles and the other Targeteers in WWII. ;D
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And snow has defeated my efforts to get to work tonight, which is bad for me but means another scan for you:
Authentic Police Cases 14; featuring a Baker cover and 8 page story now available for your enjoyment.
I was being good, I walked out for my bus nearly an hour early. Only to find that the bus was not running up the hill. So I called for a taxi. 5 hours later, still no taxi. Although, to their credit, they called me back every couple of hours to make sure I still wanted it. At this point, 3 hours late for work, I figured I had done everything within my ability to get to work- I don't own a car and my roommates quite understandably were not going out either. I just don't want to use the time off. Anyway, enough rant. I just needed to vent a bit.
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Thanks Eric!
:)
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Authentic Police Cases 18, featuring a Baker cover and 8 page story.
I'm seeing a repeating theme in my past few posts, but it's all good stuff. Enjoy!
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It's a great pattern.
And a Target should be next if it keeps going.
(http://www.clipartof.com/images/emoticons/xsmall2/2444_drooling.gif)
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I was told somebody had problems downloading this book, I've reuploaded it and it should be good now.
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Works now, thanks Eric!
:D
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And, a nice big batch for Christmas:
Authentic Police Cases 5: Thanks to Rez for the excellent edits on a difficult book; no Baker here but there is a Jack Cole story.
Authentic Police Cases 10: We actually have a near complete reprint of this book on the site as APC 35 already. But this one is completely rescanned and edited in addition to the new text story and Baker cover. Two Baker stories here!
Authentic Police Cases 15: A very nice Baker cover and 8 page story.
Target Comics v3 n12: The usual fun mix of wartime stories from Target.
All of these are uploaded or in the process of uploading; Enjoy!
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Oh Wow!
You must have gotten bitten by Santa Eric.
You got more done in one night than I could in a year!
;)
Baker - always candy to my eye.
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Hi, Eric,
Just inquiring about your progress on my books. Informational inquiry only, I'm not applying any pressure nor am I concerned about the timing. Just curious.
Peace, Jim (|:{> (and Happy New Year)
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I've been pushing on the scanning right now and will edit once I've got everything done; I'll have the books back to you by the end of January at the latest. There are a few I want to rescan for archival purposes; I wasn't doing 300 DPI TIFF's for my first several.
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I've been pushing on the scanning right now and will edit once I've got everything done; I'll have the books back to you by the end of January at the latest. There are a few I want to rescan for archival purposes; I wasn't doing 300 DPI TIFF's for my first several.
Sounds good to me, Eric,
I'm glad you're opting for the 300ppi standard. I really do believe that it will pay off in the long run. Hope you're having fun, too.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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#6 is in the FTP.
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Can one of the other Mods get this if they have the time? My internet connection is HORRIBLE today; it's going to take me close to an hour to download the file from the FTP.
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I'll upload it directly to the site.
Can one of the other Mods get this if they have the time? My internet connection is HORRIBLE today; it's going to take me close to an hour to download the file from the FTP.
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now onsite but need more info
Is this othereric scan with rez edits from JVJ?
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yep, that's it. Thought I put that on the upload data and the text data sheet on the first page has that info on the bottom.
On the upload I placed OtherEric/rez as the author. I see just rez listed on the site.
now onsite but need more info
Is this othereric scan with rez edits from JVJ?
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Thanks for your work on this one, Rez. This is in some ways the key book of the Authentic Police Cases run; it has the first Matt Baker cover on the title and was used in the ever-infamous Seduction of the Innocent.
Is it just me, or does the first story (signed "Walter Johnson") seem swipe-heavy? The first panel of page 3 looks a bit like S&K, and the first panel on the bottom of page 5 looks a _lot_ like P'gell to me.
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Are you speaking of the SK's bulky hands signature?
Thanks for your work on this one, Rez. This is in some ways the key book of the Authentic Police Cases run; it has the first Matt Baker cover on the title and was used in the ever-infamous Seduction of the Innocent.
Is it just me, or does the first story (signed "Walter Johnson") seem swipe-heavy? The first panel of page 3 looks a bit like S&K, and the first panel on the bottom of page 5 looks a _lot_ like P'gell to me.
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Is it just me, or does the first story (signed "Walter Johnson") seem swipe-heavy? The first panel of page 3 looks a bit like S&K, and the first panel on the bottom of page 5 looks a _lot_ like P'gell to me.
EVERYTHING Walter Johnson ever did was swipe-heavy. This is hardly an isolated example of his "work".
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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I still find it interesting in that I 'spotted' two rather different creators in one story- if it wasn't signed I would probably be going "what the heck" on something like that.
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Authentic Police Cases No.9 is now on site awaiting approval.
There are two uploads of #9 in that the second has the addition of a thumbnail cover.
Please disregard the first.
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Now up; thank you Rez!
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Pleasure doin' business. ;D
Now up; thank you Rez!
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Authentic Police Cases 16 and 32 are both up and ready; I've got another half-dozen issues scanned that I hope to post in the next day or so. Enjoy!
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Authentic Police Cases 16 and 32 are both up and ready; I've got another half-dozen issues scanned that I hope to post in the next day or so. Enjoy!
#16 is reporting itself as broken! "Error: Sorry but the file associated with this download doesnt seem to exist. "
Weird.
B.
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Reuploading now, try again in a few minutes. Sorry about that...
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Reuploading now, try again in a few minutes. Sorry about that...
Thanks! :D
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Ah, nothing like a schedule change to slow me way the heck down. But I seem to be back on track, JVJ's books are on the way home to him, and I've got a couple up and ready for download tonight. Sorry about the delay; I should be back on a more regular pace now that I'm used to my new shift.
Authentic Police Cases 20 and 21 ready for download, enjoy. More in the next day or so, for real this time!
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Thanks Eric!
:)
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Authentic Police Cases 22 now ready for download.
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Great work on this title Eric!
:)
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Two more on the way up:
Authentic Police Cases 37
This one is mostly for the completests; It's a reprint of APC 17 which we already have. It is a new Baker cover and a new text story, though; and the scans are from a copy of 37 if you want to dig in and look for other minor changes. In the more interesting category we have...
Authentic Police Cases 25
This is a 100 page Giant. Unfortunately, I damaged a couple of Jim's 100 pagers while scanning them and we've agreed that we aren't going to try again on any others. (All the APC 100 pagers are scanned; but this means I'll need to find other copies for the giants when Pictorial Romances comes up for scanning. Which it will fairly soon; lots of Matt Baker art means it's very high on my list. But I digress.) Anyway, despite the normal problems of scanning giants I think this one turned out quite well with the exception of a few pages; and even those are quite readable. Just a little blurry towards the gutter. The highlight here is a reprint of "The Case of the Winking Buddha". Although it's not listed on Jim's card, Overstreet lists the artist as Charles Raab. I don't know enough about him to say if that's an accurate attribution, but I thought I would at least mention it.
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Thanks Eric!
:)
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Thanks for all your work on these Authentic Police Cases Eric (and JVJ for the comics). They look great! I've got an ish of Alter Ego that confirms Charles Raab as the artist on The Case of the Winking Buddha and lists Manning Lee Stokes as the author. I guess this must be an excerpt? I've been keeping my eye out for a scanning copy of it. As far as damaging 100 pagers go, there's no doubt it's going to be hard to get them scanned. Besides the fact that they seem to be scarce and expensive, I can see how they would be hard to scan without damaging (though we've got some on site - thanks to those that have scanned em!). As a pulp scanner, I know how hard it can be to deal with fragile squarebound books so thanks guys for this one here. The plustek "edge" scanner can be a big help with squarebounds though it probably wouldn't work so well for these comics as the art looks like it goes all the way towards the spine. I guess the key for the giants is finding beater copies...
BTW I think HP was gracious enough to take care of one of the 100 page Pictorial Romances already :)
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I think it may be the whole story, just cut up well. From what I've seen of It Rhymes with Lust, the art was drawn for smaller pages so there is notably fewer panels per page. It would be interesting to see the original to compare.
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I've got an ish of Alter Ego that confirms Charles Raab as the artist on The Case of the Winking Buddha and lists Manning Lee Stokes as the author.
I wrote that article in A/E and yes, I can confirm that Raab and Stokes were the artist and author respectively.
The reprint of THE CASE OF THE WINKING BUDDHA that ran in APC #25 was a reworking of the original digest-sized book and not a panel-for-panel duplicate. The pages are cut up and rearranged, with some panels missing, to fit the larger format of the standard comic page. Still, it's a nice job and hardly affects the flow of the story.
While "BUDDHA" is a lesser known book than IT RHYMES WITH LUST, it's still a gem worth seeking out.
--Ken Quattro
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My Charlton Giant was not a problem. I tore it apart and put it through my autofeeder. The joys of buying books for only a couple of bucks ;D Murphy's law should now kick in and my stripped copy will be deemed extremely rare and worth $100 before I damaged it ;)
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Murphy's law should now kick in and my stripped copy will be deemed extremely rare and worth $100 before I damaged it ;)
The solution is obvious: We need to start a grading system that gives the advantage to books involved in preservation efforts. If people want to start sending me money, I'll be happy to send out appropriate certificates of authenticity. Ahem. Anybody?
Aw, c'mon, it's not like the business model for Overstreet or the CGC is any more sophisticated!
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I use to wonder about Narfstar.
Then I discovered he would cut up his comics so they could more easily scan them.
I found a new appreciation of Narfstar's dedication that day.
Narfstar is now ok in my book.
Even if he still insists on sticking that bold purple logo of his on his scans. ;D
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I'm willing to damage my OWN books to scan them; there are at least a few where I've just popped the staples to scan them better. I'm just unhappy that I damaged JVJ's.
Ironically, I think I actually improved the one St. John 100 pager of my own I scanned a couple tenths of a point when I scanned it; the process took out a bit of the spine roll!
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I'm just unhappy that I damaged JVJ's.
I'm unhappy, too, Eric, but we knew the job was dangerous when we took it. Not to worry, eh?
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Authentic Police Cases 38 ready for download. Once again, not too special since it's a reprint of 18 for the most part. Still, a new Baker cover and several minor changes. Almost done with Authentic Police Cases; only one issue to scan and 3 to edit for the full run.
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I'm really enjoying Authentic Police Cases, Eric. Hope you edit/scan those last four soon.
Jon
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As quick as I can manage, Jon. By this weekend at the latest. In fact...
Now ready for download:
Authentic Police Cases 4 and 36.
The 36 is a near-complete reprint of 11, with a new cover but even the same text story as the original. 4 is the first scan from my second batch of JVJ's books; I'll finish up editing the giants in the next few days. They're a fair bit of work, though, compared to your average book. In any case, enjoy!
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Great Job Eric!!
:)
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I've started editing the last few books from the first batch; they're some of the trickier ones from that lot. But I'm keeping busy while I work up the momentum to tackle them with some new books. (Cherry picking the easier to edit items.)
Jingle Jangle Comics 35 now ready for download.
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Ghost Rider #2 (A-1 29) now ready for download!
Sadly, it's missing the last two interior pages. But other than that it's a wonderful collection of Ayers art with a Frazetta cover; with three complete stories even with the missing pages. Enjoy!
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ME's Ghost Rider - one of the first series I went looking for back issues for at my first regular comic shop- Queens Comics.
Nobody told me it wasn't a Marvel title though so I only got their reprints but it was still Ayers art that I fell in love with! :D
Many thanks to Eric and Jim for another trip down memory lane!
-Yoc
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Authentic Police Cases 27 now available for download.
100 pages of fun starting with a Matt Baker cover!
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Wow, thanks Eric.
It must feel like time stands still scanning these huge books.
Just doing a 36pg book feels like forever - I can't imagine doing once of these phone books!
;)
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And again I say get crappy condition books and an auto feed scanner my Charlton giant was a cinch.
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And, by special request:
Weird Comics 3 (incomplete) is now ready for download.
For an exact score on what is complete and what isn't:
Sorceress of Zoom, Solar Plexis, Blast Bennett, Voodoo Man, and Bird Man are all complete.
Thor is missing the first 6 pages (of 12)
Dr. Mortal is missing the first 2 pages (of 6)
Typhon is missing the last 5 pages (of 8)
The two page text story, one interior ad, the IFC, and the IBC are all completely gone; I was able to locate nice copies of the FC and BC.
Still well worth a look, I think.
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And, by special request:
Weird Comics 3 (incomplete) is now ready for download.
...
Still well worth a look, I think.
Since I made the special request (actually 2 seperate requests) I most heartily commend all efforts to get this on the site! Many thanks to JVJ for including it in the package after OtherEric put his list up. And many thanks to OtherEric for pushing the scanning up to the top of his queue. I can rest easily at night now! Only one thing will still make me toss in my sleep: wondering how Thor ever go into the mess he gets himself out of in the last 6 pages... probably saving Glenda.
So, ;D anybody out there able to help me stop tossing all night long? (I seem to be on a roll making requests. What's one more?)
Thanks again,
DHFH
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You could try stamping your cane on the floor. ;-)
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You could try stamping your cane on the floor. ;-)
Toss...turn...toss...
Tap...tap...tap...
TAP... TAP... TAP...!
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DM might have fiche to complete the book...
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Unfortunately not. I have some Fox books but that ain't one of them.
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Ah well, can't win them all.
Thanks DM.
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Toss...turn...toss...
Tap...tap...tap...
TAP... TAP... TAP...!
TAP ... TAP ... TAP ....!!
Nope DM, I've tried it for quite a while now and it just doesn't work. I have a feeling you were thinking of some phoney Thor... ;)
DHFH
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Unfortunately not. I have some Fox books but that ain't one of them.
You're not helping at all, here! :P
(First he tells me to tap my cane for answers and then he says there are no answers forthcoming... Must have been a prank posting.)
DHFH
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Authentic Police Cases 28 now ready for download. Other than a missing IBC the issue is complete. Other than that missing IBC, the SERIES is now complete. Enjoy.
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:o :o
Wow, another series done by Eric!
You said you'd do it and by gosh you did! :D
Stellar work Eric. We are all in yours and Jim's debt.
-Yoc
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And I'm hopefully back on track getting books scanned, with two more for you tonight:
Jingle Jangle Comics 34
and
Blue Beetle 33
I particularly call your attention to the last story in the Blue Beetle, it's incoherent to the point of fascination. Did the Blue Beetle show the power to fly and grow to giant size in some earlier stories that I've yet to see, or is this somebody recycling a Spectre script? Oh, yes, he also body blocks a tidal wave and causes an underwater volcano to become active again by punching it. This one has to be seen to be disbelieved!
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Thanks Eric!
Can't say I've read any BB stories yet but I do recall hearing his powers did vary from time to time.
-Yoc
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The Blue Beetle stories seems to show vulnerability to shot gun blasts too. I thought his costume protected him. The artist may have been confused because the writer says his face was blown away which would probably work better than a shot in the back.
bb
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I noticed that the Target V1 #10 story art was identified as Dick Hamilton. Isn't this the same as Dick Wood? It looks like his art (just like early Batman). Is someone else involved that is not identified.
bb
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I certainly can't think of a similar example in the Beetle's history. Even the often-denigrated (but not nearly so bad) Charlton scarab-based run isn't this outlandish. And it's not just the story. You can add in the weird "world's tallest building" in "a city," but passing by the RCA Building (which most of you would recognize today as the GE Building, also known as "30 Rock"), which would seem to make the location fairly obvious.
The only comparable event I can think of is in the 1954 Charlton issues. In one of those stories, Dan creates a gust of wind to make things happen.
(The gunshot issue in the previous story, I'm more likely to ignore, because the armor wasn't a major issue in more than a few stories, and I can see a writer overlooking it. But it's also admittedly a bit peculiar. Ooh! Maybe it's the ghost of the clone!!)
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Ooh! Maybe it's the ghost of the clone!!)
When did Marvel do Blue Beetle ???:P
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Sorry about the lull in posting, I was distracted by the shiny new issue of City of Heroes. :P
Blue Beetle 11 is now ready for download, enjoy!
I'll be getting back on track now.
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Welcome back Eric and many thanks for new BB scans!
:)
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And another issue of Jingle Jangle for everybody to enjoy:
Jingle Jangle Comics 31 now ready to read, thanks to JVJ.
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Thanks Jim and Eric!
:D
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Redoubled from me.
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Make that triple! Thanks, gentlemen.
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Here's a couple more, I should have more later today.
Target Comics v9 n11 and v10 n01 both ready for download.
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Target Comics V9 n08 now ready for download.
I went looking for a better copy on the cover of this one since JVJ's had some writing on it; to my amusement the first one I found on Heritage was the Mile High copy. Enjoy!
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:) :) :)
Ahh, now that's a lovely site. After a day of fighting with Windows XP trying to get my plug-in PCI to USB card to work (it's a drivers issue I can't figure out for the life of me and I've read everything I can find with Google and SP3 is no help at all!) it's so nice to see new Target scans going up like this!
My thanks to Eric and Jim for sharing these beauties with us here.
Salute!
:D
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And one more for tonight:
Target V9 9. Enjoy!
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Thanks Eric!
:
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Thanks Eric!
:D
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Staying on Target:
Volume 9, number 5 now ready for download. Enjoy!
And looking ahead a couple books, can anybody with better search-fu than I find a good scan of the cover for Target comics Volume 8, number 12? The best I could locate is the one on the GCD; Heritage appears not to have one.
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Target Comics V8 09 ready for download. As always, enjoy!
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Thanks Eric!
:D
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Target comics v9 01 ready for download!
L B Cole sure did some neat covers, didn't he?
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And, shifting gears a bit:
GI Joe v5 41 from Ziff Davis ready for download. JVJ didn't send a card for any of the GI Joes. Enjoy!
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Eric,
Thanks for the GI Joe. It was one of the titles I had intended to ask JVJ for at some point. Did you by any chance get #26 (we need 3 of the four covers), 28 (we need all ad pages), 37 (we need 3 of the four covers), 44 47 49 (we need all ad pages for all 3).
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I only grabbed complete missing issues; I've got 42, 46, and 51 next on my list.
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Great scanning work there! What technics are you using?
\
Target comics v9 01 ready for download!
L B Cole sure did some neat covers, didn't he?
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Well, I start by scanning the book. No real trick there, other than I may put a weight on top of the scanner cover. If it's my book rather than JVJ's, I might be willing to further damage a book to get a better scan. (I've been known to pull staples on my books on occasion, for example.) Depending on the condition of the cover, I may go check heritage for a better scan. A nice cover scan can go a LONG way in making a scan of a low grade book look better; first impressions do matter. For editing, which I can either do page by page while scanning or later depending on my mood (I've got several books still to edit), I start by making sure the page is correctly oriented if need be since half the scans will be upside down. I'll then check to make sure I don't need to rescan due to a blurry area or other problem. I don't need to do that often, but I won't hesitate to do that if I think it will help. (Sometimes you just need to go ahead and live with it, generally the thicker the book the more you'll need to put up with. And I'm much less likely to bother with ads or text pages, honestly.) I then, if needed, rotate the page ONCE to straighten it using irfanview. If I'm not happy with the first rotation, I'll reload the page and retry until I am. If the page is damaged in someway I can repair, I may do so. My skills there are VERY limited; I'm normally restricted to just working on the page border, but this can make a big difference when you auto level a couple steps later. Then I trim so there's only a small border around the art. (I know not everybody likes that, but I personally think it looks best. And it helps unify the pages if you need to rotate some of them, which you almost always do.) I'll then save the scan, still as a TIFF, to a new folder with whatever I want the final name to be. (Normally just the number.) Once the book is all done, I'll fire up photoshop elements. Normally all I do there is batch process to auto level, resize the scans if needed, and convert to JPEG; I can get a bit more advanced on really dark scans. Then I zip it up, rename the zip, check for errors, and post away. I don't know that my results are that spectacular, but I do know my end results are definitely improving from my earlier ones.
That answer your question about techniques, Rez?
Oh, and GI Joe v5 42 ready to go. Enjoy!
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That answer your question about techniques, Rez?
yes, pretty much. I'm of a limited skills set myself. Normally when I'm scanning I try to visualize the panel edge when placing on the screen for the scan as a goodly percentage of the time that will eliminate the need for the rotation step. I do the same as you when needing the rotation by reopening the page each time until it comes out right.
Secondly I go to paint to clear up any inconsistancies in the margins or major blemishes on the page via copy/pastes and then save to tiff. (Thanking JVJ for that tidbit of info that helps keep the scans sharper.)
I then use the auto crop feature in irfanview but is problematic in that it will not process a tiff so I save to jpeg so it will function and then open the new crop and resize, sharpen and enhance.
Somehow it seems that the added step to change to jpeg for the auto crop could be altered or eliminated in some way so as not to lose any clarity by the extra changing to the jpeg.
I had experimented a bit with the batch feature but I haven't been scanning enough to warrant getting the technique down
and resizing at the same time as sharpening and enhancement let's me custom tailor things a bit per page if needed.
Same as checking out some of the other tools available in the various other programs. Allot there but the learning curve right now seems a bit heavy for my present involvement in that it seems I can present what I view as a halfway decent scan with my meager tools that gets the job done without relearning a whole new set of processes,...but maybe sometime...: o)
Well, I start by scanning the book. No real trick there, other than I may put a weight on top of the scanner cover. If it's my book rather than JVJ's, I might be willing to further damage a book to get a better scan. (I've been known to pull staples on my books on occasion, for example.) Depending on the condition of the cover, I may go check heritage for a better scan. A nice cover scan can go a LONG way in making a scan of a low grade book look better; first impressions do matter. For editing, which I can either do page by page while scanning or later depending on my mood (I've got several books still to edit), I start by making sure the page is correctly oriented if need be since half the scans will be upside down. I'll then check to make sure I don't need to rescan due to a blurry area or other problem. I don't need to do that often, but I won't hesitate to do that if I think it will help. (Sometimes you just need to go ahead and live with it, generally the thicker the book the more you'll need to put up with. And I'm much less likely to bother with ads or text pages, honestly.) I then, if needed, rotate the page ONCE to straighten it using irfanview. If I'm not happy with the first rotation, I'll reload the page and retry until I am. If the page is damaged in someway I can repair, I may do so. My skills there are VERY limited; I'm normally restricted to just working on the page border, but this can make a big difference when you auto level a couple steps later. Then I trim so there's only a small border around the art. (I know not everybody likes that, but I personally think it looks best. And it helps unify the pages if you need to rotate some of them, which you almost always do.) I'll then save the scan, still as a TIFF, to a new folder with whatever I want the final name to be. (Normally just the number.) Once the book is all done, I'll fire up photoshop elements. Normally all I do there is batch process to auto level, resize the scans if needed, and convert to JPEG; I can get a bit more advanced on really dark scans. Then I zip it up, rename the zip, check for errors, and post away. I don't know that my results are that spectacular, but I do know my end results are definitely improving from my earlier ones.
That answer your question about techniques, Rez?
Oh, and GI Joe v5 42 ready to go. Enjoy!
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And GI Joe v6 46 now ready for download. This is one where I would have tried for a heritage cover but I couldn't find one. Still, enjoy!
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I then use the auto crop feature in irfanview but is problematic in that it will not process a tiff so I save to jpeg so it will function and then open the new crop and resize, sharpen and enhance.
Somehow it seems that the added step to change to jpeg for the auto crop could be altered or eliminated in some way so as not to lose any clarity by the extra changing to the jpeg.
Rez,
First off I stopped using Irfanview a while back, so I'm treading on thin ice, here, but, I think I might be able to help you eliminate the "change to jpeg for auto crop" step. The one thing about being an image-editing novice in this situation is that you might not be aware of another file format that might solve your whole problem with this step. If you can't process a tiff file with irfanview, try saving the image as a bmp file.
This is where my time "out of touch" with irfanview makes for thin ice. I'm not sure you can process a bmp file the same way you can process a jpeg. But, I'm willing to bet you can. The bmp file format was created by Microsoft and has been the "standard" image format for Windows practically since the first version. It's a simple, straightforward file format that does NO compression at all. Because of this, it has several things going for it (and many things going against it). First, it can be thought of as a "tiff-lite" format because saving as bmp is almost the same as saving as uncompressed tiff. Second, being a simple and Windows-backed format means most editing software can process these files without any major programming having to be done. So, irfanview most likely can process bmp files, when it can't process the more flexible, commplex, and non-Windows-backed tiff files.
If this trick works, I'd recommend doing all editing in bmp format since you use irfanview, but still use tiff if you're going to share an unfinshed image with someone else. And of course, still use jpeg for the final image because of the compression and universal readiblity.
One final note: bmp files are fairly universal. Most computers have software available for reading/viewing them. But, tiff files are far more universal, and there is software for non-Windows computers out there that can read tiffs, but not bmps. That's why most people use tiff over bmp.
Hope I'm right about this and it helps,
DHFH
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Hey Thanks for that.
I'll try it and let you know.
Cheers
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I didn't even know Irfanview had an auto crop feature; I always do it manually. And the normal crop works fine with TIFFs.
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Hi Eric,
IrFan has several options in the BATCH section under ADVANCED.
Cropping, colour correction, resizing, sharpening, rotation and file conversions can all be done here.
I've used it to sharpen and convert TIFFs to Jpg when I've done scans but that's it.
-Yoc
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GI Joe v7 051 now uploaded thanks to JVJ. Enjoy!
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Thanks Eric
:)
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Hey, what's this? Where's Cobra???
...Just kidding! ;D
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And since there seems to be a run on Blue Beetle and early Fox in general right now, I want to thank JVJ for letting me play too:
Blue Beetle 8 now ready for download.
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And getting back on Target:
Target Comics v8 n12 ready for download. It's coverless and the only cover I could find was on the GCD; other than that I think it's a pretty good job.
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Thanks Eric!
Tonight was a banner night for me.
I love every title uploaded!
:)
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Target Comics v8 10 now ready for download. Sadly, this issue is missing the first wrap, so the Cadet and Target stories are incomplete. Still quite worthwhile for us target fans, though. With the exception of a few odd covers and pages, we now have all but two issues from 8/9 to 10/3; I'll grab the rest of 8 and part of 7 next batch.
This concluded the Target issues I got from JVJ this time; now I dive headfirst into the Jingle Jangles.
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Thanks Eric!
:)
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And now, comics in a minor Key:
Jingle Jangle Comics 1, courtesy of JVJ.
Not the most important book ever, but it's definitely a nice, if minor, Key book to have. JVJ's copy was severely trimmed; we only lost the top of a couple panels but I didn't have the room to edit most of the pages. Still, I think it's a nice looking book with 21 pages of George Carlson. Enjoy!
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Minor health problems have slowed down my scanning, but here's one for you:
Jingle Jangle Comics 7
Enjoy!
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Sorry to hear about your problems Eric.
I can sympathize.
Thanks for the latest.
:)
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Jingle Jangle 8 now ready for your enjoyment!
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Thank you, gentlemen. :)
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Jingle Jangle 20 now ready for download!
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Buster Crabbe 12 (Eastern) now ready for download.
Some people may notice this wasn't on JVJ's original "books I have" list. I had asked him a while ago if there were any books he was looking for that I could look for to scan for the site and then send to him. He suggested filling in some of the Eastern titles, such as Jingle Jangle or Buster Crabbe. This is just the first one I've actually spotted an affordable copy of where the seller has actually had the copy when they went to look. (Two of the only three "I can't find the books, here's your money back" I've hit on eBay have been on Buster Crabbe!) It will be in the box when I send the books back to JVJ. It's the least I can do to say "thanks" for everything Jim has shared with us!
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An absolutely great and generous thing to do Eric.
You are a gentleman and a scholar sir.
Bravo!
And one SWEET looking book for GAC as well.
:D
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I sent him a Supersnipe he didn't have when I returned my first box and was looking off and on for something to send this time as well. Thanks for "reminding" me to look again.
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You guys are the best!
:)
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You guys are the best!
:)
You took the words right out of my mouth,Yoc.
Thanks Eric and Jon. It's a pleasure doing "business" with you. Haven't been on-line much as I'm trying to hard to get ImageS #11 off to the printer. Be back eventually.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Jingle Jangle 22 now ready for download!
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Thanks Eric.
:)
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And Jingle Jangle 23 is now ready for your enjoyment!
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:D
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Jingle Jangle 25 now ready for download; Pyramid has told me he's working on 24 so I'm skipping it.
I had to fight with spine roll and misaligned staples on this one, I think I narrowly won on points. If it had been my book, I would have gone for the TKO and just pulled the staples out. :)
Anyway, Enjoy!
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I had to fight with spine roll and misaligned staples on this one, I think I narrowly won on points. If it had been my book, I would have gone for the TKO and just pulled the staples out. :)
Anyway, Enjoy!
It's not too hard to remove the staples and reinsert them. I've done it any number of times. You don't get them in quite as tightly as originally -- of course the staples aren't quite as tight after you've manipulated the book for scanning either.
I'd not do it on one of Jim's books without asking first though, of course.
And thanks for the JJ.
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And here's Jingle Jangle 26!
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Jingle Jangle Comics 29 now ready for download!
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Thanks Eric
:)
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Woohoo, thanks for the laughs, gentlemen.
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Jingle Jangle 30 now ready for download. This copy is missing the centerfold, but both Jingle Jangle Tales and Pie Faced Prince are complete. Enjoy!
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And, taking a brief break from the Jingle Jangles to post a couple of books by request:
Eagle Comics 4 now ready for download. Jim's copy was badly incomplete; missing the cover and the first four wraps. In addition, I wasn't quite happy with a couple of the scans but I didn't dare try anything to improve them due to the condition of the book. (Page 12 in particular.)
With all that said, three of the four Eagle stories and the Spider Queen story are all complete, and the pages I was less happy with were from the stories that were already incomplete. So despite everything there's several complete stories that I'm quite happy with the scans of. Enjoy!
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Thanks so much for putting Eagle Comics #4 up (and kudos to Jim as well). There weren't any issues on the site before, and as you pointed out, having three out of four stories (along with a Spider Queen) is better than nothing. And the art in this GA comic is pretty sweet.
Love the character of the Eagle and his sidekick Bud as well. Not sure how many issues there are in this title, but hopefully the first story from #4 and the other issues of Eagle Comics will show up eventually. ;)
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Thanks Eric and Jim!
:)
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Love the character of the Eagle and his sidekick Bud as well. Not sure how many issues there are in this title, but hopefully the first story from #4 and the other issues of Eagle Comics will show up eventually. ;)
In case you haven't found out elsewhere by now, there are supposed to be only 4 issues of the Eagle's own title--with 4 Eagle stories in each--although his combined appearances in both Science and Weird Comics is said to amount to another 21 stories on top of those (Science #1 - #8, Weird #8 - #20). And interestingly enough, when given his own title, it seems that none of the stories in any of those four issues are rerpints from any of the other series he appeared in, unlike a number of Fox characters, like both the Flame and Blue Beetle.
Cheers,
DHFH
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Cursed real life, getting in the way of the important stuff, like scanning comics for everybody to enjoy! :P
Here's another one for everybody: Blue Beetle 5. Missing IFC and IBC, but otherwise complete. 66 pages of Golden Age insanity, Fox style. Pop open a cold Kooba Cola and enjoy!
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Great work Eric!
A real variety of styles in this one. I was most impressed with the almost subtle use of colour in the last BB story by unknown artist. Fox is not known for good printing let alone subtle colouring! And very early Tuska art too.
Cool! :)
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In case you haven't found out elsewhere by now, there are supposed to be only 4 issues of the Eagle's own title--with 4 Eagle stories in each--although his combined appearances in both Science and Weird Comics is said to amount to another 21 stories on top of those (Science #1 - #8, Weird #8 - #20). And interestingly enough, when given his own title, it seems that none of the stories in any of those four issues are rerpints from any of the other series he appeared in, unlike a number of Fox characters, like both the Flame and Blue Beetle.
Cheers,
DHFH
Thanks DHFH.
It's a shame that there were only four issues of Eagle, but I guess that the bankruptcy of Fox pretty much took care of that. Lucky for us that Blue Beetle continued over at Holyoke.
On a related note, one of the things that I did notice (aside from the stories in Eagle Comics not being reprints) was that the same artist who drew a lot of the stories in Green Mask v1 #6 also did the stories in Eagle Comics #2. At least, it looks pretty similar in terms of style and how the pages have been laid out. Could be wrong though.
Anyway, many thanks to Jim and OE for Blue Beetle #05. Always happy to see more of BB on the site. ;)
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And, back to Jingle Jangle, with issue 32.
Somebody (presumably not Jim :P ) saw fit to enhance the colors on certain pages with a crayon. Otherwise a nice looking book with the usual two Carlton stories. Enjoy!
I also see we have an updated copy of Blue Beetle 5 with the missing covers filled with Fiche. Thank you, Dark. I can only claim stupidity on my part for not having added them earlier; I appreciate the catch and fix!
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Not a problem, Eric. And thanks for all the Jingle Jangles!
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Two more today, Jingle Jangle 16 and Buster Crabbe (Eastern) 8. (Like the 12, the Buster Crabbe 8 is a thank you for Jim.)
Enjoy!
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Always a gentlemen.
You rock Eric!
:)
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And Jingle Jangle 15 is also now ready for your enjoyment!
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Jingle Jangle 12 now ready for download.
Sorry about the delays on this one; chalk it down to scheduling difficulties. (The times when I've had time to scan the past two weeks it was also too hot to think. We broke our all time high record by three degrees.)
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Thanks for all your hard work! It's definitely appreciated! ;D
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Jingle Jangle 14 now ready for download.
Just a heads-up on the project in general: Jim needed his Blue Bolts back for research, and I of course sent them back ASAP (along with a lot of other already scanned books.) I hadn't scanned the Blue Bolts yet, however, so those will need to go back on the wish list once time permits. My apologies to whoever originally asked for those to be scanned; we'll get them another round.
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Jingle Jangle 3 now ready for download.
I need some feedback on this one, folks. Jim frequently puts down the condition of his books; in most cases I think he's exaggerating. On this one, he wasn't. The book was brittle, if it wasn't for the fact the staple was missing I probably would have said "not worth the risk of damage" and skipped it. (I later located the staple attached to the wrap one inside from the centerfold and nothing else.) Since I could work wrap by wrap, I was able to get the book scanned without causing any new damage other than a few flakes that would have come off no matter who picked up the book.
Anyway, back to the point: The upper corner of the book near the spine was particularly badly damaged, most notably the cover and the first 28 pages. I did my best to repair the art on most of the pages, there were a few I had no idea how to tackle. I also was unable to snag a cover from heritage so I tried some repair work on the cover; most notably where the letter J meets the spine and the top where the cloud meets the sky. Now what I need to know is, how does this look to people? And more generally, did I go too far? I spent more time working on this book than any other I've ever scanned, I need to know if I spent too much.
If people want I'll try and post a few before & after shots here. Like I said, I need to know if a) the fixes work for people, and b) did I go to far in trying to fix things?
With that said, at least 99% of the book is original, so enjoy!
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I would be happy with out the need for a lot of time editing. I am easy to please
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It looks fantastic to me Eric!
Well done sir. :)
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Jingle Jangle 13 now ready for download. The issue is incomplete, but there are no obvious missing story pages, and according to GCD we're only missing a one page "Waldo" strip by Dave Tendlar in terms of actual content. All the Carlson material is here. Enjoy!
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If people want I'll try and post a few before & after shots here. Like I said, I need to know if a) the fixes work for people, and b) did I go to far in trying to fix things?
Eric, I'd love to see the before and after pics. That kind of work can be an art form on it's own.
And if a book is really beat I wouldn't mind seeing a whole book raw scan of the original before the edits.
Cheers
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Here's a quick shot of a few of my more notable fixes. A lot of the other pages had slightly simpler fixes but still took a fair bit of time; they just don't look quite as impressive. Like I said, I really need to know if people think going this far is appropriate. And I'm limited in what I can do; for somebody who likes to think of themselves as reasonably educated and perceptive in regards to artwork I can't draw to save my life. These fixes are almost all cut & paste; although I like to believe it's pretty creative use of cut & paste.
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Here's a quick shot of a few of my more notable fixes. A lot of the other pages had slightly simpler fixes but still took a fair bit of time; they just don't look quite as impressive. Like I said, I really need to know if people think going this far is appropriate. And I'm limited in what I can do; for somebody who likes to think of themselves as reasonably educated and perceptive in regards to artwork I can't draw to save my life. These fixes are almost all cut & paste; although I like to believe it's pretty creative use of cut & paste.
Yes, that is pretty much exactly what I do when editing a beat book in using a simple cut and paste. Only trouble spots are in some detailed backgrounds, as in the 4a 4b examples you give, where the question of how much time one wants to involve in prepping for the presentations has to be taken into consideration. Can be very time consuming and one has to draw a line somewhere (no pun intended) ;D
Nice clean work on the 6a and 6b.
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Well, with me, it's not so much how much time do I want to spend as do I even see a way to do it? There were a few pages I didn't try to fix because I didn't see how. The 4, while it took a bit, I at least saw how I could make it work. I have no idea how I got so clean on fix 6; I do know it was a rotated copy of another corner from that page. Sometimes you get lucky. If I recall, it was 3 that I spent the most time on; figuring out exactly what I could move where to make it look right. I was cut & pasting some VERY small bits of picture at points there.
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Jingle Jangle 11 now ready for download. This is the last of the Jingle Jangles in this batch; Jim still has a few of the issues from 36-42 I'll grab in the next load. This issue is incomplete; with two centerfolds missing. Pie Faced Prince is complete but Jingle Jangle Tales ends in the middle. (Bingo is also incomplete, in case anybody is grabbing the series for that but ignoring the Carlton stories. I don't consider that too likely, but it's not impossible. :P ) Still, a lot of good material, so enjoy!
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Eric you did a great job. Not needed from my perspective as raw scans are usually my preference. I like old books that look like old books
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yes, I can see where #3 would be time involved for sure. Nice trick in the swapping corners on #6.
I always get concerned when adding something in that I aim to reproduce as close to the original as possible within reason,
hating to add my own hand or thought of what it might have looked like in those missing areas. (Were there three bolts or four on that machinery panel kind of thing) That's where Heritage Auction House is so valuable in securing covers, usually being able to find a nice grade instead of using allot of time editing a cover.
Lately I've taken to crediting Heritage for their covers and providing their site addy as a way of thanks and remuneration for the use of the covers.
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And now for an upgrade from a fiche scan:
Big 3 Comics 6 now ready for download. I patched the IBC using Darkmark's Fiche; otherwise it's Paper c2c.
Dark, my next project is going to be four issues of Fantastic Comics: 17, 18, 20, and 22. All of which are missing covers and at least 3 of which are missing other pages, either the first wrap or the centerfold. Do you (or anybody) happen to have fiche of the issues to use as fills?
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A scanner named Dell 4C has fiche of Fantastic 18 20 22 (or should according to list) though he may have already sent them to Ontology. What pages exactly do you need?
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Once I scan the paper we'll need the following pages as fills for Fantastic Comics 17, 18, 20, 22:
All four issues need all four covers. (I did grab the FC and BC from heritage for 17, 20, and 22; but heritage didn't have great copies of any of those or ANY copy of the 18.)
17- Need outer wrap and centerfold. (1, 2, 31-34, 63, 64)
18- Need outer wrap. (1, 2, 63, 64)
20- Need cover only.
22- Need centerfold (31-34)
Thanks!
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Fantastic 20 is just waiting on the fiche fills to be posted.
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Sorry, Eric, I don't have those issues. All the Fox I have has already been done. Looking forward to your stuff, though.
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Jon said Dell4C should have the missing pages for 3 of the 4 issues; I'll go ahead and do 17 next. Even if it's incomplete there's a lot of good stuff to get out to people.
If the fills for 20 don't turn up by tonight I'll go ahead and post it, then update when the fills show. It's a really nice looking book; other than the obvious flaw of no cover JVJ's copy was in excellent shape.
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The fills are going to take a bit of time, Eric. Dell 4C has the fiche but his scanner doesn't have the resolution to scan them. He's mailing them to Ontology so they can be scanned.
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No worries, Jon (and Dell4C, and Ont). Posting what we have now and we can add the covers when we get them. I'll do 17 next since we won't be getting fills; then move onto some of the other books until we either get the fills or I hit the bottom of the pile. And a huge thanks to everybody involved in getting the fills!
Everybody else, just enjoy the book!
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And here's the scan of 17. Missing the inside covers, first wrap, and centerfold. Still a lot of nice material here, enjoy.
Coming next: I dive into the batch of Eastern books JVJ just sent while I'm still inspired to scan like crazy after seeing how great some of the material is. Hopefully I'll be VERY busy this weekend and next scanning.
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Good luck, OE.
/me considers slipping some caffeine into OE's food to keep him stimulated all week-end to scan.
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Coming next: I dive into the batch of Eastern books JVJ just sent while I'm still inspired to scan like crazy after seeing how great some of the material is. Hopefully I'll be VERY busy this weekend and next scanning.
What about Fantastic #18 & 22? I know you don't have Blue Bolt V1#9, V2#5- 7, 9, 10, or 12, anymore, and that was a crushing, demoralizing blow as it is... :(
As for this Eastern batch, are any of JVJ's early issues of Heroic Comics among them?
DHFH
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The Fantastics are at least briefly on hold as I wait for the Fiche Fills, since I know they're on the way. I will swap back and get the few Champion and Speed issues I have very soon, though.
Sorry, Heroic is the one Eastern title I didn't snag, at least in part. But they will be in my next Eastern batch; which shouldn't be that far out. Since JVJ has requested we work by publisher if possible, I'm going to rotate Eastern- Novelty- St. John until those publishers run out. (I really should go ahead and scan my 10 or so issues of Famous Funnies and post them without the Buck Rogers pages, since we've decided to go ahead with partial books when only one feature is unusable.)
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(I really should go ahead and scan my 10 or so issues of Famous Funnies and post them without the Buck Rogers pages, since we've decided to go ahead with partial books when only one feature is unusable.)
I apologize in advance if this is a stupid question/suggestion, but is it possible to reprint the Buck Rogers pages with the name/logo removed? It sounds to me (with my limited attention span and focus) that the problem is "Buck Rogers" not the strips themselves. If this is true (Aussie? anyone?) then what's to prevent GAC (or anyone) from reprinting PD artwork with the TM name/logo absent?
Again, perhaps it's a silly question that betrays my abysmal ignorance of the rules. Still, I have to ask...
(|:{>
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I think the current rule on the Buck Rogers material is more of a "we're playing it safe" than anything else, Jim. One of the experts will need to explain exactly why. The Famous Funnies issues are definitely PD, but the strips that the Famous Funnies issues reprint are not. Which seems to be a gray area; I'm not sure exactly what all pertains there.
And, as I hoped, two more books for people tonight: Buster Crabbe 1, and Personal Love 25. As usual, I have trouble actually reading romance comics. But I can look at the artwork for quite a while; a lot of them had some truly exceptional art. The highlight in this one is a seven page Frazetta story described in Overstreet as a "Tribute to Betty (sic) Page". While I'm pretty sure calling it that is standard "let's raise the price" hype, the character's look could have been based on Bettie. Beautiful stuff as long as you just admire the pictures and don't try to read it. ;D I posted the story at 200 rather than 150 to show it off better; and for good measure I did the same with the one Frazetta page in the Buster Crabbe as well. Enjoy!
Sharp eyed readers will notice the order of features in the Personal Love 25 doesn't perfectly match JVJ's card. The book had a loose cover and split spine on the cover; it had been restored with a very careful glue job. Presumably to keep the first page of the Frazetta story as clean as possible, the last two pages had been flipped around so they were at the front of the book, not the back. I've restored the original page order in the cbz.
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I wasn't part of the Buck Rogers discussion, but licensed characters tend to be painful, since any instance could be a reprint or an adaptation of something still under copyright, which would make it protected as well.
Aussie and Serj both, I believe, wanted to be respectful to trademarks, presumably to make the point that the site isn't a threat to their work, but possibly for other reasons.
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It is my understanding that if it were just a trademark issue we (or one) could distribute the Famous Funnies scans without alteration of the individual pages provided "Buck Rogers" was not used in an identifying way on the packaging. This is just like DC can call their hero Captain Marvel inside the comic, but cannot call their comic Captain Marvel since Marvel now holds that trademark.
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You're (almost certainly) right, Jon, but there are legal limits and there's playing nice with people we may want to work with. As I said, I wasn't part of the discussion, so I don't know the specific reasons. I do, however, know that there are several titles Aussie and Serj reject to head off potential problems with trademark owners.
The more likely situation, though, is simply that the possibility of a derived work is too great to risk. With all the comic strips, serials, and other media Buck has starred in, I doubt any of us could say for sure that the stories published by Eastern were 100% original to their writers.
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Buster Crabbe #2 now ready for download.
I find it amusing that Eastern got the rights to the Buster Crabbe comic at roughly the same time they had lost the rights to Buck Rogers for a while. One may be related to the other, in fact.
I got a clean cover from Heritage but left in a scan of JVJ's copy. Even incomplete, I find the Shoe store ad/sticker interesting.
JVJ's tentative guess on the last page is H. G. Peters. Personally, I doubt it; I just think the next to last panel is a swipe. Actually, I think the whole page is a bunch of swipes; it looks like seven different artists to me!
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Buster Crabbe #2
JVJ's tentative guess on the last page is H. G. Peters. Personally, I doubt it; I just think the next to last panel is a swipe. Actually, I think the whole page is a bunch of swipes; it looks like seven different artists to me!
You could be right, Eric, but Peters WAS there and I'll stick by my guess: I think he did everything here except for the portrait of Buster Crabbe.
ps. Can you PM me a list of which comics of mine you still have? I need to be reassured that I still have some system of keeping track of what's where. Thanks.
(|:{>
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Buster Crabbe #2
JVJ's tentative guess on the last page is H. G. Peters. Personally, I doubt it; I just think the next to last panel is a swipe. Actually, I think the whole page is a bunch of swipes; it looks like seven different artists to me!
You could be right, Eric, but Peters WAS there and I'll stick by my guess: I think he did everything here except for the portrait of Buster Crabbe.
I trust your ID more than I trust my own, Jim. But I will bring up the subject if I have doubts, and the page does look to me like a mish-mash of styles. The only two panels that are particularly distinctive to my eyes are the Buster Crabbe portrait and the next to last one; and like you said the BC portrait doesn't look like Peters. That's the first appearance of that portrait in Buster Crabbe, though, so unless it showed up in an ad or somewhere else it's new. Which makes it odd that they would do it just for a filler page, at least to my mind.
Like I said, I trust your answer more. But at least I'm starting to teach myself some of the questions! (And I've got some on the next book I'll upload, as well. But that can wait until later today when I actually upload it. :) )
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Personal Love #24 now ready for download. This one has an 8 page Frazetta story; so once again I highly recommend it even if you don't like romance comics. Just enjoy the incredible drawings. :P
As promised, I had a question on one of your identifications on this one as well, Jim. You say Bill Everett did the third story, and it doesn't seem impossible based on the art in some panels. But it seems odd that he wouldn't sign the story if the publisher was allowing it, yet it's the only unsigned story in the book. Of course, it's possible he didn't want Atlas to know he was moonlighting or there was some other reason. And at least some of the art- the splash panel in particular- just screams Jim Mooney to me. I would call it an outright Supergirl swipe if it didn't predate Kara's first appearance by several years. (I don't know enough about Mooney's early career to know if he was even drawing at this point, for that matter.)
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Personal Love #24 now ready for download. This one has an 8 page Frazetta story; so once again I highly recommend it even if you don't like romance comics. Just enjoy the incredible drawings. :P
As promised, I had a question on one of your identifications on this one as well, Jim. You say Bill Everett did the third story, and it doesn't seem impossible based on the art in some panels. But it seems odd that he wouldn't sign the story if the publisher was allowing it, yet it's the only unsigned story in the book. Of course, it's possible he didn't want Atlas to know he was moonlighting or there was some other reason. And at least some of the art- the splash panel in particular- just screams Jim Mooney to me. I would call it an outright Supergirl swipe if it didn't predate Kara's first appearance by several years. (I don't know enough about Mooney's early career to know if he was even drawing at this point, for that matter.)
Jim Mooney goes back to 1940, Eric, and I am 100% certain that this story is by Bill Everett - signature or no. My major advice to folks trying to learn a style is NEVER to judge any story based on ONE face or ONE panel. Art styles involve so much more than a face or two: how the artist tells a story, how they position a figure, STRUCTURE a face, the proportions they use to create a figure, etc. I wish I could explain it better, but it's an art and a skill and I just have it. How and why I have it is simply beyond me.
As to why Everett was working at Eastern, in 1953 is beyond me, too.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Like I said, what seemed odd was the lack of signature. Everett had one of the most distinctive signatures in comics and he didn't hesitate to use it.
Did Everett do anything else at Eastern, or was it just this one story?
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There are a couple of Everett stories there, Eric,
I don't have the data immediately to hand, but I believe there are two or three others.
Peace, Jim (|:{>
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Like I said, what seemed odd was the lack of signature. Everett had one of the most distinctive signatures in comics and he didn't hesitate to use it.
Did Everett do anything else at Eastern, or was it just this one story?
I have Everett at Personal Love #9 (with a more sedate signature) in 1951. At Heroic #44,60-64 (with a signature on the last one), and Movie Love #6 (also signed). I don't think he used his familiar signature at Eastern.
There may be more examples, but he seems to have been working here on and off from 1948-1953. Odd, now that you mention it...
(|:{>
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He did early issues of Heroic as well. It's definitely something to look forward to when the next Eastern batch rolls around.
Thanks for all the information; even if I never get close to your level of ID skill I can learn more about how to do it. I think these are just some of the first books which have artists I know enough about to venture an ID but aren't obviously or famously assigned to the artist already.
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And one more before I go back to work tomorrow:
Buster Crabbe 7 now ready for download. Only one page Frazetta in this one, but as is usual with Buster Crabbe it's a fun (if odd) book. I have no idea what reality the stories are supposed to take place in but it's nothing like ours. A bizarre mix of Old West and "Contemporary" which is now nearly as far removed from our time as the real old west was from the time the books came out. Like I said, getting the new batch from JVJ inspired me into a scanning frenzy. And lots of good things still to come: more Frazetta, some Toth, Gil Kane, more Carlton, and a lot of other neat stories. Eastern is really a very underrated publisher.
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Fantabulous! ;D I
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Since Eric is going to be giving us some Eastern files I found some Club 16 and Heroic that needed fixed from the crash awhile back. I think all of our Eastern's are good now. If anyone finds a bad let me know.
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Thanks for the Personal Love scans, guys. I love the curves on the Frazetta girls :)
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There's only one way to follow up a post like that, Darwin:
Personal Love 27 now ready for download; 8 page Frazetta story. Enjoy!
I don't suppose anybody has 28 or 32 they could scan? Both of those have Frazetta stories as well. (I'll get the issues with one Frazetta page later from JVJ, but he doesn't have those two.)
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Two more from Eastern, courtesy of JVJ:
Buster Crabbe 10
Tales from the Great Book 3
I find the Tales from the Great Book really interesting for reasons not tied to the contents; although they do a very good job of making Bible stories interesting. It seems to me that lots of biblical adaptations take what can be fascinating and exciting source material and work hard to maximize the boredom factor, this one doesn't. Which probably helps explain why the strip it's reprinting lasted so long.
Back to my point: The issue has two panorama oriented pages. I went ahead and posted them sideways in the cbz; but I did debate briefly. It's hardly unique, but it's unusual for older books like this. The book has a wraparound cover; this is not unique either but once again it's definitely unusual. I wonder if the book was at least partly subsidized by some religious group, or at least if they got large orders of the book from such groups. There are no ads at all; which may be even rarer than the wraparound cover! And, maybe it's just me, but there's something amusing about the text feature in a very early code-approved book being on Sodom and Gomorrah!
Anyway, enjoy the books!
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Wonderful work Eric, just getting these now and loving what I see so far!
Thanks for the extra large Frazetta pages too.
:)
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Dover the Bird 1 now ready for download.
An odd little funny animal one-shot from near the end of Eastern's days as a publisher. No Carlton, but some of the other Jingle Jangle staff contribute. Not sure if it was meant to be an ongoing, or what: There were no text pages, which is very unusual for a GA book and suggests they didn't think it was worth offering subscriptions.
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They may have known the end was near and used up inventory they had already paid for
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Inventory seems likely yeah. Thanks for the scans Eric.
:)
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Inventory seemed likely to me; only there are at least two stories in there that look to be "origin stories" as far as they go. And none of the features are left over from Jingle Jangle that I can tell. I don't know of another Eastern book for them to be inventory FROM is what makes that seem odd.
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Perhaps they might have just been extra origins for characters they didn't figure worthy of a second story?
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And here's the last Buster Crabbe from JVJ and me, unless we find copies of 5 or 6:
Buster Crabbe 11 ready for download.
Highlight here is a story by H. G. Peters; it's interesting to see him draw something other than Wonder Woman. And amusing to count how many photo of Buster Crabbe he had for reference. ;D
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Future World #1 now ready for download. JVJ has this labeled as Eastern, so I'm putting it there. Not 100% sure why he has it labeled as such, though. I also have issue two on loan and will be upgrading our scans unless Narfstar takes offense.
A bit of an oddball book, but quite interesting as a period piece. Enjoy!
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OF course I am offended...that you would have to ask. My scans are always available for upgrade. I just put up cheyenne Kid 11 and Headline 76 and would welcome them to be straightened. I get things up as fast as I can so I can move on to another or something else.
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Just checking, Narf. Some people react badly, but since your scans were digital camera I thought it deserved a new scan. :P
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And of course I was not actually offended cause I know you are that kinda polite guy Eric. Everyone is glad I stopped using digital camera and have even upgraded some of my own to scans. In general my scans are just put up as they come off the scanner. I still have many more to scan for here and especially Charltons which may not go here but are still pd. I figure that everyone can not supply the books that I have to scan but anyone can edit them or get them edited. So my time is better spent cranking out as many as I can.
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Famous Funnies 192 now ready for download thanks to JVJ!
While this is a non- Buck Rogers issue, it does feature a story with "Barney Carr, Space Detective". Any similarity to Buck seems to be purely intentional. ;D
A personal note: Counting the Phantom Lady 19 and 22 that Yoc is still working on, this is my 200th book scanned and posted to GAC. At the risk of sounding immodest, I think that's a pretty good job so far. Huge thanks for JVJ for providing raw material so I can keep scanning!
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Wow, congrats Eric!
Karma for the big news.
:)
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Yes, that is a slew of books. Eric, really appreciate the time you put into these.
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Movie Love 8 ready for download. The highlight here is a six page Williamson/ Frazetta piece.
I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: Even if you don't like romance comics, look at this and the issues of Personal Love I've posted. Frazetta is one of the most insanely gifted artists ever to work in comics. (The story in this issue is more readable but less artistically impressive than the Personal Loves; it's a bio of William Holden. Still very much worth a look.)
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Thanks Eric, I've been enjoying your Frazetta stuff for a while.
A lot of the Personal Love stories were reprinted in B&W a little while back to really show off his skills. But it's also nice to see them in colour along with the rest of the books.
-Yoc
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And Real life is going to be hitting me hard the next few weeks; but I'll get some scans up when I can.
Thanks to Ontology and a cast of dozens, we now have the fills for JVJ's copy of Fantastic Comics 22! I can't get onto the main site right now, but it's in the FTP for those of you with access and I'll post it to the site as soon as I can log in again. This is a very hard to find book; Heritage has only handled one copy and that one was relatively low grade. Now thanks to JVJ and Ontology we have it for you, cover to cover, mostly paper, and ready to enjoy!
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Eric, if you upload it via the UPLOAD FILE link in theory it should automatically be added to the site without needing to use the Admin area to add it.
-Yoc
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Yes, but that would kick it to the "unsorted and small press" area, and I wouldn't be able to move it into place. I'll do that if the login problems persist a day or two, but for now it seems like putting it on the FTP was the better choice. And doesn't an admin normally need to approve files from "guest user"?
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No no, you can choose which folder it goes into just like normal.
Admins and Mods have the privilege of their files being added automatically.
It's about the only perk to being a mod. ;)
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I can't log in at ALL; not even as a normal user. :'(
Hopefully this will be fixed soon.
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And Real life is going to be hitting me hard the next few weeks; but I'll get some scans up when I can.
Thanks to Ontology and a cast of dozens, we now have the fills for JVJ's copy of Fantastic Comics 22! I can't get onto the main site right now, but it's in the FTP for those of you with access and I'll post it to the site as soon as I can log in again. This is a very hard to find book; Heritage has only handled one copy and that one was relatively low grade. Now thanks to JVJ and Ontology we have it for you, cover to cover, mostly paper, and ready to enjoy!
Great work, guys, and thanks!
Another tale of the Banshee...another Black Fury...the origin of the Queen of Evil...and yet more! This is certainly an issue I've been witing for! Hurrah!
DHFH
\
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All thanks to Jim and OtherEric for the scans.
Great job guys! :)
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And Ontology; he deserves full credit as well on this one. His Fiche fills were some of the best fiche pages I can recall seeing.
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And not QUITE back on track scanning yet, but...
I knew I had forgotten something earlier!
Target Comics v3 n10 now on the FTP; I scanned it MONTHS ago and returned it to JVJ but never got around to editing it. Slight damage to some pages but still a very readable book. And by some miracle, while JVJ's copy was missing the Spacehawk story completely I found that story (and ONLY that story) posted online a while back as well. So it's complete, yay! Enjoy!
Now to see if I can knock out a new book tonight...
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Thanks Eric!
I'll have the book up shortly.
Small suggestion - could you name the jpgs inside so it indicates the title and issue?
If by some horrible disaster we experience another server failure like 2008 that required the books be given names based on the first file name we'll have thousands of '01.cbz' books. That's how it happened in 08. Luckily many of the books did have enough info in the first jpg to know what it was and easily correct the file name.
I'll quickly rename the files in this Target scan of yours to 'TargetV3#10_pg..' before I add it.
Thanks again, take care,
-Yoc
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Will do, Yoc, at least on the first page. Or is there a good program to add a leading name to every file in a folder? I don't want to name every page, which is the only way I know how to do it right now. (One page: easy. 68: still easy, but tedious. :P )
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The first page is fine if that's easiest for you Eric.
ie: 01-TargetV3#10 works for me.
I know there are several multiple file renaming apps out there but I've been using Total Commander for years and it's an amazing app for everything it does. I highly recommend it to everyone!
-Yoc
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Hopefully back on track finally, holiday not withstanding.
Now for a change of pace: Juke Box Comics #1 is on the FTP. An interesting book; what was originally a bunch of articles on contemporary artists is now a selection of historical pieces. But who can't love Toth drawing Spike Jones?
Enjoy!
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Welcome back Eric.
I'll have JBC1 up shortly.
-Yoc
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Juke Box Comics #2 now on the FTP. Instead of early Toth we've got early Gil Kane in this one.
I wonder if anybody has the slightest idea why the first page of the King Cole Trio story has Ephrata on the road sign? It looks like a last minute change; and surely if you were trying to convey that you're as far from New York as possible (which seems to be the point) Walla Walla would be better known?
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Wow! These are AWESOME! Spike Jones fits right into the world of four color madness.
Cheers,
Darwin (swing addict)
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Thanks Eric, it's going up shortly.
-Yoc
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Glad you like them, Darwin. This is a decidedly oddball and obscure little title that won't appeal to everybody; but I think it's a hoot and a half. Luckily JVJ has the whole run and I'm working through them.
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Now I gotta try Juke Box
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Juke Box 6 now available, courtesy of JVJ. As I mentioned when I posted my latest issue of Peter Wheat, this one took me much longer than usual. JVJ's copy is very brittle, and damaged to the point where he has taken it apart and put it into a binder, every page in a separate plastic sleeve. Which is a great idea, it makes for a very readable book and prevents further damage. However, I doubted my ability to get great scans through the plastic, and most of the sleeves had small stray bits of paper. So I had to scan sheet by sheet, which took extra care and killed any of my normal rhythm on scanning a book. So I wound up doing it in small chunks.
Anyway, it's here now and, if I do say so myself, is looking pretty sharp. Gil Kane art on one story. Enjoy!
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And Juke Box #5 is now on the FTP ready for posting, as well. Give me a relatively clean book and some free time and this is how long I should take per issue. It's just getting that free time around the holidays...
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Can't wait to see which musicians are included in these issues. In fact I'm raiding the ftp right now (ah the priviledges of scanning comics, heh heh ;D). Thanks guys!!
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Both are now up on the site.
Thanks to Jim, Eric and Narf!
:)
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And, with holiday delays mostly past:
Juke Box Comics #3 now on the FTP. Both Toth and Gil Kane art in this one. Enjoy!
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JukeBox 3 now available thanks OE
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Thanks very much Narf!
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And Juke Box Comics #4 is now up on the FTP, completing the run of this title. It's a decidedly oddball book but I do think it deserves some attention and I'm glad JVJ has shared it with us.
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And now, for something completely different....
Instead of an obscure, short-lived title from Eastern/ Famous Funnies from 1948 featuring early Toth artwork, JVJ and I bring you an obscure, short-lived title from Eastern/ Famous Funnies from 1948 featuring early Toth artwork.
Wait, let me check my notes here...
And now, for something somewhat different:
Sugar Bowl Comics #1, now on the FTP. Lots of rare Toth: a 10-page story, several text illos, and the cover. Enjoy!
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Rare Toth you say?!
Going up soon Eric and thanks!
-Yoc
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And, I apologize for the delay. A combination of AWOL site and dead scanner kept me from working for a bit, and then inertia was hard to overcome. I'm back in the saddle again, though:
Jingle Jangle Comics 36 now ready for download, courtesy of JVJ!
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And, I apologize for the delay. A combination of AWOL site and dead scanner kept me from working for a bit, and then inertia was hard to overcome. I'm back in the saddle again, though:
Jingle Jangle Comics 36 now ready for download, courtesy of JVJ!
Eric,
We need to start a thread for newbies to complain about the lag time of JVJ scans. ;D ;D ;D
B.
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Good to see you back around Eric. We now have help from mods Astaldo and JonTheScanner who has not been around since his upgrade not sure he knows yet
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Jingle Jangle Comics #38 now ready for download, courtesy of JVJ.
Next up: Some books of JVJ's that I'm ashamed to admit I've had way too long. Including several that have already been posted by others; I'll be adding fills and info cards to a handful of those.
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And I've even got one updated file ready to go tonight:
Speed Comics #9. Original scan and posting by bhcomics and freddyfly, now C2C and with JVJ's wonderful index information added. Enjoy.
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And from JVJ's collection:
Jingle Jangle Comics 42. Enjoy!
(I've got several issues of Speed and Champion scanned and awaiting editing; I want to finish off what I have first and get books back to JVJ before I edit those.)
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Jingle Jangle 41 now ready for download, as well.
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Jingle Jangle 41 now ready for download, as well.
Thanks Eric! :)
B.
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thanks Eric and boox
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These are credited as citaltras uploads, but I am placing them here in this particular thread. All are from the JVJ Collection -- scans by othereric -- edits by Citaltras.
Champion Comics 003 (JVJ_othereric_citaltras)
Champion Comics 004 (paper_JVJ_othereric_Citaltras)
Speed Comics 001 (62pg_no_ifc_ibc_cf_JVJ_othereric_citaltras)
If you are enjoying these scans PLEASE consider donating to the JVJ Postage Fund - Jim is retired and on a fixed income. Without his help the site is a shadow of what it might be. Every dollar helps! PayPal your donations to: orders@bpib.com
Thanks to Jim for support fandom with his collection and to othereric and citaltras for their scanning and edits.
B. :)
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And a 2-fer of #2 from the JVJ collection:
Sugar Bowl Comics 2 and Future World 2 now ready for download!
We already had Narf's version of Future World 2, but that was one of his early digital camera versions so I posted the updated version.
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Good to know it has been replaced. I will be replacing my digital camera Westerner soon. Next week I will be in PA on dial-up so no new books from narf.
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Sugar Bowl 3, 4, and 5 are all up, courtesy of JVJ.
Fantastic Comics #18 is currently in editing, I hope to have that up later tonight as well. JVJ's copy is missing the first wrap, luckily I have Fiche fills for those pages. This book is rare enough that I couldn't even pull a cover off Heritage; they've never sold one!
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Sugar Bowl 3, 4, and 5 are all up, courtesy of JVJ.
Fantastic Comics #18 is currently in editing, I hope to have that up later tonight as well. JVJ's copy is missing the first wrap, luckily I have Fiche fills for those pages. This book is rare enough that I couldn't even pull a cover off Heritage; they've never sold one!
Fantastic Comics 018 (Paper+Fiche) C2C JVJ
Sugar Bowl Comics 005 JVJ
Sugar Bowl Comics 004 JVJ
Sugar Bowl Comics 003 JVJ
Adventures Of Peter Wheat 002 (NN)
All live and available for downloading with our thanks!!! ;D ;D ;D
B.
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Thanks loads Eric and JVJ and Boox for getting it online