[John C]

It's inevitable that comics will become a primarily online medium (there will always be some who insist on paper for their comic projects).

As another data point along similar lines, we all know that you get an inferior sound from digital audio, but how many of us have an in-use vinyl collection?  Even the most stubborn holdouts for analog music probably at least own a CD or MP3 player, even the folks who complained that we'd lose the larger canvas for cover art.

It turns out that, yes, there are cases where you absolutely need an "original," but most people can't really tell the difference, and they control the market.

And comics are an easier shift than music.  I assume that, eventually, the de facto standard for publishing comic books will be as vector graphics.  That'll allow infinite precision where useful with typically teeny-tiny file sizes.  It'd be a pain to convert existing art, for reasons I won't get into (but I assume Jim understands better than I do), but the inking lines can easily be converted and the colors added digitally like they already do today.

It'll be the people who don't "get it" still using JPEGs to control the experience, just like the second-stringers in online publishing insist on making us download PDFs because they can't control the width of our screen to make HTML show up "right."

[JVJ]

It's inevitable that comics will become a primarily online medium (there will always be some who insist on paper for their comic projects).

As another data point along similar lines, we all know that you get an inferior sound from digital audio, but how many of us have an in-use vinyl collection?  Even the most stubborn holdouts for analog music probably at least own a CD or MP3 player, even the folks who complained that we'd lose the larger canvas for cover art.

It turns out that, yes, there are cases where you absolutely need an "original," but most people can't really tell the difference, and they control the market.

I have tons of albums and tons of CDs, John, and I'm happy with either of them. I have about 50 albums for the cover artwork and 0 CDs for same. If you're talking about "originals" for newly created comics, I totally agree with you about comics being created digitally. However, if you're including old comics and scans of same, I have 25.000 comics and perhaps ten scans and I can honestly say that I've looked at each scan ONCE to get a piece of information and it was not a pleasant experience (for me). I think it's not a minority who can tell the difference there.

And comics are an easier shift than music.  I assume that, eventually, the de facto standard for publishing comic books will be as vector graphics.  That'll allow infinite precision where useful with typically teeny-tiny file sizes.  It'd be a pain to convert existing art, for reasons I won't get into (but I assume Jim understands better than I do), but the inking lines can easily be converted and the colors added digitally like they already do today.

Again, for new comics, that's likely, but I've yet to see an old comic converted to vector graphics with ANY success - of course that could EASILY be a function of my not looking very hard rather than what's actually been done out there... And you are absolutely right that such a conversion with decimate the file size while actually increasing the quality of the line by an order of magnitude.

The GA reprints of Masterwords and Archives are "acceptable" now. The earliest Masterworks were travesties with the production team doing bit-map graphics of 400 ppi scans and then printing them over muddy colors. Pulling the blacks out of an old comic (as anyone who has attempted it can attest) is problematical as they are generally gray rather than black and such colors as purple and brown "read" blacker than the black inking lines. Converting the blacks to vectors, with the distortions caused by overprinted dark colors would NOT be pretty.

I can't comment on them because I don't buy the DC Archives - simply because long ago (1968) I decided to focus on Timely/Atlas and other non-DC companies due to the price factor (and the fact that EVERYBODY else seemed to be researching DC and I didn't feel like jumping into a crowed pool). Consequently, my knowledge of early DC artists is practically non-existent.

It'll be the people who don't "get it" still using JPEGs to control the experience, just like the second-stringers in online publishing insist on making us download PDFs because they can't control the width of our screen to make HTML show up "right."

Again if you're talking about new comics, I am totally and blissfully ignorant. But, applying this to GA scans - people ARE using JPEGs, John. And the scans (here at least - I have no experience with other sites) leave a hell of a lot to be desired when compared to an actual comic book (IMHO - and absolutely NO disrespect intended to the scanners). I love PDFs. I think it's possible to present very high rez files at a reasonable file size. I should try it out and report back on the file size comparison... I should be able to present full 300 ppi scans in a pdf which can support pan and zoom and still retain good detail. Interesting thought process you've engendered.

That's all I need - ONE more project. I've got to begin work on Hames' and my next Great Unknowns column (spotlighting Emil Gershwin) just as soon as I get ImageS #11 off to press.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[rez]

You know what I find undeniably disturbing?
The fact that after spending a slew of time on writing a lengthy reply to this thread, and posting it only to have the red blurb come up telling me something to the effect of

a post has been recently added I may want to review before posting

and I go ahead and post and somehow lose it in the transaction without it appearing on the board

and can't retrieve it so all that time and enegy spent is for naught.

Makes me shut down and force myself to go do something else 'til I can calm down.

If you hear a yell from yer back yard don't be alarmed it's only me expelling a slew of negative vibes.

[John C]

Note:  Rez, that's not how it's supposed to work.  I got the message, myself, and I'm editing my response to include this.  Happens all the time, but I've never lost anything.  You might have some high-up security setting on your browser.

I have tons of albums and tons of CDs, John, and I'm happy with either of them. I have about 50 albums for the cover artwork and 0 CDs for same.

I didn't mean to imply that there wasn't a market, just that there aren't people shelling out thousands of dollars on a regular basis for relatively obscure albums.  I own several LPs because that's the only way they're available, and they're arguably highly collectable for various nostalgic reasons.  But I paid about ten bucks apiece, and doubt the price will ever go far up or down (ignoring inflation).

If you're talking about "originals" for newly created comics, I totally agree with you about comics being created digitally. However, if you're including old comics and scans of same, I have 25.000 comics and perhaps ten scans and I can honestly say that I've looked at each scan ONCE to get a piece of information and it was not a pleasant experience (for me). I think it's not a minority who can tell the difference there.

That's because we're not quite there, yet.  Even ten years ago, a lot of us were laughing at people buying CDs because they weren't good enough, yet.  That changed, and sooner than later.

Again, for new comics, that's likely, but I've yet to see an old comic converted to vector graphics with ANY success - of course that could EASILY be a function of my not looking very hard rather than what's actually been done out there...

I was, actually, talking about new books, because the new material will point the direction for reprints.

That's probably more because nobody does it by hand.  A mediocre artist with a tablet or touchscreen could probably vectorize a few pages per hour, which is only a little slower than the scan restoration that some people do around here regularly.

As far as automated processes go, it's designed more for logos than artwork, but VectorMagic is probably today's state of the art.  From the results I've seen, their algorithms could probably be tweaked to do...no worse a job than we currently see otherwise, ignoring the colors, where they seem to do an intentionally bland job.

(I don't have much real experience with image processing, but it seems like it'd be much easier to have higher fidelity--you turn each group of same-colored pixels into a vectorized blob.  It might not give the smallest possible file or smoothest curve, which is what most people want, but it should certainly do the desired job here.)

Again if you're talking about new comics, I am totally and blissfully ignorant. But, applying this to GA scans - people ARE using JPEGs, John. And the scans (here at least - I have no experience with other sites) leave a hell of a lot to be desired when compared to an actual comic book (IMHO - and absolutely NO disrespect intended to the scanners).

I agree, and was mostly extrapolating.  The scanning units will increase resolution (actually, they already have--the resolutions we see seem to be more of a file size/screen size tradeoff, typically).  Vectorization will become a tool involved in the work (hopefully not the automated conversions).  Compression or bandwidth might improve to allow bigger file sizes.

As those things happen, we're going to get the digital resolution past the tiniest dots you can get on newsprint.  At that point, it's an eyestrain issue, not a quality issue.  But there are advances coming down the pipe in the field, as well.

Plus--and this is what Ken was getting at, I think, when all the new comics are digital files floating around, the market for the paper versions will be devoid of nostalgia.  In turn, that kills off most of the speculators, because they can't very well speculate against themselves for very long.  At that point, the paper market collapses to just people who'd like to read a story that hasn't already been reprinted multiple times, like those of us here.

I love PDFs. I think it's possible to present very high rez files at a reasonable file size. I should try it out and report back on the file size comparison... I should be able to present full 300 ppi scans in a pdf which can support pan and zoom and still retain good detail. Interesting thought process you've engendered.

I didn't mean to knock PDFs, just their use where plain text would do far better.  For example, I won't buy from any company that makes me download a catalog rather than let me see it right on their website.  It tells me that they don't understand how a web browser works, and there's little chance that their shopping cart works right.

However, for reading offline material, it's harmless.  I do have some technical issues with the number of features it offers, but that's certainly not relevant to this discussion or probably of interest to you.

That's all I need - ONE more project. I've got to begin work on Hames' and my next Great Unknowns column (spotlighting Emil Gershwin) just as soon as I get ImageS #11 off to press.

Heh.  I know the feeling.  There are too many really good ideas to fool around with, and only a handful are likely to pay the bills.  I've got management systems, community currency systems, galleries, newspapers, research agents, and games, not to mention books and classes, all coming out of my ears.

On the bright side, it keeps the day interesting.

[JVJ]

I have tons of albums and tons of CDs, John, and I'm happy with either of them. I have about 50 albums for the cover artwork and 0 CDs for same.

I didn't mean to imply that there wasn't a market, just that there aren't people shelling out thousands of dollars on a regular basis for relatively obscure albums.  I own several LPs because that's the only way they're available, and they're arguably highly collectable for various nostalgic reasons.  But I paid about ten bucks apiece, and doubt the price will ever go far up or down (ignoring inflation).

That's a significant difference between us, John. EVERY album I have was purchased new from a record store when it was issued (with the exception of a few I bought later for the art on the sleeve. For ME, albums were music. In fact I still have the VERY first present that Karen ever gave me - a 1962 Elvis Presley LP she gave me for my 16th birthday. "Collectibility" simply doesn't enter into the equation. Never has.

If you're talking about "originals" for newly created comics, I totally agree with you about comics being created digitally. However, if you're including old comics and scans of same, I have 25.000 comics and perhaps ten scans and I can honestly say that I've looked at each scan ONCE to get a piece of information and it was not a pleasant experience (for me). I think it's not a minority who can tell the difference there.

That's because we're not quite there, yet.  Even ten years ago, a lot of us were laughing at people buying CDs because they weren't good enough, yet.  That changed, and sooner than later.

I remain in need of convincing, John. We shall, as they say, see...

Again, for new comics, that's likely, but I've yet to see an old comic converted to vector graphics with ANY success - of course that could EASILY be a function of my not looking very hard rather than what's actually been done out there...

I was, actually, talking about new books, because the new material will point the direction for reprints.

That's probably more because nobody does it by hand.  A mediocre artist with a tablet or touchscreen could probably vectorize a few pages per hour, which is only a little slower than the scan restoration that some people do around here regularly.

Having played with both removing the color from and creating bit-map versions of the line work in colored comic pages, I think you're vastly underestimating the complexities of the problem - in OLD COMICS. In a 24 bit color scan, there are 16,777,216 different possible colors and any algorithm constructed will likely have trouble on old comics equating light gray areas with black and dark purple areas with "not black." Actually our EYES do a much better job than any computer program or algorithm could possibly do, because we intrinsically know/recognize/separate (to write in the manner of Alex Toth) the lines from the color.

As far as automated processes go, it's designed more for logos than artwork, but VectorMagic is probably today's state of the art.  From the results I've seen, their algorithms could probably be tweaked to do...no worse a job than we currently see otherwise, ignoring the colors, where they seem to do an intentionally bland job.

(I don't have much real experience with image processing, but it seems like it'd be much easier to have higher fidelity--you turn each group of same-colored pixels into a vectorized blob.  It might not give the smallest possible file or smoothest curve, which is what most people want, but it should certainly do the desired job here.)

"you turn each group of same-colored pixels into a vectorized blob" is where I think your algorithm runs into trouble. Having over 2 million (assuming comic books are not going to contain the full gamut of possible colors) groups of same colored blobs doesn't seem to help us isolate the pen work from the dark colors. What's even worse is that unlike modern four-color process where the black is the final color to be printed, comic books printed the black first as an aid to alignment. What this means is that you have those purples and browns printed OVER the black lines you're trying to extract. It's going to have to one VERY slick algorithm that can determine that THIS dark purple is actually on top of a grey line that it should extract and THAT purple is simply a color blob.

Again, all of your thought apply VERY well to modern books that were done digitally to begin with or went through a digital transition at some point. Perhaps we're talking apples and oranges here, but I don't foresee a technical breakthrough that's going to have much effect on extracting vector versions of the ink work in old comic books. Ten years ago I was able to dream that Photoshop MIGHT do some of the things it does now. But I can't say that I can glimpse a future technology path to solve the above problem.

Again if you're talking about new comics, I am totally and blissfully ignorant. But, applying this to GA scans - people ARE using JPEGs, John. And the scans (here at least - I have no experience with other sites) leave a hell of a lot to be desired when compared to an actual comic book (IMHO - and absolutely NO disrespect intended to the scanners).

I agree, and was mostly extrapolating.  The scanning units will increase resolution (actually, they already have--the resolutions we see seem to be more of a file size/screen size tradeoff, typically).  Vectorization will become a tool involved in the work (hopefully not the automated conversions).  Compression or bandwidth might improve to allow bigger file sizes.

Resolution will certainly increase with bandwidth, but I again am skeptical about vectorization happening anytime soon. I think the stumbling blocks inherent in the old comic printing processes will stymie the next generation of vectorizing efforts as well. Having examined 1600 ppi files of comic pages, I find that the higher the resolution scan, the greater the tribulations awaiting us.

As those things happen, we're going to get the digital resolution past the tiniest dots you can get on newsprint.  At that point, it's an eyestrain issue, not a quality issue.  But there are advances coming down the pipe in the field, as well.

One more inherent problem is the porous pulp paper the old comics were printed on. Again, the higher the scanning resolution, the more paper TEXTURE you capture and rougher the line edges actually appear. It's an amazingly complex and non-trivial problem that is going to require (IMHO) technological breakthroughs in image capture, scanning and scanners, and differentiating/selection methods. I HOPE it will happen in my lifetime, but I'm very doubtful.

Plus--and this is what Ken was getting at, I think, when all the new comics are digital files floating around, the market for the paper versions will be devoid of nostalgia.  In turn, that kills off most of the speculators, because they can't very well speculate against themselves for very long.  At that point, the paper market collapses to just people who'd like to read a story that hasn't already been reprinted multiple times, like those of us here.

This is already happening on the paper front with the continued availability of "graphic novel" reprint versions. Couple them with digital versions and your prophecy will happen sooner rather than later.

I love PDFs. I think it's possible to present very high rez files at a reasonable file size. I should try it out and report back on the file size comparison... I should be able to present full 300 ppi scans in a pdf which can support pan and zoom and still retain good detail. Interesting thought process you've engendered.

I didn't mean to knock PDFs, just their use where plain text would do far better.  For example, I won't buy from any company that makes me download a catalog rather than let me see it right on their website.  It tells me that they don't understand how a web browser works, and there's little chance that their shopping cart works right.

You made a radical right turn in the conversation when you brought in "text", John. I'm not sure how I was supposed to realize that. Now that I do, I agree completely.

However, for reading offline material, it's harmless.  I do have some technical issues with the number of features it offers, but that's certainly not relevant to this discussion or probably of interest to you.

One "feature" of modern software is that we must train ourselves to ignore 95% of them. Pick the features you need and use and NEVER look at the rest of it. And, please, do not THINK about the mBytes of RAM and gBytes of disc space occupied by those unneeded and unwanted features. It will do bad things to your blood pressure and stress levels.

I think that a pdf file MIGHT allow for a "better" and (possibly) smaller presentation of a scanned comic. I will have to experiment, as I said, and will eventually learn if it's possible or just wishful (and wistful) thinking.

That's all I need - ONE more project. I've got to begin work on Hames' and my next Great Unknowns column (spotlighting Emil Gershwin) just as soon as I get ImageS #11 off to press.

Heh.  I know the feeling.  There are too many really good ideas to fool around with, and only a handful are likely to pay the bills.  I've got management systems, community currency systems, galleries, newspapers, research agents, and games, not to mention books and classes, all coming out of my ears.

On the bright side, it keeps the day interesting.

Remember the ancient Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times.

Peace, Jim (|:{>

[John C]

"Collectibility" simply doesn't enter into the equation. Never has.

Then we're either talking about very different things or agreeing.  My only point was that digital music was, in fact, garbage for many years.  It's still inferior, but most people don't notice the difference.  There'll come a point where image quality follows.  It won't be the same time scale, because vision is trickier than hearing (at least four dimensions versus one), but we'll get there.

That's probably more because nobody does it by hand.  A mediocre artist with a tablet or touchscreen could probably vectorize a few pages per hour, which is only a little slower than the scan restoration that some people do around here regularly.

Having played with both removing the color from and creating bit-map versions of the line work in colored comic pages, I think you're vastly underestimating the complexities of the problem - in OLD COMICS.

Oh, I wasn't suggesting "just write some code."  I was suggesting "hire an artist to trace lines."  As you point out, our brains can follow lines that aren't there.  So get someone who has trained that facility and go to town.

"you turn each group of same-colored pixels into a vectorized blob" is where I think your algorithm runs into trouble. Having over 2 million (assuming comic books are not going to contain the full gamut of possible colors) groups of same colored blobs doesn't seem to help us isolate the pen work from the dark colors. What's even worse is that unlike modern four-color process where the black is the final color to be printed, comic books printed the black first as an aid to alignment. What this means is that you have those purples and browns printed OVER the black lines you're trying to extract. It's going to have to one VERY slick algorithm that can determine that THIS dark purple is actually on top of a grey line that it should extract and THAT purple is simply a color blob.

This was the opposite of the artist suggestion above, actually.  I don't for a minute think that you can hand a computer a scan and get line art out.  That will absolutely never happen through automation.  The closest analogy I can think of is trying to reconstruct an entire unknown animal from a femur bone:  The information simply no longer exists to "reconstruct."

So, there are two possibilities:

First, you can create the information fresh by knowing how the underlying line art "works."  For that, you need a human artist, as I suggest above.

Alternatively, just for the sake of consitency with new works (and file sizes), you can vectorize what you have, knowing that no piece of it represents the underlying lines or can be manipulated intelligently.  You can still zoom infinitely to around the resolution of the original scan, but the pieces are just disjoint blobs.

One more inherent problem is the porous pulp paper the old comics were printed on. Again, the higher the scanning resolution, the more paper TEXTURE you capture and rougher the line edges actually appear. It's an amazingly complex and non-trivial problem that is going to require (IMHO) technological breakthroughs in image capture, scanning and scanners, and differentiating/selection methods. I HOPE it will happen in my lifetime, but I'm very doubtful.

Odd.  I would've thought that's a benefit.  Either it's part of the experience (which is how I usually look at it, because I like paper for itself), or it's the signal that your scan is too high a resolution to be useful.  After all, if you can see the pulpy bits, you're past the point where the ink still looks anything like it was intended.

You made a radical right turn in the conversation when you brought in "text", John. I'm not sure how I was supposed to realize that. Now that I do, I agree completely.

It's very generous of you to assume that I even started that idea anywhere in relation to where it was supposed to be!  I can assure you that the odds are pretty low.  As I used to say, to be a tangent, there needs to be a circle involved.  (Multiple projects in the air and a Gay Pride something-or-other down the street blaring awful music doesn't make for good editing, alas.)

To clarify, I see the use of JPEGs for this sort of work as a transient artifact.  We don't really want to compress, because it's lossy, but TIFFs are too big and poorly supported, while nobody wants to spend their afternoon hand-tracing a comic to vectorize it.

PDF fills the same niche in web publishing, where designers don't want to give up pixel-level control (and don't really understand the web enough to know they don't need it), but also don't have the proper tools and time needed to make something suited to the medium.

I assume that both technologies...well, they won't go away, because they have their places, but they'll be replaced by something better in the fields they're least suited for.

Regardless, it'll be interesting to see the results of your experiments, when you get around to them.  I know there are groups that use PDFs routinely, and most people seem to dislike them, but that may just be because they haven't been generated properly.

One "feature" of modern software is that we must train ourselves to ignore 95% of them. Pick the features you need and use and NEVER look at the rest of it. And, please, do not THINK about the mBytes of RAM and gBytes of disc space occupied by those unneeded and unwanted features. It will do bad things to your blood pressure and stress levels.

Yeah, but I'm a software guy, where those blood pressure spikes are the equivalent of union dues in my world.  Plus, often, it's like an archaeological dig--you find a set of nonsensical-seeming features, and you start to realize the intended purpose of the software, which helps you understand how the rest of it works.  For example, I didn't understand Word's obsession with hidden text (the font attribute) until I started digging into styles.

(But hey, at least PDF isn't a full programming language like PostScript was.  It's a total nightmare to deal with a document that isn't really a document just yet, and might never be, if there's an infinite loop somewhere...)

[JVJ]

I'm drastically condensing this, John/

Then we're either talking about very different things or agreeing.

I think we're talking about the same thing, but you brought up the price you paid for the vinyl and that led me to think you were moving the conversation in a different direction.

There'll come a point where image quality follows.  It won't be the same time scale, because vision is trickier than hearing (at least four dimensions versus one), but we'll get there.

I'm still relating all this to recovering line art from old comic scans and, in that regard, I'm still doubtful.

Oh, I wasn't suggesting "just write some code."  I was suggesting "hire an artist to trace lines."  As you point out, our brains can follow lines that aren't there.  So get someone who has trained that facility and go to town.

That's not a potential solution for MY problem. For me that becomes the art of the tracer and not the work of the original artist. Yes, it is certainly A solution and it makes more sense than any automated solution could EVER make, but it turns the work of an artform into something that is copyable. Tracing Guernica is NOT the same as seeing a printed copy of the original.

So, there are two possibilities:

First, you can create the information fresh by knowing how the underlying line art "works."  For that, you need a human artist, as I suggest above.

Alternatively, just for the sake of consistency with new works (and file sizes), you can vectorize what you have, knowing that no piece of it represents the underlying lines or can be manipulated intelligently.  You can still zoom infinitely to around the resolution of the original scan, but the pieces are just disjoint blobs.

Neither seems a good solution to the problem of extracting line art from old printed comics, so we seem to be back to square one.

Odd.  I would've thought that's a benefit.  Either it's part of the experience (which is how I usually look at it, because I like paper for itself), or it's the signal that your scan is too high a resolution to be useful.  After all, if you can see the pulpy bits, you're past the point where the ink still looks anything like it was intended.

I've never been one to consider the paper texture to be part of the art. The problem is actually that the ink was absorbed into the porous paper when the comic was printed which leads to the feathery "edges" of the printed line. Lower the resolution of the scan and you lose the quality of the line, but increase the resolution and you pick up the ink "bleeds." It's a catch 22.

You made a radical right turn in the conversation when you brought in "text", John. I'm not sure how I was supposed to realize that. Now that I do, I agree completely.

It's very generous of you to assume that I even started that idea anywhere in relation to where it was supposed to be!  I can assure you that the odds are pretty low.  As I used to say, to be a tangent, there needs to be a circle involved.  (Multiple projects in the air and a Gay Pride something-or-other down the street blaring awful music doesn't make for good editing, alas.)

Your comment was "I didn't mean to knock PDFs, just their use where plain text would do far better" but your previous comment was "It'll be the people who don't 'get it' still using JPEGs to control the experience, just like the second-stringers in online publishing insist on making us download PDFs because they can't control the width of our screen to make HTML show up 'right' in a conversation about comic books.

HOW was I to gather you were talking about pdf text, not art? Not trying to criticize, but rather to explain my comments and thinking.

To clarify, I see the use of JPEGs for this sort of work as a transient artifact.  We don't really want to compress, because it's lossy, but TIFFs are too big and poorly supported, while nobody wants to spend their afternoon hand-tracing a comic to vectorize it.

I agree on all points. I must sign off. Nephews want to go swimming.

More later. Peace, Jim (|:{>

[John C]

That's not a potential solution for MY problem. For me that becomes the art of the tracer and not the work of the original artist. Yes, it is certainly A solution and it makes more sense than any automated solution could EVER make, but it turns the work of an artform into something that is copyable. Tracing Guernica is NOT the same as seeing a printed copy of the original.

That depends on the perspective, I think.  There's a much longer tradition of hand copies as valid than there is for photographic reproduction.  It's ingrained in our heads now that mechanical reproduction is always best, but there's an entirely different school of thought.

Think of it as "reconstruction," rather than "copying," and you start to see what I mean.  In an oil painting, you can scrape off layers of paint to see what happened before, but you simply can't do any such thing with a comic book.  Is it really so different if the exact lines were followed and interpolated where they were obscured?

Heck, is the mechanical reproduction even valid, considering that you're seeing the inked lines rather than the pencils?

I'm not trying to change your mind, here, because I do agree with you in principle for most cases.  But playing Devil's Advocate, as long as you're not trying to sell something as "original art," the features are important, not the "official" fidelity.  I mean, if you're trying to identify an artist's hand, what you really want out of a scan is to be able to see the details clearly.  Is a limited-resolution image really going to be better than a digital "forgery," just because it passed through another artist's hand?

Neither seems a good solution to the problem of extracting line art from old printed comics, so we seem to be back to square one.

Well, as I said, that's flat out impossible.  It's not that it's a hard task so much as the line art isn't represented anywhere in the picture.  It'd be like diagnosing a heart murmur over the phone.

The problem is actually that the ink was absorbed into the porous paper when the comic was printed which leads to the feathery "edges" of the printed line. Lower the resolution of the scan and you lose the quality of the line, but increase the resolution and you pick up the ink "bleeds." It's a catch 22.

Yes, I realize that, and that's what I was getting at.  It's something I like to look at.

However--and this is complete "pie in the sky," here--that feathering might itself be useful.  It's not something I would really know how to do, but newspaper pulp has relatively set capillary characteristics.  That means that, if you can identify the pulp elements in the paper (probably through a variation on edge detection), you can walk the bleeding process backward to where the droplets were placed.

It'd be approximate, since not all bits of wood pulp are equal (and it's a LOT of processing), but it should be enough for a human eye.

HOW was I to gather you were talking about pdf text, not art? Not trying to criticize, but rather to explain my comments and thinking.

Oh, I completely take the blame for the confusion, which was my point, there.  It's just way too generous to assume that I simply "skipped a step," when I most likely was continuing some line of thought that never made it out of my head.

[cimmerian32]

[Yoc]

Very sweet collection Cimm!

[narfstar]

With such assets counted Cimm must be a millionaire

[cimmerian32]

Millionaire!  HA!  I wish...  I bought these on my word with time payments...  I'm a waiter at a steakhouse for cryin' outloud!  heh heh...  a millionaire...  heh... 

[Yoc]

Well Cimm, if your taste in food is as good as it is in comics, etc... 
I'd totally trust you to suggest a good meal for me ANY TIME!


-Yoc

[rez]

My, my, my, my.
Bet sometimes it feels good just to hold those books.

[narfstar]

Holding the books would be the disadvantage of the slabbing. Not the same. But I do think it a good idea to have books of that quality protected. They sure look perty.

[moondood]

Once the generations who grew up on comics pass on, the value of comics will almost assuredly drop. Supply and demand. Once the supply outpaces the demand, the prices will drop.

==============================

Very true!  It's my understanding that items associated with silent films [lobby cards, celebrity magazines, etc] have dropped in value in recent years.  Seems the original fans of that era are dying off and leaving a demand void for those items.  Younger folks just don't have that interest in those items or films of that era.  I myself am a fan of Chaplin, Keaton and Lloyd, but I'm happy with DVDs and don't bother with ephemera like lobby cards.  If I were, though--it's a buyer's market.



Moondood

[BountyHunter]

The only comics I will ever get CGCd will be one copy of each issue I put out of my BH series, and only so I can hang them on the wall.    lol

[Yoc]

Hey... maybe I'm a bit slow but are BHComics and BountyHunter one in the same?

Anyways our eternal thanks to BHComics for scanning his books and to FreddyFly and Michael Barnes for sharing them with us on GAC!

[DOC]

Enjoy them. Hell, they are ONLY comic books.

Amen.

The fascination/obsession about condition didn't really materialize until Overstreet became the standard guide for collectors. Prior to that, from what I recall, there was a vague scale that varied from dealer to dealer. My favorite was the Very Good condition which could mean anything from a tight, fairly well-read copy to a rag that had pieces of a cover and pages missing. But even with this large discrepancy in definitions, there was generally room for negotiation. Most dealers that I dealt with directly would be willing to haggle about the price over losing the sale due to perceived condition definitions. (Mail order was always an adventure, though. A Howard Rogofsky VG comic could be a very unpleasant surprise when it arrived in the mail.)

But when Overstreet became the accepted guide, the benefit of having an standard to go by quickly led to obsessive preoccupation about the most trivial of "flaws". A staple stress line could mean the difference between VG+ or FN-, a quarter inch corner fold could change the price by $20, etc. The obsessiveness grew to the point we are at today. Many collectors are no longer fans of the comic book's contents, they are fans of its condition. They no longer collect comic books as examples of a unique art form, they collect the paper its printed on. I don't fault those who do collect for those reasons, I just don't get it.

Encapsulating comics is the ultimate response to the condition obsessiveness. I have this nagging feeling that at some point the market for these sealed books is going to fade, perhaps even collapse. If so, the cycle of musical chairs the resulted in continually escalating prices for them will stop and the last guy who bought them will be stuck with a comic that truly is ONLY worth the paper it is printed on.

--Ken Q 

TESTIFY!!

[BountyHunter]

Hey... maybe I'm a bit slow but are BHComics and BountyHunter one in the same?

No, not unless I have a split personality that I'm unaware of. 

[Yoc]

Ah, I guess when you said 'each issue I put out of my BH series' I thought you might be referring to a series of scans such as BHComics is doing before he sells books on eBay.

My mistake. 

[BountyHunter]

hehe I was talking about my Bounty Hunter series I'm working on at the moment.  My avatar is a cover to one of the Special issues that should be out sometime soon.

[Drusilla lives!]

Very sweet collection Cimm!

I second that, really nice Cimm!