Print

[Rintintin]

To me, pretty much all the "remastered" comics before they were digitized in the early 90s looks like total garbage & it needs to STOP, STOP & DESIST YESTERDAY. What's worse is when they screw over the simple coloring job and destroy the simple palette the original colorist did right in the final printed output.

One example is Marvel Longshot original mini vs the "Hardcover". The original mini comes out in muted colors that at least harmonize, it's perfect. The remastered hard cover is a garish eye sore. I see this happening over an over again. The RE colorists, and I am likely being cruel because they probably make 10 cents a page, take the original color and make them way too saturated. It's not worth the expense remastering comics.

Agree Disagree?

[paw broon]

I'm not too good with colours but what I dislike are the hb reprints from both Marvel and DC.  I remember and have a lot of the originals in my collection and love the newsprint but the hardbacks are on glossy stock and look wrong.  I'm not sure, but I think the  colours also look different but I'm not qualified to comment.

[Rintintin]

I'm not too good with colours but what I dislike are the hb reprints from both Marvel and DC.  I remember and have a lot of the originals in my collection and love the newsprint but the hardbacks are on glossy stock and look wrong.  I'm not sure, but I think the  colours also look different but I'm not qualified to comment.

I remember doing a side by side with the Longshot HC & the original miniseries because I was so angry I bought it even though it was 50% off. And it was completely different hues. It's probably colorists being paid really cheap & I don't hate the colorists but I think they mostly look awful because of the garish colors.

If you look at digitized comics, the remasters usually look way too bright even on a gloss free computer screen compared to scans of original comics.

Also the color "dots" many hate actually made the colors a little less strong and kept the line work more important. Like, no matter how "loud" a color was, it couldn't get as loud as the black ink outlines.

[misappear]

The remastering process is different for publishers, some better, some worse. 

I have quite a few PS Artbook anthologies of 1950?s comics. Those appear to be cleaned copies of printed pages, but not really remastered. Considering the price of 1950?s comics in the collector?s market, PS Artbooks are great if you like reading from paper.  I?m guessing it?s good photoshop work.

I?m currently buying the small, softcover Marvel Masterworks. It?s white paper, and the color is ok. Again, versus buying originals it?s fine for me

DC put out some compilations on newsprint. Those looked really nice. The Atomic Knight book compared well to the few originals I have.  I wish they?d do more in this format

Drawn and Quarterly and Fantagraphics reprint compilations always look really nice. They avoid garish coloring, preferring muted tones similar to color on newsprint

I purchased Return to Romance, a compilation of Ogden Whitney stories by New York Review Comics. That reproduction technique was a thing of beauty. It was like reading a brand new ACG comic. 

I buy IDW?s Superman newspaper strip reprint hardcovers. They?ve done something interesting in that they take Sunday pages, which are originally muted color on very cheap newsprint, and change the intensity to resemble comic book coloring. It?s quite the process, and a notable shift in appearance, but they do a great job pulling it off. 

There are a lot of companies doing pretty bad work representing past material of all types.  I?d rather focus on who?s doing nice work and supporting them with my cash.

But I think the original point is well taken with Marvel. I was buying their Golden Age archives for a while, but stopped because they just flat out looked awful.  I?m not going to throw $75.00 at a company that can?t even make their own historic product look decent.

Last Friday, I bought Sundays with Walt and Skeezix. Sunday pages published at full size with incredible color repro.  Wow!  I?m slowly going through this beauty. I tend to read the text, and then just stare and marvel at the art.  Best production job, slightly topping the recent release of Tops by Gilbert through Fantagraphics. 

Lots of really great reprint stuff out there. 

[paw broon]

Yes you're right misappear.  There are many excellent reprint comps available.  And I agree about the Marvel GA archives.  But I'd like to plug a couple of the newspaper strip reprints.  The Rip Kirby hardback collections in landscape were not available in the UK - same with others of the type - and I bought the Spanish books ages ago in Palma de Mallorca.  They were really well done - reproduction, packaging and additional info. More recently they have been available in the UK in English language versions. 
Also, there are Spanish hardback reprints, landscape again as the original comics were landscape, of Capitan Trueno; El Jabato; Corsario de Hierro.  I have the first few editions of Capitan Trueno and they are excellent, being as they are, the comics (or the reprints) bound together into thick volumes.  No messing about with them.
One of my favourites? the Jeff Hawke reprint books:-
https://titanbooks.com/catalog/?series=jeff-hawke&page=1
Everything about these is good.
I dug out a couple of the DC Archive hardbacks, had a look at them and I still don't think they look right.  Perhaps it is my nostalgia for newsprint, however poor.  But I grew up with it and liked it. 

[narfstar]

I agree with preferring the original to the over glossy coloring jobs, even in digital. I have some digital remastered and they just don't look right.