[dwilt]

Just out of curiosity: in quite a few of these Australian comics scans I've notice that there are areas which are markedly darker. Sometimes it's a few words in a dialogue balloon which are darker than the others, and at other times it's a small part of the art. Look at the first panel on page 4 -- one of the pygmies' arms is distinctly sharper and blacker, and a bit of the shading on Steel's shirt is as well. Do you think this was the original printing or a result of the scanning process?

Link to the comment: Steel Barr and the Phantom Man 4

[Downunder Dan]

The answer is a little from column A, a little from column B.

Printing of these comics was on low quality paper in a cheap way - publishers looking to make some money with disposable entertainment rather than publishing art for the ages. In some comics, the amount tilt between the image and the page its printed on makes it look like someone drunk was involved.

But the scanning (and the person doing the scanning) must also share in the blame. The comics I'm scanning are from a number of private collections donated (sometimes as a bequest from a deceased estate) that are in varying degrees of disrepair. (Some are in really excellent condition, others have been repaired with sticky-tape before donation.) In the library, some can be scanned on equipment available, but some are held in a separate special collection where scanning on a flatbed scanner is not allowed. In these cases - or where the comic is in bad shape that regular scanning might damage them further - I use a scanning app in my smart phone. I'm still learning all the ins and outs, but it scans coloured images better than black and white, and it can over-emphasise variations in the printing, regarding the the variations in the black as intentional shades of grey. I'm getting better with it, but it'd probably be worthwhile in the future to rescan earlier comics to improve unintended quality variations such as you highlight.

There's more to the story, but that gives you an idea of what is happening to cause those quality variations.

[dwilt]

Sort of what I thought, so thanks for the explanation (and I don't want anyone to think I was complaining, I appreciate all of the work that scanning/uploading requires).

[Downunder Dan]

I didn't think you were complaining. We all want the best quality scans we can get, and the variability of the shades of black I find a bit annoying - but preferable to not having the books at all.