'PLANET COMICS' (is deserving of its own thread) 29 29

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

17 hours ago, Flex Mentallo said:

God forbid! Some years ago I realized that I had far too much of my life tied up in comics and pivoted in a different direction

I think there's probably quite a few of us that can relate to this. Unfortunately I suffer from Al Pacino syndrome.

Just when I think i'm out, they drag me back in.

[Zolnerowich]

4 hours ago, skypinkblu said:

 

2 hours ago, entalmighty1 said:

I would exclusively collect 3.0's if they all looked like this.  

+1.

Well stated!!

[Zolnerowich]

18 hours ago, Flex Mentallo said:

God forbid! Some years ago I realized that I had far too much of my life tied up in comics and pivoted in a different direction (cf Serendip). I kept the Fiction House, but you really don't want to know what I let go of. It's sometimes painful to reflect on the collection I once had, just short years ago, especially given what has happened to values since then. But I've never once doubted the necessity of parting with them. Anyone who dreams of a comic lined coffin - seek counseling at once (form a line at the door). I realize how that comes across - but fairly pointless to claim holier than thou, and I did keep my Planets!

Oh boy, that is sounding uncomfortably a lot like someone I know all too well... 

[Ricksneatstuff]

22 hours ago, Flex Mentallo said:

God forbid! Some years ago I realized that I had far too much of my life tied up in comics and pivoted in a different direction (cf Serendip). I kept the Fiction House, but you really don't want to know what I let go of. It's sometimes painful to reflect on the collection I once had, just short years ago, especially given what has happened to values since then. But I've never once doubted the necessity of parting with them. Anyone who dreams of a comic lined coffin - seek counseling at once (form a line at the door). I realize how that comes across - but fairly pointless to claim holier than thou, and I did keep my Planets!

If you’re gonna keep something Planets are the thing to keep IMO. I’m letting some go but the ones I’m keeping I’m quite thrilled with.  

[Flex Mentallo]

I think #29 is a classic cover - not sure it gets the love it deserves.

[comicjack]

From what i see it is a classic all the way 

Edited July 26, 2018 by comicjack

[ThothAmon]

Lower grade 22. 

 

[Artboy99]

1 hour ago, Flex Mentallo said:

I think #29 is a classic cover - not sure it gets the love it deserves.

I sure wanted that copy when it became available. Just fantastic. 29 is definitely one of the Planets in my run I want to upgrade.

[Artboy99]

14 minutes ago, ThothAmon said:

Lower grade 22. 

 

such a great cover. I have the Toldeo pedigree copy.

[ThothAmon]

Inspired to photograph a couple more. Nice 3 and 30. 

[Ricksneatstuff]

I know I have posted this book before but I love it so much. Some of those copies with the deep red just blow me away.

[adamstrange]

10 hours ago, Artboy99 said:

15 hours ago, Flex Mentallo said:

...and magenta is notorious for fading! The history of its development and makeup is quite fascinating (whole books have been written about it.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magenta

 

As we have discussed before: is it fading with regards to these Planet Comics?

All of the books I have presented with red have areas of strong red in blotches. It suggests more ink was on the printing plate for those areas, and the copies I have were printed before more red was applied to the entire printing plate.

OR

The ink is indeed fading, or perhaps the better word is dissipating/evaporating. 

If it was fading, then the back cover would retain its red, as would the occasional inside front and cover that are printed in color.  Also, you would expect bound file copies to retain their red. 

In all of the examples that I've seen, the level of red (or lack thereof) is consistent in these cases.  While there will definitely be cases of fading, there does not appear to be anything unstable about the inks that results in accelerated fading.

[Artboy99]

1 minute ago, adamstrange said:

If it was fading, then the back cover would retain its red, as would the occasional inside front and cover that are printed in color.  Also, you would expect bound file copies to retain their red. 

In all of the examples that I've seen, the level of red (or lack thereof) is consistent in these cases.  While there will definitely be cases of fading, there does not appear to be anything unstable about the inks that results in accelerated fading.

I am curious. When I get to it I will have a look at the back covers as well as the interiors of those I can look at.

[kelholt]

On 7/25/2018 at 8:36 AM, Zolnerowich said:

Very curious, up through #16, the cover colors were consistently vibrant, with minimal variation across individual copies. It seems starting with #17, things started to go haywire at the printing press. 

This is all speculation of course, but I'll speculate anyhow: Planet 17 has a cover date of March 1942. This means it hit the stands 1-2 months before that. The indicia in #17 doesn't say anything about its "on sale" date, but the inside front cover of #16 states "THE NEXT ISSUE OF PLANET COMICS (No. 17, MARCH) WILL BE ON SALE AT YOUR NEWSSTAND JAN. 10th."

No doubt with the attack on Pearl Harbor occurring one month before the on-sale date of Planet 17, the Fiction House publishers suddenly had to deal with war rations on paper, and probably ink too, leading to increasing unpredictability and dropping quality control on our cherished Fiction House line of comics.

The interesting question is why was the printing quality at Fiction House affected so much more than at the other publishers?

Interesting thought on the timing of Planet 17 printing and history of Pearl Harbor. I think the timing of these two events don’t combine to cause a variation of colors.

In my travels, Planet comics 1-3 and 66-73 have pretty consistent cover coloring. Starting with 4 on up I have seen a wide variance of coloring. There are several ideas as to why, but I think it is a combination of many factors. Among those is the printing process used by FH.   Many books seem to be missing a true red and is represented by what is lovingly called ‘Fiction House Orange’. In some cases it seems to me that some books that were meant to be some form or red  ended up orange due to printing process or bad inking. I have seen several FH books where the top of the book looks reddish only to fade to orange near the bottom of the book. Like in the printing process it was running out of red and it thinned out to orange.

We all love to talk about reds (or lack of), but many books lack blue or green which give them totally different looks. Flex had a Planet 12 that makes almost all other 12’s blue background look all washed up. This lack of consistent printing standards has over time shown a wide variance in cover colors. This has also fueled today’s collectors to hope for deep reds when in fact they may have never been planned that way and do not exist.  Planet 26 I think was planned to be a deep orange, never red.  Take Planet 15 for instance, many would love to see a red dress. I feel it doesn’t exist. On the back on my Rangers 2 it shows Planet 15. Look how reddish the upper FH bullseye are and the Jungle title. Now look how orange the planet book is. Reddish and orange on the same cover. The same orange is in the rangers banner and see how light it is next to the above bullseye. In hand , the rangers banner is the same color as the Planet rivers AND a completely different color than the jungle title and bullseyes.

 I may be rambling at this point, but wanted to communicate that FH books of all colors are great and that there a few ‘albatross’ issues out there where the coloring makes you wonder how that happened. The standard should not be set by these albatrosses but wonder at their uniqueness while still giving full appreciation to the ‘regular printing’ of each issue.

 

 

[Artboy99]

18 minutes ago, kelholt said:

Interesting thought on the timing of Planet 17 printing and history of Pearl Harbor. I think the timing of these two events don’t combine to cause a variation of colors.

In my travels, Planet comics 1-3 and 66-73 have pretty consistent cover coloring. Starting with 4 on up I have seen a wide variance of coloring. There are several ideas as to why, but I think it is a combination of many factors. Among those is the printing process used by FH.   Many books seem to be missing a true red and is represented by what is lovingly called ‘Fiction House Orange’. In some cases it seems to me that some books that were meant to be some form or red  ended up orange due to printing process or bad inking. I have seen several FH books where the top of the book looks reddish only to fade to orange near the bottom of the book. Like in the printing process it was running out of red and it thinned out to orange.

We all love to talk about reds (or lack of), but many books lack blue or green which give them totally different looks. Flex had a Planet 12 that makes almost all other 12’s blue background look all washed up. This lack of consistent printing standards has over time shown a wide variance in cover colors. This has also fueled today’s collectors to hope for deep reds when in fact they may have never been planned that way and do not exist.  Planet 26 I think was planned to be a deep orange, never red.  Take Planet 15 for instance, many would love to see a red dress. I feel it doesn’t exist. On the back on my Rangers 2 it shows Planet 15. Look how reddish the upper FH bullseye are and the Jungle title. Now look how orange the planet book is. Reddish and orange on the same cover. The same orange is in the rangers banner and see how light it is next to the above bullseye. In hand , the rangers banner is the same color as the Planet rivers AND a completely different color than the jungle title and bullseyes.

 I may be rambling at this point, but wanted to communicate that FH books of all colors are great and that there a few ‘albatross’ issues out there where the coloring makes you wonder how that happened. The standard should not be set by these albatrosses but wonder at their uniqueness while still giving full appreciation to the ‘regular printing’ of each issue.

 

 

I agree!

I was going to post the interior to my Planet 15 when I got home, you beat me to this post.

 

[Spyder!]

Added a low grade copy of #30 to the collection. 

[Zolnerowich]

6 hours ago, Flex Mentallo said:

I think #29 is a classic cover - not sure it gets the love it deserves.

Fantastic. Truly. That's just preternatural. Something not of our world.

[Flex Mentallo]

7 hours ago, adamstrange said:

While there will definitely be cases of fading, there does not appear to be anything unstable about the inks that results in accelerated fading.

Yes, I also think that must be true. We do see a fair number of copies where the distribution of red (ie magenta) is not uniform, which seems to suggest that they did not re-ink the plates as often as needed to maintain consistent quality control, as Artboy and others have said. And as we know it leads to enormous differences. Planet #18 is one of the most notorious issues for this. The scan does not do this copy justice - you dont get the sheer depth  of color.

Edited July 27, 2018 by Flex Mentallo

[Flex Mentallo]

The other factor less often discussed is gradation of color to create dramatic variations in contrast. When a cover background is printing a flat orange, this gradation has also vanished from the rest of the cover.

[Paul © ® ⚽️💙™]

I reckon this particular issue will accelerate in value in the coming years. Quite under-rated at the moment.