King Comics UK Price Variants 4 4

[Harry Lime]

On 7/18/2019 at 4:42 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

            "Whassat? What'd you say?"

You're not a monster, Steve. You just sometimes wear deely boppers on the wrong planet.

Personally, I've never heard of King comics but I admire your dedication for the more esoteric funny books.

[Get Marwood & I]

41 minutes ago, Harry Lime said:

I've never heard of King comics

[Duffman_Comics]

On 7/1/2019 at 6:00 PM, AJD said:

If I was a sadist I'd ask for 'The carnival is over' to be played at my funeral. With a room full of Australians of a certain age there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house. Except for mine, obviously.

 

My late brother-in-law directed (it was cancer and he knew it) that Kasey Chambers' "We're All Gonna Die Someday" be played at his funeral.

It was and made many people start grinning - it was so typical of him:

 

 

Edited December 17, 2019 by Duffman_Comics
Bugger

[Get Marwood & I]

20 hours ago, Get Marwood & I said:

 

 

 

@bill999

[Yorick]

On 7/19/2018 at 12:19 AM, AJD said:

Is this a Commonwealth-inclusive thread? I managed to get one of the two Australian Dell pence issues that I know to exist.

Pretty sure that issue is one of the Matt Baker illustrated ones...  Nice score!

[Yorick]

On 8/19/2019 at 1:55 AM, Get Marwood & I said:

Here are two copies of number ten of my current King favourite, Mandrake the Magician - one 10d pence and one 12c cents:

   

 

Zoom in top right, and what do we see?

On the 12c copy, you can see a feint 10d price showing under the CCA badge:

 

On the pence copy, there's a blur of slightly different colouring where the 12c price would have been:

 

I've checked multiple copies and it's the same on all of them. A similar thing occurs on other Kings too.

I find that very interesting.

Do you? 

 

In this instance, it seems the pence copy was printed first.  Maybe? 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/1/2022 at 8:08 PM, Yorick said:

In this instance, it seems the pence copy was printed first.  Maybe? 

It's a head scratcher, that one. Or those two, I should say. 

[Get Marwood & I]

A similar scenario on Flash (Ah-aaah!) #7.

No sign of the 12c price on the 10d copy, but a clear oblong of colour on the 12c copy which maybe was applied to cover the 10d price? 

  

[Get Marwood & I]

10d clearly visible under that 12c price here, on Flash #8:

Oh, hang on. 12c clearly visible under the 10d:

 

Hang on, that's not actually the 10d of the pence copy under that 12c copy though, is it?

 

 

 

[Get Marwood & I]

No pence Flashes after issue #10, but do you think they were planning dual pricing from #11?

If not, what's the extraneous white oblong for, I wonder....

 

Anyway, see you next time for another episode of "Does anyone know what the focaccia was going on at the King printers back in '67" 

[Yorick]

#8 looks like a black plate only change.  They never should have put the (US) price on the blue/cyan plate (and it does not even match the black plate!).

#7 looks like they had a better print operator.  That operator must have quit with all the extra plate changes and then the weird stuff starts happening.  As you say, what's that extra white box on #11?

"Improper color sequence arrangement may cause problems such as color shift, color mixing and reverse overprinting of printed products; scientific color sequence arrangement will make the color of printed products closer to the original, and even strengthen a certain color atmosphere, so that the level is clear, the dots are clear, and the overprinting is accurate. The colors are true, natural and harmonious."

https://www.printarea.cn/news/printing-skills-how-to-arrange-the-printing-color-sequence

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/30/2022 at 5:57 PM, Yorick said:

#8 looks like a black plate only change.  They never should have put the (US) price on the blue/cyan plate (and it does not even match the black plate!).

Odd that there seems to be an alternative 12c font visible under both the 10d and finished 12c copies though, isn't it Yorick?

[shadroch]

I'm impressed anyone anywhere got a thread about King Comics to seven pages. 

[Get Marwood & I]

On 5/31/2022 at 5:11 PM, shadroch said:

I'm impressed anyone anywhere got a thread about King Comics to seven pages. 

And to think I've been holding back 

 

[Aman619]

On 5/30/2022 at 12:07 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

A similar scenario on Flash (Ah-aaah!) #7.

No sign of the 12c price on the 10d copy, but a clear oblong of colour on the 12c copy which maybe was applied to cover the 10d price? 

  

interesting...  ok here's and idea.   (A printer like Kevin76 can elaborate perhaps).  Assuming the UK was printed first and for whatever reason (prob cheaper) the strippers/printers chose to rework the film used in making the UK plates:  they filled in the entire oblong area that was white on the Cyan plate (around the 10d)  with more 100 Cyan.  Same % of ink so we see no difference on the Cyan in the US printing in that area.  But appears they mismatched and filled in the oblong with a higher % on the Magenta.  End result we see two different purple tones, lets say  70M+70C  and 80M+70C  resulting in the redder oblong behind the 12c which was knocked out to white from all plates/inks.  More proof that the UK versions were printed first is that if US was first there'd be NO REASON for the redder oblong to ever be there.

[Aman619]

On 5/30/2022 at 12:14 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

10d clearly visible under that 12c price here, on Flash #8:

Oh, hang on. 12c clearly visible under the 10d:

 

Hang on, that's not actually the 10d of the pence copy under that 12c copy though, is it?

 

 

 

this appears like someone stripped a too small 12C knocked out of a the in the Cyan bkground (failing to also knock out the entire price box!  we shouldn't see ANY cyan in the price box) and assuming the entire cover was press ready (1ll fur plates) with this too small 12c, they redid the plates, replacing with the larger 12c on the black plate.   So it the old bad cyan plate survived because no-one noticed the faint 10% dots in the film.  

[Aman619]

here I reduced the larger 12c and it fits perfectly over the smaller one we see as a white ghost.

[Aman619]

On 5/30/2022 at 12:17 PM, Get Marwood & I said:

No pence Flashes after issue #10, but do you think they were planning dual pricing from #11?

If not, what's the extraneous white oblong for, I wonder....

 

Anyway, see you next time for another episode of "Does anyone know what the focaccia was going on at the King printers back in '67" 

printers were knocking out garbage 12c comics... who cared about quality?  Here Im thinking they chose to knock out an entirely new price box rather than rework the 12c area.  bUT ID NEED TO SEE ALL PRICE VARIANTS TO BE SURE.  One of these boxes may have been a distributor code or logo?  I dunno.

[Aman619]

On 10/28/2022 at 2:59 PM, Aman619 said:

interesting...  ok here's and idea.   (A printer like Kevin76 can elaborate perhaps).  Assuming the UK was printed first and for whatever reason (prob cheaper) the strippers/printers chose to rework the film used in making the UK plates:  they filled in the entire oblong area that was white on the Cyan plate (around the 10d)  with more 100 Cyan.  Same % of ink so we see no difference on the Cyan in the US printing in that area.  But appears they mismatched and filled in the oblong with a higher % on the Magenta.  End result we see two different purple tones, lets say  70M+70C  and 80M+70C  resulting in the redder oblong behind the 12c which was knocked out to white from all plates/inks.  More proof that the UK versions were printed first is that if US was first there'd be NO REASON for the redder oblong to ever be there.

printers had overlays they used back then that determined the dot pattern %s.  They consisted of a thin mylar strip (say 8x10" in some cases with lots of swatches to use) with black dots printed in % values, 10% thru 90%.  You'd lay it over the film and position it so the dot pattern lined up perfectly for each % until you found the perfect match, with no moire patterns. But working quickly you might select 80 instead of 70.   There's a foolproof way to MATCH a dot pattern exactly.  If its in a solid colored area (not an greytone that varies) expose a new sheet of same film from the original, cut out a matching tone from same area and superimpose it into the oblong area, lining up the dots perfectly on a light table. (kind of like cloning today in photoshop only far more tedious) You saved time by not having to match or guess if it was 70 or 80%.  But here too, can happen: your new film exposure and developing may have been changed the dots, larger (gain) or smaller (overexposed)... and depending on if you worked with negative film or positive, you now have either bigger black dots, or smaller clear dots in a black film.   Anyway --this change in dot size can result in a slightly lighter or darker color after printing too.

[Get Marwood & I]

On 10/28/2022 at 8:14 PM, Aman619 said:

printers were knocking out garbage 12c comics... who cared about quality?  Here Im thinking they chose to knock out an entirely new price box rather than rework the 12c area.  bUT ID NEED TO SEE ALL PRICE VARIANTS TO BE SURE.  One of these boxes may have been a distributor code or logo?  I dunno.

It's the only Flash with a double box, but Mandrake #10 has UK/US pricing above/below the CCA code.

Here they are: