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Why is Marvel Chipping limited to the front cover?
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30 posts in this topic

3 hours ago, Tony S said:

Vintage Comic book covers and comic book pages were printed in very large width giant rolls of of paper, then folded and THEN cut. So one cut was cutting multiple interior pages. You can see this for yourself from time to time with vintage books where the cutter did not cut all the way through the pages. You'll have like six or eight pages (I forget) still stuck together and not completely trimmed. Because 6 or 8 pages were printed at the same time on one super wide piece of paper. You can also see this occasionally on vintage giant size books that were stapled and the cover glued on. If the cutter did not cut the interior (spine side) clean and the cover comes loose you can actually see the folded bunch of pages. A giant size book might have 4-6 such bunches depending on page count, Most comics in the 50's on were printed at World Color Press in Sparta, IL. 

Covers were similar, but better paper. And many to most covers  up until the late 60's were printed at Eastern Color in New York, then the covers shipped to Sparta.  Six covers - front and back - were typically printed at a time. Occasionally uncut sheets of covers turn up for sale and are napped up by collectors. Here is an example. This is ONE sheet - I snagged the picture from a discussion here back in 2010. This is Not something taped together. So when everything was folded up, there was just a few cuts.  By the late 60's World Color press had largely taken over all of the printing of comic books - including the covers. The exception I'm aware of was Charlton, who owned their own printing plant. I'm not really sure without more research where Marvel and DC print their comics today. I think it moved to Canada. But there are a number of places that print comic books now.  The printing process being what the posted video shows. 

Response above is more about how comics are manufactured. 

The answer about Marvel chipping is to some degree an unknown. The most likely answer is NOT the common one about dull cutting blades. The simplest answer is probably correct. Martin Goodman had a reputation of being cheap. When Marvel's distributor went out of business Marvel nearly did too. A deal with DC to distribute their books kept them from bankruptcy but was also designed to keep them from making too much money and from distributing too many titles. So Goodman saved money where he could -likely in printing costs. Marvel used cheaper paper those early years and  the front cover gets more wear than the back. 



 

uncut comic cover sheet.jpg

Nice post!
-A question:  your picture shows both Marvel and DC covers on the same uncut sheet, so in this case the paper stock for both companies covers were the same, and the books must have been cut with the same blade.   - the uncut sheet above would suggest that the chipping problem should have been distributed equally among both company's books.

Was this practice stopped later on so that both company's books were no longer printed on the same sheet?  (I ask this since chipping seems to be mostly a Marvel problem)

Edited by Unca Ben
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extremely cheap paper with cheap ink applied. In my opinion the application of the inks helps to make the paper more probable to have unsupported areas "flake" off when cut by a dull blade. Chipping is more prevalent on the right edges of the comic due to cover overhang there, IE the covers are designed to be slightly larger than the interior pages and are not supported by the interior.

Why some books have it and others do not is most likely because there were multiple blades cutting piles. One blade was better, the other more dull.

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12 hours ago, Unca Ben said:

Nice post!
-A question:  your picture shows both Marvel and DC covers on the same uncut sheet, so in this case the paper stock for both companies covers were the same, and the books must have been cut with the same blade.   - the uncut sheet above would suggest that the chipping problem should have been distributed equally among both company's books.

Was this practice stopped later on so that both company's books were no longer printed on the same sheet?  (I ask this since chipping seems to be mostly a Marvel problem)

The sheet above is books from late 1953 (Sept) This was before Marvel nearly went out of business as a result of being unable to distribute (get their books on newsstands) in 1957. Their deal with Independent News - which owned and distributed DC Comics - limited Marvel greatly in the number of comics they could publish a month. The exact figure being a bit of a mystery as well. 8-16 is floated often. 

If Goodman wanted cheaper paper stock, Eastman Color probably did print his (Marvel's) covers separately. 

As I said no one really knows for sure the why of Marvel chipping being a mostly Marvel Comics problem - and only in the very late 50's to the early 60's. Goodman's inherent cheapness combined with  Marvel's  financial difficulties from 1958-1963 seems to point to poor paper quality as the culprit.  The idea of dull cutting blades doesn't make near as much sense. I mean for like 5-6 years did they ONLY cut Marvel's covers with dull blades?

Eastman Color was a business. If the customer wanted cheaper - or better - paper stock they would have likely sold the customer what they wanted. 

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If anyone has ever used a paper cutter it is the same theory. If the blade is fresh and sharp it does a great job. The device is limited to how big a stack of paper you are trying to cut and I often wonder if it is that as well.

With quality paper the cutter works great, with a stack of low quality paper the paper cutter doesn't necessarily cut it "breaks" through the paper creating a frayed/ ripped/ torn edge that looks similar to the edges of the Marvel books with chipping.

 

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11 minutes ago, Artboy99 said:

If anyone has ever used a paper cutter it is the same theory. If the blade is fresh and sharp it does a great job. The device is limited to how big a stack of paper you are trying to cut and I often wonder if it is that as well.

With quality paper the cutter works great, with a stack of low quality paper the paper cutter doesn't necessarily cut it "breaks" through the paper creating a frayed/ ripped/ torn edge that looks similar to the edges of the Marvel books with chipping.

 

the paper cutter we used in my printing class wasnt a swing arm cutter but a huge press type deal.

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On 8/18/2019 at 11:20 PM, jcjames said:

@1:57... "No 9.8s for you!"

:grin:

 

aside from the Litho Ninja banshee wail which I'll never be able to mis remember!....

thats a great video.  Comics production has changed over the last 80 years, but this clearly shows the basics of the process.  the printing of multiple pages of the comic on same sheets, to be later trimmed into single sheets of 4 pages (F and B);  plus the stapling process where they roll along on the spines and get stamped with staples on their spines.

I think though that this small shop doesn't trim the assembled books the same as Sparta did.  These Ninjas trim them one at a time.  Sparta used an "industrial" paper cutter to trim hundreds at the same time, which to is believed to have lead to the Marvel chipping, and also miscuts (trapezoidal comics) due to slippage of the pile under intense pressure, and sloppiness.

Great question about why only the front covers get Marvel chipping.  I was thinking it would be because the large trimming machines pressed down ward on the front covers into the books, while the same cut would push the back covers outward away from the book. But not sure it would cause anything since the back and fronts would have been stacked on top of each other (the pile would be in this order: Book 1 F cvr, inside pages, B cvr, ....Book 2 F cvr, inside pgs, B cvr.... etc etc ).   I can't imagine why the direction of the cut relative to the coverstock would result in chipping on fronts bt not on backs.

 

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On ‎8‎/‎18‎/‎2019 at 10:32 PM, Tony S said:

Vintage Comic book covers and comic book pages were printed in very large width giant rolls of of paper, then folded and THEN cut. So one cut was cutting multiple interior pages. You can see this for yourself from time to time with vintage books where the cutter did not cut all the way through the pages. You'll have like six or eight pages (I forget) still stuck together and not completely trimmed. Because 6 or 8 pages were printed at the same time on one super wide piece of paper. You can also see this occasionally on vintage giant size books that were stapled and the cover glued on. If the cutter did not cut the interior (spine side) clean and the cover comes loose you can actually see the folded bunch of pages. A giant size book might have 4-6 such bunches depending on page count, Most comics in the 50's on were printed at World Color Press in Sparta, IL. 

Covers were similar, but better paper. And many to most covers  up until the late 60's were printed at Eastern Color in New York, then the covers shipped to Sparta.  Six covers - front and back - were typically printed at a time. Occasionally uncut sheets of covers turn up for sale and are napped up by collectors. Here is an example. This is ONE sheet - I snagged the picture from a discussion here back in 2010. This is Not something taped together. So when everything was folded up, there was just a few cuts.  By the late 60's World Color press had largely taken over all of the printing of comic books - including the covers. The exception I'm aware of was Charlton, who owned their own printing plant. I'm not really sure without more research where Marvel and DC print their comics today. I think it moved to Canada. But there are a number of places that print comic books now.  The printing process being what the posted video shows. 

Response above is more about how comics are manufactured. 

The answer about Marvel chipping is to some degree an unknown. The most likely answer is NOT the common one about dull cutting blades. The simplest answer is probably correct. Martin Goodman had a reputation of being cheap. When Marvel's distributor went out of business Marvel nearly did too. A deal with DC to distribute their books kept them from bankruptcy but was also designed to keep them from making too much money and from distributing too many titles. So Goodman saved money where he could -likely in printing costs. Marvel used cheaper paper those early years and  the front cover gets more wear than the back. 



 

uncut comic cover sheet.jpg

+1  Which is why there are Siamese pages, when a blade miscuts a separation between folded pages, folded in a way that cutting the edges makes the correct sequence of pages after the cut a book.

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