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blue lines and their value
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46 posts in this topic

If you're talking about blueline copies that were colored as part of the printing process, the earliest examples I can think of would be for Dark Knight in 1986.  Lynn Varley colored those on pages that were smaller than the original art.   A similar process was later used for other books printed on nicer paper like the Punisher Return to Big Nothing GN, the TPB of Kraven's Last Hunt and American Flagg (Vol. 2).  Those were done around 1988.  The B&W art was copied on an acetate overlay and then placed over the hand-painted blueline art.   

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Bumping this. 
 

I’m also curious to know when the practice of a penciler scanning their page for an inker to ink on a separate board started?
 

Related, when did going all-digital become a thing? For example, Alex Maleev on Daredevil in 2004. I don’t know much about this history, would like to know more  

 

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On 5/17/2020 at 10:21 PM, Blastaar said:

At what year do you need to start concerning yourself with a possibility of scanned and blue lines?

Do you mean scanned pencils that are printed as blue lines and inked?

 

I feel like one of the guests on Comic Art live said he was on (one of?) the first penciller/inker teams to do this, maybe with an international artist? Scott Hanna?

I don't remember the date but it could have been late 90s/early 00s?

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1 hour ago, John E. said:

Bumping this. 
 

I’m also curious to know when the practice of a penciler scanning their page for an inker to ink on a separate board started?
 

Related, when did going all-digital become a thing? For example, Alex Maleev on Daredevil in 2004. I don’t know much about this history, would like to know more  

 

From a collector’s perspective, and from what I’ve read, is that the late 80s is when blue line scans really became more widely used. I think the first example was Dark Knight, as mentioned above. Keep in mind, though, some artists liked sketching in blue pencil, which can look very similar. Sal Buscema did a lot (most?) of his work with a blue pencil. Same with Alan Davis, and even some more modern artists like Frank Quitely. 
 

Sometimes, the blue pencil lines are neat, and can look like a scan. If so, you just look closely, and see if it’s slightly waxy, like a crayon. If it is, it’s pencil, and not a scan. In Quitely’s case, he starts out with really sketchy blue lines and finds his final lines from there, so it’s obviously pencil work. The blue lines don’t scan when they turn the OA into comics.

I’m not versed at all on the digital switch. 

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Non- Photographic blue line pencils have been in use for as long as I remember in the mid 1980's. I have an artist in Indonesia who uploads the pencils to a shared folder and the Inker in Michigan prints the pencils on 130gsm artboard as non photographic blue and inks over that. By the time the penciler sends the original pencils the inker is already done. It makes the whole process go quicker. I still prefer traditional artboard over all digital for various reasons.

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I first saw this in 2000 with an inker's art being sold by a rep.  It was explained by the rep that the veteran inker created it because he was teamed with a hot rookie penciller on a new DC book and the art had a lot of anatomy issues that had to be fixed.  He didn't want to waste time erasing, so he made a copy (converted to blue) of the entire issue to redraw over the problems with inks and returned the pencil pages untouched.  It might have been done only early on in the penciller and inker partnership.      

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1 hour ago, stinkininkin said:

Some of you guys are getting blue lines confused. Blue lines used to refer to a coloring process, where the hand drawn inks were printed in blue lines (at a reduced size) which would be directly colored on top of, paired with a black acetate overlay. This layer combination would then be photographed and be the final art used to print the comic, like the Dark Knight Returns example listed above. This technique is virtually obsolete today.

Blue lines can also refer to simply using blue colored pencil as either an underdrawing or even final line drawing prior to inking. It has been a process option for many many decades going back to before the silver age of comics. Some artists also use green and red line colored pencils to achieve the same goal.

Blue line for inks is where the pencils (either digital or traditional graphite) are converted/printed to blue to be inked on top of. Some artists prefer other colors to blue that can be also be removed in the production process, and even a basic grey line can work too. Not sure when all of this started to become common, but it's certainly been building over the last 10-15 years. 

Thank you for taking the time to explain. I clearly was confused by the Dark Knight example I read online, too, like that other poster. So, that’s a similar name, but different process, and the scan concerns (not being original pencils) that are being discussed up thread are different and not a “problem” for collectors until more the late 90s early 2000s. 
 

Blue pencils used to make me nervous, until I read up on how they differed from blue line that were printed for inkers to work on. Luckily, it’s not too difficult to tell the difference. If you don’t mind me asking, was the change just to speed up the process, or was it a mix of distance between artists and a new technology to help? Both? I’m curious, too.

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1 hour ago, Latverian Tourism Board said:

Blue pencils used to make me nervous, until I read up on how they differed from blue line that were printed for inkers to work on. Luckily, it’s not too difficult to tell the difference. If you don’t mind me asking, was the change just to speed up the process, or was it a mix of distance between artists and a new technology to help? Both? I’m curious, too.

The main benefit is in production. No costs for shipping stacks of big pieces of thick paper between various members of the production team. No risk of damage or loss en route. Much quicker.

The fringe benefit is that instead of the "penciler gets 2/3 of the pages; inker gets 1/3 of the pages" arrangement, both the penciler and inker can have all of their own pages to save or to sell on the collectibles market.

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37 minutes ago, RBerman said:

The main benefit is in production. No costs for shipping stacks of big pieces of thick paper between various members of the production team. No risk of damage or loss en route. Much quicker.

The fringe benefit is that instead of the "penciler gets 2/3 of the pages; inker gets 1/3 of the pages" arrangement, both the penciler and inker can have all of their own pages to save or to sell on the collectibles market.

That makes perfect sense. Of course it would be bottom dollar and production speed related. Thank you so much for explaining. 
 

And, yeah, I see how that would be much more equitable for both. Interesting stuff. There is a lot to the process that is fascinating.

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Now the next question you might want to ask is, what should the value of each page be? Assume pencil and ink were on one page and $300 sounds like a reasonable price. In theory, even though you are getting two pieces (if you buy both the pencil and the ink over blue line), probably $300 is still the correct price. I've heard that 2/3 for the pencil and 1/3 for the ink over blue is a good ratio, but that would be up to you. I for one would only buy both or the pencil, but never the ink over blue line without the pencil. That's just me. 

On the other hand, the ink over blue line is the actual published version, so I can see why someone would want that more than the pencil. Once again, for me, I like pencil work anyway, so I wouldn't buy the art if the pencil work wasn't something I thought was interesting, regardless of the inking. Once again, that's just me.

 

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1 hour ago, sfilosa said:

Now the next question you might want to ask is, what should the value of each page be? Assume pencil and ink were on one page and $300 sounds like a reasonable price. In theory, even though you are getting two pieces (if you buy both the pencil and the ink over blue line), probably $300 is still the correct price. I've heard that 2/3 for the pencil and 1/3 for the ink over blue is a good ratio, but that would be up to you. I for one would only buy both or the pencil, but never the ink over blue line without the pencil. That's just me. 

On the other hand, the ink over blue line is the actual published version, so I can see why someone would want that more than the pencil. Once again, for me, I like pencil work anyway, so I wouldn't buy the art if the pencil work wasn't something I thought was interesting, regardless of the inking. Once again, that's just me.

 

I'd prefer both the pencil page and the ink page together, but often that ship has sailed before I arrive. As for the relative valuation, many factors enter in. Which penciler, and which inker? How tight are the pencils?  Do they look like this (Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez)...

GvGANIk.thumb.jpg.852dbb98d608fcd7d44f39c616c591e3.jpg

Or like this (Barry Kitson)?

wqkvitg.thumb.jpg.c3d65e68bf9511d90efdffe651d4fcae.jpg

In the latter case, I'm glad to have the pencils, but really the inks (Mick Gray) are the good looking part.

vCn05VL.jpg.33fcb1a88bf9e71aec15f93eadd4a245.jpg

Kitson can do perfectly beautiful pencils. That's just what happened on this particular job.

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4 hours ago, sfilosa said:

 I for one would only buy both or the pencil, but never the ink over blue line without the pencil. That's just me. 

On the other hand, the ink over blue line is the actual published version, so I can see why someone would want that more than the pencil. Once again, for me, I like pencil work anyway, so I wouldn't buy the art if the pencil work wasn't something I thought was interesting, regardless of the inking. Once again, that's just me.

 

I'm with you. Every piece I have now is pencilled and inked on the same page, and I just don't see myself ever buying an inked blueline without pencils. I could stomach getting the pencils and inks that are done on separate boards, but I still prefer the all-on-one-board approach.

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15 hours ago, BuraddoRun said:

I'm with you. Every piece I have now is pencilled and inked on the same page, and I just don't see myself ever buying an inked blueline without pencils. I could stomach getting the pencils and inks that are done on separate boards, but I still prefer the all-on-one-board approach.

Not every ink job over blue lines is based on a pencil. I have one where “pencil” work was on the computer, and only the original was actually inked.

 

 

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20 hours ago, sfilosa said:

Now the next question you might want to ask is, what should the value of each page be? Assume pencil and ink were on one page and $300 sounds like a reasonable price. In theory, even though you are getting two pieces (if you buy both the pencil and the ink over blue line), probably $300 is still the correct price. I've heard that 2/3 for the pencil and 1/3 for the ink over blue is a good ratio, but that would be up to you. I for one would only buy both or the pencil, but never the ink over blue line without the pencil. That's just me. 

On the other hand, the ink over blue line is the actual published version, so I can see why someone would want that more than the pencil. Once again, for me, I like pencil work anyway, so I wouldn't buy the art if the pencil work wasn't something I thought was interesting, regardless of the inking. Once again, that's just me.

 

Honestly, I know it is “purer” to buy/favor the pencil work, but if all I can find is the ink job, I will take it.

 I still think it is a shame there is no way to create an artists’ database on the web in which, when different artists do different ink and pencil work parts, the site can’t link up the two for joint purchase. Rep’s or artists should be able to contribute, and post their prices separately, or jointly (with perhaps a small discount).

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10 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

Honestly, I know it is “purer” to buy/favor the pencil work, but if all I can find is the ink job, I will take it.

 I still think it is a shame there is no way to create an artists’ database on the web in which, when different artists do different ink and pencil work parts, the site can’t link up the two for joint purchase. Rep’s or artists should be able to contribute, and post their prices separately, or jointly (with perhaps a small discount).

This could be done today through Amazon Marketplace or eBay if dealers had a mind to use it in that way. Each penciled page could be listed, with a link to the ink page, and vice versa. But dealers may not like whatever eBay's/Amazon's piece of the pie would be.

Edited by RBerman
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10 minutes ago, Rick2you2 said:

I still think it is a shame there is no way to create an artists’ database on the web in which, when different artists do different ink and pencil work parts, the site can’t link up the two for joint purchase. Rep’s or artists should be able to contribute, and post their prices separately, or jointly (with perhaps a small discount).

Yeah this would be cool. I recently bought the blueline pencils and inks for a page separately and it would have been great to know up front who to talk to get the matching set. That said, both reps were super easy to deal with.  

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