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Printing Error or Sun Fade?
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14 posts in this topic

I would love to hear an opinion or explanation for this book. These are two of only three graded copies of Love and Rockets #1 (Fifth Printing). CGC lists in it's Grader's Notes that there is sun damage to one of the copies. I wish to at least partially disagree with that assumption. 

In the affected copy, the browns are purple, the greens are blue, the reds are pink and the pinks and blues remain relatively unchanged. There is a hint of yellow on the right border, but the blacks around it remain unfaded. If you were to take away all yellows from a cover, what would it look like?  I believe it would look like this... with the same slightly muted colors (without one of them). We have cyan and magenta without the yellow. I have added a book where sun fade occurred... the yellow was not erased, but everything is muted.

 

L&R 5th combined CGC.jpg

Action 252 sun fade.jpg

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  • Administrator

Good morning,

Thanks for your message.  Unfortunately, our graders would have to see the book in hand before they could make any assessment.  Books do go through multiple graders during the grading process so any comments such as sun fading would have been the consensus of all of our graders and not just one person's opinion.  If you would like, you are welcome to send the book back for a regrade and the graders can take another look.

Thank you!

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12 hours ago, Ron C. said:

Action 252 sun fade.jpg

I believe both these books have been discussed before but I can't find the thread Ron.

There's a similar blue vs grey look to the AC going on here:

279b.thumb.jpg.e7e0da557150551a99953ca63d389a11.jpg279c.thumb.jpg.c9b1d0436495a58437cc04b610a99914.jpg

 

Here's a third copy, which has a rectangle of blue showing above the 'ive' of Detective:

279.thumb.jpg.bbdaa978735e50b074f28cc49c6cbaaa.jpg

 

The back cover are always a good way to identify print errors as I'm sure you know - and it's always difficult to gauge from scans alone, especially when settings can be manipulated.

 

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Thank you for the input @Get Marwood & I. I listed the Action books to show the overall color fading of other books without the complete erasure of the yellow. Perhaps a Small Press company (at the time) like Fantagraphic Books used yellows that were particularly vulnerable to sunlight /fading? The photos of the L&R were taken by my iPhone with no color editing. The back covers appear similar which makes it harder to justify a printing error unless there was a slight gap without yellow ink. LCSs that display books would have way more experience than I would, but I have a hard time explaining some of the other retained colors. Either way, thank you for your response.

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5 minutes ago, Ron C. said:

Thank you for the input @Get Marwood & I. I listed the Action books to show the overall color fading of other books without the complete erasure of the yellow. Perhaps a Small Press company (at the time) like Fantagraphic Books used yellows that were particularly vulnerable to sunlight /fading? The photos of the L&R were taken by my iPhone with no color editing. The back covers appear similar which makes it harder to justify a printing error unless there was a slight gap without yellow ink. LCSs that display books would have way more experience than I would, but I have a hard time explaining some of the other retained colors. Either way, thank you for your response.

You're welcome. I collected a lot of Spidey printing errors in my time. Some are easy to spot, some less so. I've always found the reds go first which is backed up by online articles regarding the affects of UV on different colour compositions it seems.

Your Action actually looks like a printing issue to me, not a sun fade. But if the colouring difference is not replicated on the back cover it's difficult to support as you say.

Here's an example which shows what the sun does to reds:

c76ab206c7b9313dc41666f37219d70d.jpg.cf169d763b8b371a0c2610135dba41e3.jpgeffcdc55da2e220a8e535e5d969c668e.jpg.d0b29a8cfaa23763ac38270b58300672.jpg

It looks very different to the Action doesn't it

Action 252 sun fade.jpg

Have you got back cover images to post?

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@Ron C.

Ron, some good news. Heritage have 185 copies of Action #252 showing. Five of them have the same distinct grey body colouring as yours:

2103095921_lf(4).jpeg.0ca5854e7c25c9c0a3f60fd4ef2b9459.jpeg435711137_lf(3).jpeg.dc9fda2b19eb63544a61c88126306d20.jpeg1773318444_lf(2).jpeg.1dce3da3060b1cb2f8deb485ee6b1fd8.jpeg1237637975_lf(1).jpeg.2475598dd25d4c35dfa30526740d854b.jpeglf.jpeg.104b3c53e641c2c3212e9e0247f673fa.jpeg

They can't all be sun faded, can they!

 

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3 hours ago, Ron C. said:

Thank you Joe. I think that we are in the minority in this opinion though.

Reds and yellow usually fade away first. Your copy still has a lot of life left to the red. Additionally, you have one spot of bright yellow in the corner of the spotlight that makes it appear the yellow was never applied properly. 

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On 10/19/2020 at 2:02 AM, joeypost said:
On 10/18/2020 at 10:46 PM, Ron C. said:

Thank you Joe. I think that we are in the minority in this opinion though.

Reds and yellow usually fade away first. Your copy still has a lot of life left to the red. Additionally, you have one spot of bright yellow in the corner of the spotlight that makes it appear the yellow was never applied properly. 

I think printing error is more likely too as the reds and yellows always fade first.

1137336131_07c352acd9dd3ff6cb35c9200ea67c34(1).thumb.png.5e058dff33056c637e32fb190c9892ec.png

Accordingly, I can see sun fade taking the yellow / magenta out of the brown here on the cop to leave a 'pasty green' cyan mix...

Capture3.PNG.e8fb99712f7ab1575c0e76705ba2a26e.PNGCapture4.PNG.b5e1e7468112208ea135f2571806f828.PNG  

.....but I can't see how sun fade would turn the brown here to purple assuming both red and yellows faded equally?

Capture1.PNG.8960fa376869730e7c7ec4dd718c78b4.PNGCapture2.PNG.b66576bb161611c5840f95c87724ab21.PNG

More likely that the yellow ink only is missing as, if you look at the crossed circles below, you can see that magenta and cyan only create purple:

1359473487_07c352acd9dd3ff6cb35c9200ea67c34(2).png.b46666ee0de9090a20925f623c0b0e40.png

So I think the yellow ink run out to the left of the cover, which I have seen before.

If there is yellow on the back cover though, that would put the theory in doubt as it would have to mean that the yellow ink either ran out or was blocked only in part. Here's a 'normal' back cover...

b.jpg.066ae3ed08bd003c5c28d37b7d97d2b3.jpg

 

 

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Here is the back cover of the faded/misprinted copy. It looks identical to my other copies. It does seem less likely that the yellow would lay down normally on the back, stop almost exactly at the spine and then restart near the right margin of the front cover.

I was hoping for printing error over fade though. :tonofbricks:

LR 1 back 75.jpg

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2 minutes ago, Ron C. said:

Here is the back cover of the faded/misprinted copy. It looks identical to my other copies. It does seem less likely that the yellow would lay down normally on the back, stop almost exactly at the spine and then restart near the right margin of the front cover.

I was hoping for printing error over fade though. :tonofbricks:

LR 1 back 75.jpg

Yes, 'true' back cover colouring is often what decides it. I have to say though, yours is the oddest sun fade I have ever seen, and I can well understand why you would be in two minds. Or, at least, a hopeful mind. Very strange. 

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