Vintage 4CP vs. Contemporary Reproduction

Here is the same image from "Fantastic Four" #49 (1966) and a recent Marvel Omnibus edition.

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This variant is from a 1971 reprint in "Marvel's Greatest Comics."

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7 responses
I prefer the old school dots and coloring patterns. It feels more painterly. They lost a lot foregoing the red over the face, but I have to hand it to the intensity of the yellow in the reboot.
— johnny neill
Like colorizing black and white movies.
— Khoi Vinh
As much as I love the nostalgia of the old school process, to a man comic artists delight in seeing their work colored accurately and printed on quality stock. What we see as charm and warmth in those old books, many creators see a lack of care or attention.
Let me put it this way: I'm not trading my back issues for slick new collected volumes.
— A visitor
Eric, I don't think anyone can gainsay the artist's preference for high-quality reproduction. A large part of the purpose of this gallery is to record the difference between "comic book art" and "the art of the comic book" – the print culture artifact that has largely disappeared from view and which has its own distinctive aesthetic qualities. That's why we drill down so deeply into the frame, recording the contributions not only of the artist but of the colorist, the printing press operator, the paper buyer, and the hand of fate.
— Half-Man Half-Static
And I thank you for it! I find the process almost magical to this day, and my eye still prefers the grain and (some would say) imperfection of newsprint. I'm occasionally tempted when the latest and greatest collections hit market, but never enough to trade my ratty old books for their slicker contemporaries.
— A visitor
i'm an artist, not a comic artist, but i certainly love the old process and all of its innate characteristics. old printing is so tactile, and so different than digital crispness - which, yes, at times is better suited to a work than the earlier; but it is no different than choosing a polaroid over a leica, or a reel to reel over an mp3. the discussion gets most interesting when artists have choices and make decisions. many of us like the artifacts of a process (and some of us even like scratchy old records rather than digitally removed surface noise). the "clean" version of the image above has less life for me. it would look fantastic if one wants to read comics on an ipad, but somewhat clinical on paper... but of course, we all have different eyes and visual "needs"...
— sroden
I like the old school version, smeared and dirty, just like I prefer my women.
— A.Alaalas
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