Saturday 8 February 2014

Weekly Update #17: 'Cerebus' & 'High Society' Reprinting

Previously on 'A Moment Of Cerebus':
Dave Sim, working with George Peter Gatsis, has remastered the first two collected volumes of Cerebus to restore details and quality in the artwork lost over the thirty years since they were originally published (as detailed here and here). After Cerebus' original printer Preney Print closed its doors, Dave Sim moved his printing to Lebonfon in 2007 as at that time they were still capable of working with photographic negatives and making printing plates as Preney had done. And then Lebonfon switched to digital scanning and printing - a technology which struggles to faithfully reproduce Cerebus' tone without creating moire patterns (as detailed in Crisis On Infinite Pixels). Dave Sim continues to work with Lebonfon to ensure the print-quality of the new Cerebus and High Society editions (as detailed in Collections Stalled). Now read on...
Cerebus Vol 1 & Cerebus Vol 2: High Society
Cover art by Dave Sim & Gerhard
DAVE SIM: 
Okay, well, I've been here reading all of the comments on the last WEEKLY UPDATE and the MID-WEEK UPDATE. Which has taken about an hour (and answering them has taken another hour).  Let me try to cover some of the broad strokes:

1) Getting Wilf involved. My own view is that engaging legal counsel just means that whatever is going to happen just became 5-figures-more expensive for the folks in question.  And this would be a REALLY complicated legal case. Picture Sean Michael Robinson and George Gatsis briefing Wilf on the foundational questions of the reproduction involved.  And both disagreeing with each other.  Wilf would have to figure out what the "narrative" was -- how a judge and/or jury would read it -- and then find the shortest way to explain it.  It would be a lunatic number of billable hours for the phone chats just to that point.  Then the billable hours while he actually explains all this in a court of law.  Then the lawyer he was facing going over the same hair-splitting.  5 figures would be a conservative estimate. I would say "mid- 6 figures", not including travel expenses.  

So there's no sense, to me, in going that route. Or asking for legal advice, period.  Unless I was asking the future judge and getting a definitive answer on the merits, all I'd really be getting would be "double down on Red 35" -- that is, a gut instinct call on a complete gamble.  I'm not in the situation of gambling on 6-figure amounts and I assume Lebonfon isn't either.

2) I'm in the unfortunate situation of being both bystander and arbiter in this situation.  I don't know if Sean Michael Robinson is right or George Gatsis is right.  And, in a sense, I really need to decide. My best suggestion would be that Sean and George continue to discuss it and that, possibly, Sean should get a look at some of the digital files in question.  I do tend to agree: "Everything looks good on television".  And that a digital file that looks bad "on TV" CAN BE exactly what the printing press is looking for.  Sandeep did the grayscale to bitmap conversion on glamourpuss and it's the best reproduction of my work I've ever seen.  But, that's a different situation (possibly) because that was pure artwork-to-digital whereas what George has been doing is restoration. So as to whether that's the case here, the odds seem to me to be better of Sean and George coming to a definitive answer on that between them.  I'm way out of my area of expertise.

3)  I can definitely AFFORD, financially, a new fax machine. I bought mine at the same time Sandeep bought his and it was only $45 or $50 as I recall. So thanks to those who want to buy me one, but IF I decide to get one I'll know exactly what I'm looking for (e.g. colour copying I need for various things these days, space restrictions etc). What I've been doing since it stopped receiving faxes (and its quite choosy about which fax numbers I can fax out to, and changes its mind on that quite regularly: some days I can fax Patrick and some days I can't) I'm assessing it on the merits:

Can I afford one in terms of the amount of time I spend running upstairs to see if a fax has come in?

It's been an unexpected benefit: I hadn't realized how much time I spent doing that.  Right now, is there any reason that I should be hearing from people by fax?  I'm writing and drawing THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND and that's really ALL I should be doing for the next three or four years (Which reminds me: Tim! You need to change the dates on STRANGE DEATH on the home page -- 2017 or 2018 at the EARLIEST and probably later -- I'm working on page 18 of issue 4).  That's what I'm doing for a living and then other things to bring money in.

These Updates are really all that I can justify right now when it comes to CEREBUS. Basically dropping by the "lab".  "Come up with anything yet? No?"  Okay, back to STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND.

4) I think I'm safe in saying that there is no QUICK FIX to the CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY situation. We're all waiting to hear from Monsieur Auberge from LEBONFON or someone authorized to speak for him here in this stakeholders' forum.  Depending on what he -- or his agent -- says, then we can move on to the next part of the discussion.  It could take the rest of 2014 and possibly into 2015.  Complicated discussions are like that. I've got two or three different directions I CAN go, based on what happens next. And then -- if experience is any teacher -- two or three different directions once whatever has happened next has happened.

5)  My best advice for CEREBUS fans who want to help is -- if you are missing copies of the trades PAST CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY or if you've got a "read-to-pieces" copy you've been meaning to replace, ask your Local Comic Shop to order it for you.  This will primarily benefit Diamond, but then they are arguably the biggest stakeholder in this situation so anything that helps to bring in some CEREBUS money to them is all to the good. Likewise buying a used copy on Amazon or ebay.  My 21st century sense is that anywhere your book sells counts in your favour.  That even extending to illegal downloads. It's our present 21st century reality so I assume it's there for a good reason, or good reasons, whatever those may be.

6) Prestige editions of the books.  Not going to happen in the foreseeable future.  The more formats you have the books in, the more problems you have getting them into print and keeping them in print.  The more you confuse your customers.  "Oh, a prestige version of READS -- now I can sell all my trades and just buy the prestige versions".  "Oh, I'm going to buy the IDW versions".  It's always worth repeating: 6,000 pages is unprecedented.  A solution that works for 1,200 pages isn't going to work for 6,000 pages.

Some specific replies:

Anonymous: on the auction of CEREBUS original artwork.  That's low on the list for me personally. I'm pretty intent on preserving the CEREBUS ARCHIVE including as much of the artwork as possible.  Selling the artwork works against that plan. You would see the glamourpuss artwork on sale before you would see CEREBUS pages.

Paul Slade.  Hi, Paul.  I don't want to "overdo" the relationship with IDW and I think they recognize that they need to be cautious until they see what sort of market they have for CEREBUS material.  The HIGH SOCIETY AUDIO DIGITAL package will be the first test of that.  It wouldn't make sense for them to commit to a half-dozen CEREBUS projects until they see what (if anything) those projects are likely to do.  I think they've opted for giving me optimum STRANGE DEATH creation time over, say, getting me to write the commentary for the CEREBUS COVERS books.  Which would be my preference as well.

Keith -- "accept the flaws and move forward".  Thanks for your input.  There is a real case to be made that most of the audience just wants to read the books and don't much care about the reproduction.  I do want to make sure everyone knows that I'm not trying to "put one over on them" by "foisting" substandard printing on them.  It's definitely a long process to find out where the "sweet spot" is.

Anonymous - printing in China.  IDW has volunteered to put me in touch with their printer in South Korea.  If possible, I'd like to keep printing CEREBUS in Canada since it's always been printed in Canada.  If it takes some time to figure out how to do that, I don't want to make the decision to go offshore just because I was impatient.

Damian T:  "Can Dave afford to live without revenue from these two books?"  Two years ago, I would have said "no" but -- so far -- the answer has been "yes".  It's been very liberating to know that it's not a matter of "Without CEREBUS, I'm NOTHING!"

Anonymous:  1100 head sketches is a LOT of head sketches, even if they're really quick and bad.  And it would require either me flying up to Val d'Or and doing 1100 head sketches on the unbound covers or having 1100 covers shipped down here.  Since Kickstarter, I've been pretty determined not to turn my home and offices into a loading dock again.

Dave Kopperman - "Vendors don't want your business".  I definitely have to take that into account as a distinct possibility.  It's one of the reasons that I solicited retailer feedback.  If no retailer wants to provide feedback, then that makes the process somewhat easier: a)  the CEREBUS fans and readers and collectors and b) Diamond and Lebonfon will help me decide the appropriate way forward.

Jeff Seiler - re: "ordering in quantities that reflect what customers want".  Yes, definitely.  The question is "Does CEREBUS and HIGH SOCIETY being off the market this long mean that there is no further demand, that we have entered the 'World Without Cerebus' context and whatever that entails in the long term?"  We aren't going to know that for a while, unfortunately.

The Kickstarter campaign I talked about last time - saying I would know in the next two weeks or so -- is definitely "no go" at this point which I'm very happy about because there are still about a dozen things I want to have figured out before even attempting another Kickstarter campaign.

Thanks to everyone for participating here.

We'll see what the next week brings!

Help finance Dave Sim to complete 'The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond' 
by making a monthly donation at Patreon or a one-off Paypal donation.

Originally serialised within the pages of the self-published Glamourpuss #1-26 (April 2008 to July 2012), The Strange Death Of Alex Raymond is an as yet uncompleted work-in-progress in which Dave Sim investigates the history of photorealism in comics and specifically focuses on the work of comic-strip artist Alex Raymond and the circumstances of his death on 6 September 1956 at the wheel of fellow artist Stan Drake's Corvette at the age of 46.

17 comments:

Barry Deutsch said...

Dave, in addition to Kickstarter, are you aware of a newer website (and approach) called Patreon.com?

It's a website for creators who want to give their fans a chance to be "patrons" - donating a certain amount of money per month to support the creator in his or her work.

It's similar to what you're doing with the paypal donor page, but more perpetual. So, for instance, I could sign up to give $5 a month to you to support your work, and the $5 would be taken from my credit card automatically each month until I cancel.

This is not necessarily an alternative to the paypal campaign and kickstarter, but something that can be done alongside them.

The nice thing about a Patreon campaign is that, after the initial set-up, they require very little attention, but are a continuing income stream.

The amount of the income stream depends on the person. Zack Weinersmith, who does a hugely popular webcomic, is making nearly $8000 a month. On the other hand, my friend Jake, who does an excellent but much less popular webcomic, is making $370 a month.

Anyway, just an idea. If you'd like to set up a phone call with Jake to get a firsthand description of how the process works, I could set that up. (Jake is the colorist on Hereville, by the way).

Anonymous said...

Huh. Interesting link, Barry.

Maybe that'd be one way to put the bootlegged digital comics to use- someone funds Dave for say, three bucks a month, they get a link emailed to them for an issue of Cerebus (and as long as they keep that up, the next issue next month, etc.). 5 bucks a month, an issue of Cerebus and an issue of Glamourpuss (since Ray Cornwall, I believe it was, said he also sent Glamourpuss and Judenhass and other Dave-centric work in digital format to George), or two issues of Cerebus a month after Glamourpuss runs out. 50 bucks a month nets you a Cerebus 'book' in digital format (like Reads or High Society or Jaka's Story, etc.) every month until that runs out. Then when better scans are finally available, that's when OFFICIAL digital Cerebus issues get sold on the Cerebus downloads site for people like Margaret/Cerebus Fangirl who (understandably) really want the downloadable Cerebus issues to be high quality.

Hell, with that kind of site to fund Dave, he could well continue Glamourpuss on the web. What I mean is, Strange Death of Alex Raymond is now entirely its own thing at IDW. But Glamourpuss can then become pure fashion parody on its own site. The web comic by itself would be free (since that's the norm for web comics, not a statement about the worth of Dave's work), split up into pages you'd have to click through to read. 5 bucks a month gets a patron a collected digital issue every (however long it takes to complete an issue of Glamourpuss- bi-monthly I suppose- the thing to make this a little special is to give it an exclusive front and back cover like an actual comic rather than just having the next page available like it would be on the site). 15 bucks a month gets the digital collections and a print issue whenever they're finished (print-on-demand places make low print runs on the internet inexpensive and entirely possible for this kind of project- fan mail section and Notes from the President would be easy content to give the print editions a little special something). Finally, 50 bucks a month gets the digital issues, print issues, and a copy of whatever eventual Trade Paperback gets produced (lets assume that there's a special print portfolio that comes with each of these since it would take many months at 50 bucks a month to produce a TPB- this could just be prints of the best single images from the comic itself, and so not especially difficult to produce). Unlike the floppy issues, the Trades can be produced through more traditional methods (like Lebonfon, assuming they actually do right by you this time around with the Cerebus reprints) and be sold through traditional means (like Diamond, comic shops, book stores, etc.).

Given that I assume a decent chunk of Strange Death has been appropriated from issues of Glamourpuss, the first batch of Glamourpuss stuff on the site could well just be cut from the original print run, which would give you time to produce new stuff and prepare a TPB of the original Glamourpuss issues (sans the stuff that IDW's going to be publishing of course). Maybe I'm being naive about the amount of work here, but it seems doable even with your schedule on Strange Death... after the Cerebus reprint mishigas is figured out, anyway.

-Wesley Smith

Sean Michael Robinson said...

Dave-

I think the odds of me convincing George of anything are very slim, at least judging by his replies so far. I hope I'm wrong. As I've said before, I'm almost positive his work could be used as it currently is with the tweaks I've suggested, namely, bitmap conversion.

This is a very complicated topic, and it's not made any easier by having to explain the concepts involved solely in words. I'll see if I can add a little bit more to the general understanding here, and then, I think it would be better to proceed by actually taking a few files and tweaking them and sending you (or Tim perhaps) some examples of what I'm talking about. I would be happy to take a look at some of the art files you're working with currently, but if that doesn't work for some reason, I can make a little demonstration with some artwork I have around.

The first, most important point--there is NO functional difference between the Glamourpuss art and the first two Cerebus books, save for the use of tone. The identical procedures can be used, save that one has to be more cautious about what types of manipulations you're doing to a file that contains zip-a-tone, in order to avoid moire (see my previous comments--not scaling, rotating, or otherwise adjusting the toned pages after they've been contrast adjusted.)

None of the techniques George describes/demonstrates in his two PDFs about the restoration are anything that can't be perfectly, seamlessly reproduced without having to resort to printer half-toning, which is, as I said, what's causing the bulk of the moire, in addition to making everything look anemic and indistinct on the page.

I'll try to send some files to Tim to demonstrate the following, but let me just go ahead and state it now. When George is lightening in order to bring out detail in an area, or darkening to fill in an area, either of these things are perfectly compatible with 1-bit reduction. It just results in either thinner or thicker lines, as the "gray edges" of the lines either turn black or turn white, thinning or thickening the whole area. I used this EXACT technique on my book, Down in the Hole, to lighten the density of certain areas of hatching to prevent fill-in between the lines. And, of course, 1-bit conversion at the final stage, after the tweaking was complete.
This is a simple thing to demonstrate, with pictures anyhow. I'll see if I can work something up.

Of course, even easier than that, give Sandeep a call and send him towards what I've written so far. As I've said, this is not some out-there procedure, this is standard operating procedure when it comes to reproducing lineart.

I'm going to reiterate one more thing that I want to make clear--no printing process that I'm aware of prints grayscale, i.e. prints with varying density of ink. Sending a printer grayscale files just makes them half-tone them. They STILL end up as 1-bit files-- in other words, just one bit files visually composed of little dots instead of your lines, which is what you get when you do the 1-bit conversion yourself via a THRESHOLD command.

This is another statement very easy to demonstrate visually, and much harder to explain in words alone. I'll see if I can work something up. But, of course, it would be much easier to work all this out over a phone conversation and some emails and sending a few files back and forth.

All the best,

Sean
seanmichaelrobinson at gmail dot com
(If someone knows if Dave is still reachable by phone, I'd love an email or reply to let me know. I find it extremely awkward to have this conversation in this manner.)

Sean Michael Robinson said...

Sorry, one last thing--

This might not solve every instance of moire, for the reasons/hazards I outlined last week. Going through and converting every page would be just a first step, followed second by generating your own "proofs" via a high res laser printer and checking out what areas are still funky, and then for those pages, possibly returning to the original scans and following the moire-avoiding procedure I outlined last week.

But converting all of the pages properly WILL significantly reduce every single instance of moire, and will in general improve the look, sharpness and definition of the entire product.

It's only the first step, but it's the main step.

Anonymous said...

Wesley, do you think there is an audience for Glamourpuss, even as a Web-comic? The comics direct-sales market judged it a failure, for reasons that were obvious in advance: the type of people who visit comics shops and the type of people who are interested in women's fashions (even making fun of women's fashions) have almost zero overlap. Do you think Glamourpuss might find an audience if it wasn't confined to the comics shops?

-- Damian T. Lloyd, gbp

A Moment Of Cerebus said...

This just in from George Peter Gatsis...

Sean,

You continue to assume incorrectly and fail to read or grasp anything I've posted…

1) I have read ALL your posts and understand them. ( as previously posted )
2) I have done what you have mentioned already. ( as previously posted )
3) You are so gun-ho on getting your point hammered that you failed to read one of the critical points in my previous posts, for which you blindly mention : "This might not solve every instance of moire, for the reasons/hazards I outlined last week. Going through and converting every page would be just a first step, followed second by generating your own "proofs" via a high res laser printer and checking out what areas are still funky, and then for those pages, possibly returning to the original scans and following the moire-avoiding procedure I outlined last week."

Bottom line, as stated on numerous posts on AMOC, we NEVER got accurate proofs from the printer to be able to fix what needs to be fixed.

Could you PLEASE actually read what I posted. Your "solution" that you constantly have repeated, plays a bit part in the bigger picture that has yet to play out.

AND...

Sean you noted: "I think the odds of me convincing George of anything are very slim, at least judging by his replies so far."
That is a very poor statement on your part. You, -AGAIN- assume incorrectly that I am not open to suggestions, while you fail to grasp what I have posted.

My most recent previous post :)

1) different scanned pieces from at least 4 different suppliers.
2) adjusting the detail of the actual film scans to retain detail when it goes to press...
3) adjusting and retaining detail of the original pages... and restoring them to their original state of over 30 years ago
4) re-screening Cerebus on any given page is not a half hour job... it's a lot longer... at least a day...
5) every page ( film scanned from 3 different suppliers / original art scanned from at least 5 different suppliers / supplied scans of various quality / existing HA scans of various quality ) requires a major clean up
6) pages that were lost in the fire required to be scanned from the best available printed books and cleaned up and fixed or corrected
7) elements and missed graphics and missed Cerebus tones required to be fixed or inserted into the artwork for the first time
8) different resolutions from varying suppliers of the artwork in point #5
9) being given digital proofs that are not accurate

note the NUMBER 9 point. . . NO ACCURATE PROOFS FROM THE PRINTER. Everything I worked on and the one solution you are constantly repeating is useless, unless there is an accurate proofing method from the printer.

If I were to have an "accurate" proofing method on my end -WHICH IS NOTED IN PREVIOUS POSTS about my trip to Kinkos- it still means squat, since the printer's printer(s) and production process is the be-end-all, veto-all-bills, do-not-pass-go, judge and jury. If I go and use an "accurate" proofing method from somewhere else other than the printer's, then the printer can step back and claim non-interest, which effectively creates another -BIGGER- problem on top of the problem at hand.

No accurate proof(s) from the printer... no progress. THAT has been the bottle neck for almost a year.

Got it?

You are welcome. :)

George Peter Gatsis

A Moment Of Cerebus said...

More from George...

AND TO DAVE SIM:
I got your fax and particulars on the different points and the "no spaces" second fax.
I am thinking that I package up the stuff and send you a data-disk for your review.
And, if you are ever going to come into Toronto, you are welcome to come by and see the progress on the feature film.
But in the mean time just click on this link:

http://www.tbdeinc.com/

...and you can see puuurty pictures in the Facebook link... though it's just the tip of the iceberg.

Stay TOONED. :)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

AND TO TIM (AMOC):

Thank you for posting my emails.
My time is becoming less and less mine... and I won't be able to even take the time to send you useful notes/replies to post on AMOC.

I will be reading, but I won't be taking the time to reply for a while.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

END OF LINE.

George Peter Gatsis

Keith said...

It was really nice to get a personal response from Dave. Thanks for taking the time to respond, and thanks for keeping everybody in the loop during this process. And thanks to Tim for making this dialogue possible!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Lou Copeland said...

George,

You appear to be ignoring a fundemental issue Sean is addressing: were the files you sent to Lebonfon grayscale or bitmap and did you scale them in your layout program or were they delivered at 100 percent print size?

Anonymous said...

Damian- Let's consider that there are web comic artists who can (and do) live off the revenue from their work. Let us also consider that Glamourpuss, while clearly not a successful indy direct market comic, still over a thousand readers.

I assume that the 500 plus people who have signed the Dave's-not-a-Mysogynist petition are, comics celebrity friends notwithstanding, hardcore fans of Dave's. I assume that there are a fair number of fans unwilling to sign the petition either because they consider him to be a mysogynist but still buy his work, or just plain haven't bothered or maybe never heard of the petition.

So, let's use that 500 as a loose, totally unscientific baseline. 500 people, times $5 a month, is 2,500 clams. Not amazing money, but a solid enough chunk of income to cover most people's utility bills, including the web and online storage space for that book. Let's then guess that there's maybe another 150 people-super hard-core fans- who feel like they can pony up a sawbuck an' a half for the print comics and a chance to support Dave doing what he should be doing- making pretty pictures and writing funny things for his fans. 150 x 15 is 2,250 bucks. Again, not amazing, but much more than enough to cover the printing costs for the floppy editions. Maybe there's 10 true-blue hardcore people who'd be willing for fork over $50 a month for the eventual trades and exclusive prints- there's 500 clams more.

$5,250 a month to spend your days drawing pretty women and making fun of fashion magazines is a really, really decent way to make a lower-middle class living. There were enough people to just hand $500 to the guy as donations via paypal. Money for nothing other than liking Dave. Yeah, my numbers are WAY-not-scientific, and I'm not taking into account taxes (because I have no idea how that shit works in the great white north), but I think those numbers are pretty conservative when you consider that Dave not only has a fanbase, but his work wouldn't be limited to comic shops- which are dying off steadily and cater to a demographic interested in a small number of things (violence, spandex, etc.). On the web, I think there's plenty of people who maybe never heard of Cerebus who'd like to read the fashion stuff. Most of them would read it for free for a while, but there's no way of knowing how many would eventually decide to kick in for a few bucks a month or order the eventual print collections.

I, and at least a thousand or so other people, really enjoyed Glamourpuss not just for the comics history, but for the great drawings of cute girls and funny fashion magazine parody (just barely parody, anyway- having read a few fashion magazines recently at a hair salon, I can honestly say Dave was far, far too kind). It's niche, sure, but this IS the world wide web we're talking about here. After a lifetime of reading comics and half a lifetime of reading web comics, I never even heard of Zack Weinersmith or his online comic that (apparently) nets the man nearly 8k a month.

-Wesley Smith

P.S.: Yeah, George kinda came on strong, but if he's replied to the same thing several times and explained the same thing several times then I can understand having a miffed reaction to the nth time some random guy came in and accused you of not knowing how to do your job.

Sean Michael Robinson said...

Wesley,

Sorry if my replies seemed unhelpful to you. I repeated myself/elaborated when adding other possible smaller solutions, or when asked for clarification by Eddie and Dave.

I'm only commenting in the first place because Dave has publicly asked for assistance on this. If all was fine, there wouldn't be a discussion of this in the first place.

I also repeated myself in so many ways in an attempt to make myself clear. The majority of the things on George's reply list don't have anything to do with the issue at hand. (See Dominick's comment above).

I'm sure you can understand this is an awkward way to have a discussion of this nature, and there are bound to be hurt feelings somewhere. I apologize if my tone has come across as uncivil. I don't intend any offense. Hopefully it's clear I'm trying to be helpful -- I've certainly spent way more time on this over the past week than I intended to.

As for me being some random guy, well, you're right. But I happen to be a random guy with knowledge of the issues involved, a random guy who Tim, Dave, and Gerhard all know something about. So hopefully that's enough for me to be entitled to an opinion ;)

Eddie said...

I have the same question as Lou. Hopefully if George isn't too busy he can reply with a simple yes or no response

George Peter Gatsis said...

TO DAVE:
Thank you for the contact!
I had a wonderful phone conversation.
Emails have been exchanged.

Anonymous said...

Sean- I didn't really intend for the P.S. in my post to sound dismissive of yourself, but re-reading it, it clearly came off that way. Honestly, I don't have a 'dog in the hunt' vis a vis you or George- we all want the best possible Cerebus reprints and that's clearly what you an' George are trying to help Dave produce.

Please now imagine that I have switched on a tape player which has a warbly, taped-off-the-radio copy of War's Why Can't We Be Friends, and am inviting George and Sean to bob their heads to the dulcet tones with desperate eyes and plenty of 'Eh? Eh? C'mon. Eh? C'maaaan's.

-Wesley Smith

Sean Michael Robinson said...

Wesley-- No problem!

Wanted to draw attention to comments on the previous week's post by great cartoonist and former long-time prepress man Mahendra Singh.

mahendra singh said...
This is a "golden age" for getting good print work at rock bottom prices, it's never been better., esp. in Canada. And the CDN$ is dropping, hallelujah!

Some printers pay little attention to proof slips because some clients can't/won't proof properly & then demand comps … some do this deliberately. You know you're going to take a bath no matter what.

scanning b/w zipatone … go greyscale and rotate source art's screen grid 15 degrees from normal before you scan … ie., determine x (or y) axis of zipatone screen, then place on glass/drum so that zipatone axis is 30 degrees off drum/scanner line of travel

every job a new adventure!

11 February 2014 12:36
Blogger mahendra singh said...
One more thing … bit map is ALWAYS the way to go with offset line art, 1200dpi is always better, same size is helpful to prevent over-eager idiots horsing around with stuff.

And you can always throttle back from there to a non-aliased 300 dpi greyscale for POD,if needed. But not the other ay

11 February 2014 19:28

Jeff Seiler said...

Dave--Sorry about wasting your time with the suggestion about Wilf. I was just thinking in terms of knowing that you kind of keep him on perpetual retainer, but I had no idea of how much time it would take for all parties involved.

Also, guess I won't call a Kitchener office supply store and have a fax machine dropped by your place next month, after all.

Glad to hear you're still able to work on STRANGE DEATH and haven't suspended it after all. VERY sorry to hear that its launch date is pushed back even further, though. Regardless, good luck at keeping it going and let me know if there's anything I can do to help.