Saturday 30 November 2013

Weekly Update #7: '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...
WEEKLY REPORT ON CEREBUS (16th PRINTING) &
HIGH SOCIETY 30TH ANNIVERSARY S&N GOLD LOGO (11th PRINTING)

DAVE SIM:
(by fax, 29 November 2013)
As of Wednesday the 27th, George had determined that there were still 12 "problem children" pages remaining, after comparing his own Kinko's generate proofs to Lebonfon's 600 dpi proofs (Xerox). So, 19 down, 12 to go. The 12 pages are all in HIGH SOCIETY:
  • page 29 (panel 1 is the problem);
  • page 210 (panel 5 is the problem);
  • page 213 (panel 2 is the problem);
  • page 219 (panel 2 and 5 are the problems);
  • page 220 (panels 6 and 7 are the problems);
  • page 221 (panel 2 is the problem);
  • page 223 (panel 1 is the problem);
  • page 226 (panel 1 and 2 are the problems);
  • page 228 (George indicates that he is not "100% happy" with the entire page but is working on it); 
  • page 230 (panel 2 is the problem); and
  • page 231 (panels 1 and 2 are the problems)
except for page 301 (panel 8) in the CEREBUS volume.

Note that almost all of the problem panels are in "The Night Before" which was shot from the original artwork since, until selling the splash page through Heritage Auctions last year, I still had the complete issue #36 in the Cerebus Archive.

cc:
Matt Demory, DIAMOND COMIC DISTRIBUTORS
George Gatsis, THE BLACK DIAMOND EFFECT
Patrick Jodoin, IMPRIMERIE LEBONFON

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Since we are still on this dead horse, I'll add my 2 cents. Kinkos proofs are irrelevant, either Lebonfon's proofs have moire patterns or they don't. If they do have moire, is it acceptable or does the artwork need to be redone.

Michael