The best laid plans…
I sent HEROES NOW: PATRIOT and STRANGE TIMES #1 off to the printer last week and received the digital proofs on Friday. STRANGE TIMES looks great. Totally ready to roll.
PATRIOT, however, caused me to pause. The grey-tones that Tony Lorenz used were showing up as plaid on my screen.
(As background, Tony draws with pen and paper, cutting his zip-a-tone in, then scans his final art to paste up digitally.)
I racked my brain thinking of what could be wrong and settled on the fact that this is high-definition imagery (1080P-grade) being shown on a 720P HDTV/monitor. (BIG screen. Highly recommended. Cheap, too!) My theory was that the lower resolution screen was improperly compressing the fine zip-a-tone dots that make up the greys. So I asked the printer about it, and they said they would run a sample and check again.
Earlier this week, I received word that I was indeed correct. Lots and lots of plaid throughout. Bless their hearts, the printer offered to put my project aside so I could retool.
So we’re going back to the drawing board.
Tony’s going to resend me 100% clean copies of his art. I’m going to paste them up without any retouching. I fear that my minimal cleanup – removing a smudge here or there, darkening the blacks on occasion – may have corrupted the core images. Anyway, we’ll go back to the printer with a fresh final copy once that process is complete.
Tony’s working on another project right now, so hopefully this is a small job and he can keep rolling along. Until then, thanks for your patience. (And special thanks to Alan Groening, whose Strange Tales #1 contributions sit in printer limbo, and Larry Johnson, whose Patriot cover still looks GREAT!)
Nobody wants this book finished more than Tony and me, but we’re going to make sure it’s done right.
Phoenix Productions 