Some days, those recent subway covers aren’t that far removed from the real ones here.

Is it because of all of the white on the cover? For whatever reason, I've always noticed that comics whose covers have a large white background tend to look bad. I'm not sure if it's because the white tends to show grime and scuffs, picks up ink from the back covers of comics stored in front of it, or if the lack of ink makes them more fragile.

Y'all got me curious enough to go see what my copy looks like. I bought it when I was determined to fill all the Superman and Action Comics gaps from when I had stopped collecting. Mine is on the nicer side, but definitely has some of the ink transfer that Josh mentioned.

I fucking hate this cover.

I just had a post on FB the other day that JRJR was good on Punisher and Daredevil, more realistic street comics. Man that cover is not good. I thought the lazy art was just a relatively recent thing for him but nope.

Tomorrow - 18 April - is Superman Day! And a number of special reprints are being offered, including four golden age sized Action Comics #1 facsimiles. A regular version, a foil, a blank (there always has to be a blank version now), and an homage by Dan Mora. AND, limited to 300 copies, a special CGC-graded gold foil version!!


I'll be getting the four versions at my LCS tomorrow (fanboy that I am!) and had to have the gold foil too. It won't be available until mid-June, but I already reserved a copy. I'm such a sucker for these things.

Maybe the heavy inking in the art? When you go through enough Bronze Age and early Copper Age issues like I have the past few years, you'll notice variations in the print quality between issues. I think printers occasionally got sloppy or maybe DC was forced to use a back-up printing outfit that month. I can tell DC started using slightly cheaper paper and inks after Crisis except on their prestige books and direct market-only issues. Newsstand copies generally start declining in quality by the mid-80s.

This particular issue of Action Comics was released about a year before Crisis.

I've noticed that, too. I was reading comics back then, and Uncanny X-Men always kind of looked bad, especially the mid-80s Silvestri issues. Looked like they were always running low on ink, particularly black, or something.

Also didn't help that the Silvestri/Green artwork tended to be "scratchy," with lots of fine lines, which was really the style of the 1980s. Thank you Sienkiewicz and Jansen?

Even in the construction, older comics felt more solid. Thicker paper, staples tighter and straighter.

I know it is Kirby but that almost looks as shitty as my DD HRJR cover up there.

I guess this is worse?

"Approved by the Thwip Code Authority"!