The Ferret #1 Printing Proofs?3653
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jdangerc private msg quote post Address this user | |
| So I run into a guy selling some comics. He purchased some old stock from a company called Sparta Press Comics. Sparta Press printed some of the comics for Malibu, Harris and Valiant. They specialized mostly in applying "foil" and "holographic" material to comics. So back to my purchase. Guy shows me pictures and I pick out over 100 books. Mostly stuff that is $2-$5, nothing spectacular. Well I get them in today and I notice that The Ferret books look a little off. One is die cut, one is not and the other is a foil. Well doing a little research today and find out the foil one is a printing proof. The die cut one is the regular run of the mill production, but the uncut one, no one has a clue. Some are saying the uncut one is a test sample. Others are saying its an error uncut book. I have no idea. So I am coming to you guys to help me out. What do you guys think about the 3 books? Do any of you all have any similar Ferret #1's? Please help me out. Thanks in advance. Oh and another thing. All the comics I got in this lot are in heat sealed polybags. I have never seen that before.     |
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 I bought a meat grinder on amazon for $60 and it's changed my life.
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kaptainmyke private msg quote post Address this user | |
| oh that's nice | ||
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jdangerc private msg quote post Address this user | |
| @SteveRicketts if these are Proofs or errors, will they be noted that way on the label if I grade them? | ||
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jdangerc private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Ok so the one is a proof for sure, but does anyone have any info on the non die cut one? | ||
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VaComicsGuy private msg quote post Address this user | |
| No idea but cool find. | ||
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jdangerc private msg quote post Address this user | |
| Well I checked Google, eBay and every avenue that I could think of. I cannot find any pictures or info on the uncut one. I just want to see if anyone has the same issue or knows anything about it. | ||
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jdangerc private msg quote post Address this user | |
Ok so looks like if I grade, one will get error notation. If the proof comic is small enough to fit in a cbcs case, will grade as a proof. And after countless hours of searching, I think I have the only ones in existence. Pretty cool!  |
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| ****UPDATE***** ***UPDATE*** 8/7/2017 So here is the information I got from the Ultraverse/Malibu FB group. Most of the information is coming from one of the Co-Founders and Creative Director of Malibu, Tom Mason. I am using quoting his information. His quote from the group, questioning the proof~~" These aren't "Proof" copies. They're just untrimmed interiors that were printed at the same time as the rest of the issue. Scott Rosenberg had the idea of trying to create an oddball "variant" on the cheap (not a criticism, just a fact - they weren't supposed to be worth big bucks, just interesting oddities that other publishers weren't offering; we'd hand them out as little perks), and untrimmed guts meant the books were pulled off the line before being trimmed. Dave Olbrich, Scott and our manufacturing department decided on print runs, and these would be ordered like anything else. We also did this with a couple of Image books, including Spawn #1 (I think). There were way more than 10 made at the time, I believe. But Roland Mann can probably speak to that better since he was the editor of Ferret. (Edited to add: This is from memory, which may be faulty 20+ years after the fact, so someone else might weigh in with better and more accurate information.)" So the foil untrimmed is technically not a proof. Which technically means that Ultraverse Prime #1 that they sold as a proof copies (came with a coa), are really not proofs at all. Both the Prime "proof" and The Ferret Foil have the same attributes. So what is a true proof copy?~~" Proofs. Haha. Here's the way it used to work. We'd send an issue to the printer and the printer would set it up and create one (1) proof - a blueline proof of the entire interior-only of the issue, printed on specialty light-sensitive paper and trimmed to comic book size, and saddle-stitched. You can Google "Blue Line Proof" to see a sample. Everything was printed in blue ink. This was sent to us for review - to make sure the pages were in the right order, all the correct ads were in place, and nothing was out of whack or off-register. The proofs would arrive in the morning via FedEx, and we'd drop everything to review and call the printer asap so the book could print. That's a proof. And for the issues it was done, it truly is a one-of-a-kind item (and we threw them out after an issue was approved). If we got untrimmed guts, that meant that the issue was already on press and printed. Our printer didn't print 10 copies of the guts of an issue, pull it off the press to send us the guts, wait for our approval and then put the issue back on the press to finish the job. The idea was always to get the issue printed and out the door as quickly as possible to ship to the distribution points and get paid. " So these are NOT proofs. One is just a regular edition Ferret #1 that missed the die cut. The Foil version is said to be an incentive version. The editor of The Ferret, Roland Mann ended up finding 2 Die Cut foil versions in his inventory. The foil ones I have are untrimmed. Tom said that there were at least 1,000 copies or more of the foil version printed. When I asked for a back story on the foil version he said~~" When you say you would "love to know the back story" about the foil, do you have a specific question? They existed, they were created as a retailer incentive based on copies ordered, and copies that didn't make it to the stores or into the hands of fans were disposed of in one of two ways after Marvel bought Malibu: (1) either they were sold off to wholesalers or (2) tossed into the dumpster. It's not an epic with a plot twist. " So why is the foil version so hard to find? They may have been sold off, still in a warehouse somewhere or in the city dump. All we know for sure now is that there could be a bunch hiding in collections all around the USA......or rotting in the dump. As of today I have 4 regular editions that missed the die cut production process (so considered an error). And the "incentive" Foil version uncut/untrimmed (I guess considered an error?). (we know that Roland has 2 die cut foil versions)Which would probably be the production incentive versions. |
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