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THE ART OF LOOK-IN
(Con't)
On the left we see another Asbury strip, this time it's
'Dick Turpin', This one has what looks like height and width lines, if you
look carefully you can see where the Editor (presumably), has drawn a line,
effectively cutting off part of the drawing, for the finished print in the
comic. This would be presumably be a guide for the printer.
‘You're part right. Artists like
Martin Asbury, who drew this page, John Burns and even Mike Noble played
hard and fast with the page edges, presumably at the encouragement of Alan
Fennell and Colin Shelbourn. The vertical line to left is indeed a
measure, as is the horizontal one under the frame at bottom left. BUT the
actual bottom of the page is where the mark (that looks like an 'L'
standing on its head). These are crop marks, and they would be
placed just outside (usually about 3mm - the tolerance of a guillotine for
trimming) so as not to appear on
any printed edge. The editor would probably never draw a line indicating
where the bottom of the page would be in case it printed (and believe me,
in my time I HAVE seen this happen!) but (presumably) the printer has
written the measure in the print area! In the case of the film negatives
used to make plates, it IS okay to do this providing it is against a white
background and not on any of the illustration as it can be 'spotted out'.
That is, an opaque red pen is used to draw over the instruction - which
appears clear on solid black - on the negative before the plate is made.
Risky, but it happens, as evidenced here.’ (Shaqui)
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And Finally above a large scan of part of a 'Catweazle' strip, despite
being grey scaled you can actually see where the lettering was stuck on
later. On the original this is now yellowing quite a bit, but is obviously
clearly legible. The artwork itself is amazingly vivid and could
have been drawn yesterday.
It's good to know that all this art survives and is
hopefully now in the hands of people who will appreciate it and cherish
it. It also gives hope for more to be found in the future. Of
course if anyone knows of the whereabouts of any more Look-in artwork, it
goes without saying, I'd be really interested in seeing it.
(Thanks to Shaqui Le Vesconte, who was the
lucky purchaser of the 'Catweazle' strip, for the above scan, needless to
say I am as green as the Hulk with envy....!!! Also thanks to Shaqui
for the mine of interesting information used to update this article)
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