Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

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Wolverine335
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Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Wolverine335 »

I was going through a stack of Solar, Man of the Atom #1s and I began to notice a very clear and repeated difference.

In the upper right corner it is very noticeably BLUE on some copies, and very noticeably PURPLE on others.

Initial poking around has turned up nothing in terms of known variants, or printing errors, etc.
Anyone have any info on this? Which is the "proper" color, blue or purple? Is one worth more than the other? Would CGC designate them differently? etc.

Thanks for your help with this.

BTW... I'm actually a long time member, but I forgot my old username and password so I had to start a new account! Thus... my "first" post. :-)
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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by tford1972 »

Interesting that there is that dramatic of a difference but I think this is probably just 2 different print shops. One of the printers didn’t follow the recommended color pattern as well as the other.

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by THEWGZK »

It would be interesting to hear if anyone had any knowledge of this. Could be early/late print run. I believe Werewolf by Night #32 had similar issues.

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by unityshadowman »

THEWGZK wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:27:42 pm It would be interesting to hear if anyone had any knowledge of this. Could be early/late print run. I believe Werewolf by Night #32 had similar issues.
New Mutants #87 comes to mind too - there's the more common orange background version, and then there's a version where the background is a deep reddish-orange. Very striking differences. Sorry I don't have pics on hand to show this difference.
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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by ckb »

This is just a normal variance within the print run and is common. It would be unlikely that Voyager used two different printers at that point in their history, but it is possible more than one machine was used to print the run, and the ink mix on one was different than the other.

Another possibility is one machine where the ink ran out and was refilled with a slightly different shade, or the concentration was off somehow.

My best guess is that the red ink ran low, assuming that purple is a has it in the mix. There is not that much red on the cover except to make the blue into purple, or some similar color mix. In this case you would expect to find intermediate shades as well.

And yes we did notice this in 1992. :-)

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by valiantdude »

counterfeit? :)

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Chiclo »

valiantdude wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 10:44:31 pm counterfeit? :)
:hm: :roll: :?

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Wolverine335 »

Thanks for the input.

I guess I'll just assume 'normal variation in inks' and not a true variant. :?

FYI... for reasons that I truly can't remember, I somehow have 39 copies of Solar 1! So I have a decent sample size on hand to examine.
Of my 39 books, only 5 were "blue" and the rest were "purple" (although some were indeed tough call as they landed somewhere in-between).

So it would appear the "purple" is the intended color. And the "blue" is some type of mess up?
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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Chiclo »

Greg’s low on red ink theory holds up pretty well. The orange energy spatters are muted on the blue covers compared to the purple covers too.

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Juki »

So, does that mean the cover is supposed to be more purple in color? And, the all blue is more of a “mistake” do to running low on red ink?

Purple=normal
Blue=Mistake (lack of red ink in the mix)

If this is correct my question would be… Are there more Purple or Blue covers?… and what is the ratio?

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Wolverine335 »

Yes. From my 39 copies... ignoring the sort of in-between ones, and just counting "clearly blue" copies. I've got a 7-1 ratio of purple to blue.

Does that hold up among higher sample sizes? No idea.

Does that make the blue "mistake" copies worth more? Haha... hope so! I may try and list them on eBay as Errors. But They're in really nice (likely 9.8 condition)... so I was wondering if CGC would designate them differently.

But if I've got 5 of them (out of 39) they can't be extremely rare, meaning we should have seen this designation from CGC already.

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Wolverine335 »

While I'm at it...

Check this out!

I've got a few copies of Ninjak 1; and it's the highlight color (used for the right side of the letter N, then wrapped around the other letters) is clearly supposed to be RED.

I've got 2 copies that look like that. Then I've got 3 copies that are more ORANGE.

And Finally, I've got a copy with NOTHING... you can literally see right THROUGH the letter N and clearly see onto the first page of the comic.

Anyone else seeing this nonsense on any of your copies?

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Wolverine335 »

Here are the books lined up for a visual.
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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Wolverine335 »

Here you can see the contrast between the RED and ORANGE in one photo.

And the other photo I tried to get in closer to the one you can see through. Weird.
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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by Wolverine335 »

Ha. Just found one on eBay! Only 5,000 dollars. :roll:

Well... at least I know it's a real 'thing' and that CGC actually acknowledges it.
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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by nycjadie »

Solar 5 also has a lot of variations in the blue color.

A real error that is not widely discussed is the Magnus 5 cover. Many were manufactured with a very thin paper that ended up wrinkling or having waves. Shooter acknowledged this somewhere. The paper was replaced at some point with cheaper thinner paper. If you have the books side by side, you can tell immediately. I do not believe that CGC yet recognizes that one.

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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by caxiotis »

Chiclo wrote: Wed Mar 02, 2022 11:42:57 am
valiantdude wrote: Tue Mar 01, 2022 10:44:31 pm counterfeit? :)
:hm: :roll: :?
Absolutely counterfeit. A guy once told me, that he was told during a game of telephone with 10 other people, that the dark blue covers are fakes. Watch out people….
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Re: Solar, Man of the Atom #1 variant???

Post by lorddunlow »

I actually remember having several chromium covers with see through printing errors like that. Mskes me want to go dig them out and see which ones they were. Talk about a needle in a haystack though...

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