Comic Book Cleaning Gone Wrong!

Flash No.139 Comic Book Conservation Episode 3.
In this video I continue the comic book conservation project for this copy of Flash #139, the first appearance of the Reverse Flash, published in September 1963 by DC Comics and written by John Broome and drawn by Carmine Infantino. This is a big Silver Age key from the Flash’s Rogues Gallery and this copy belongs to a friend of the channel.
In today’s video I perform all of our wet work for this cover-aqueous cleaning, deacidification, and resizing baths as well as tear seals with Japanese paper and wheat paste. I then review some rather disappointing results from these processes and offer some ideas on what went wrong and how we can improve the processes to make mishaps like the ink loss we saw on this comic book less likely in the future.
These techniques should result in a CGC Conserved label and in my experience when executed properly do not trigger purple or restored label from CGC.
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#comicbookcleanandpress #comicbookconservation #comicbookrestoration #comicbookdrycleaning #comicbookwetcleaning #silveragecomics #silveragecomicbooks #dccomics #theflash #dcu #dcuniverse #reverseflash #eobardthawne #roguesgallery
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Equipment
Tusy Press: amzn.to/3YqNzjt
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Wet Cleaning Tools
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[@blakshawn7117]

Awesome video! noob observation. I think the rocking helped with the color loss. Probably slight rubbing on the poly paper.

[@jerrychase6638]

Many years ago, as a professional photographer, I did a huge amount of darkroom work. Some of the knowledge gained may transfer here. First, rocking in the same direction all the time is almost guaranteed to put streaks in a photo print, because the chemicals are not replenished or distributed evenly. Second, if you have a sheet of remay or other protective material on the surface of a print or page, when you do the rocking motion the contact areas are under torsion. Note that in the third bath you used continuous rocking, when the paper had already been weakened and had two rounds of stress. The complete "protective" sandwich worked against you. When developing film or a photographic print, you want an even amount of chemical interaction between the emulsion and the bath, while disturbing the emulsion and substrate as little as possible. To do that, the chemical is initially moved to get all areas saturated with fresh chemical. You then STOP agitation until the point where the chemical in the immediate area of action has been depleted. Only then do you agitate to bring fresh chemicals in and flush the exhausted back into solution. That same idea is valid with surfactants, lime water, or just about anything else. Excess agitation is to be avoided. I would also reconsider the complete sandwich during the entire bath. That would never be done in a darkroom, because the even flow over the emulsion is more effective. There are times when the paper is weak enough that a sandwich may be needed. I've had posters and etchings want to come apart on me, so I understand the fear. If you want agitation to distribute chemicals and remove waste products, you might consider a method for the solution to come on (gently) vertically, rather than horizontally, where any action acts more like sandpaper than a bath. Where are you getting your Japanese paper? It looks finer than what I have found. Why are you using wheat paste instead of concentrated MC in the repairs?

[@DrPaulKosnik]

Jerry thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience, it's much appreciated. I did a follow-up video to this one in which i come to many of the same conclusions, so i think your assessment is spot on. I get my Japanese paper from Talas, i use the 5 grams per square meter Tengujo that they offer. I use wheat paste because it is the preferred archival paste in the paper and comic book conservation community. It is considered stronger than methyl cellulose which, as i prepare it, i can confirm, although to be fair i have not tried preparing very high concentration MC. I do use MC on interior pages and for small tears in the cover but usually use wheat paste where additional bonding strength is necessary, like on the spine of the cover. Sometimes i use wheat paste just because i have some mixed up from a previous conservation project and would rather not waste it. Thanks again for your input and welcome to the channel, i hope you'll give us more feedback!

[@daushaus89]

Life learning never stops. 😮

[@sethvinnanayakkara5989]

Nice work Dr. Kosnik :)

[@micpar2]

WOW! OUCH! Sorry to see this happened. I still can't believe all the dirt that came off my copy of TTA #79.

[@Coffee_And_Comics]

Well that's a tough break. At least the issues are now know though, so some sort of corrective action can take place. That, versus we think the methods are okay, and have multiple books ending in the same manner. I'm sure you'll figure it out Dr. Paul.

[@DXCZouk]

There are horizontal lines of colour wear across the cover which are expanded at the edges of the pages. I think it's due to the stress and friction of the fluid on the grooves and perhaps higher turbulence/viscosity at the edges. Probably need to have more support underneath like a sieve mesh and less movement/exposure, perhaps even a bounding fence around the comic. At least something to try?

[@raulmendieta9696]

Wow, 😮. Your procedure was so smooth and your off camera description of the action so clear and on point, I'm truly impressed. Great job. You obviously love comics and have great skills towards that goal of conserving them for future generations. Thank you for sharing 👍

[@danfoley2442]

Successes and setbacks are both educational, thanks for sharing. And thanks for mentioning that you use 5 gram tengujo paper, I was curious.

[@Andrew-pm6uj]

I had the same thing happen to several silver age books I worked on when combining those two chemicals. If you figure out how to fix it, you would be doing everyone a great favor.

[@peteralachi3888]

Dear Dr Paul, it’s too bad, you can see the color loss when you zoom in towards the end. I’ve experienced the same and worse, what I called white spotting color loss with a few DC silver age book. I personally think it’s the Calcium hydroxide that is doing the damage and not the methyl cellulose.

[@travismoriarty669]

Dr Paul. Thank you for the vidoes and inspiration. I have hit a snag and am trying to avoid throwing in the towel on my de-acidification journey. I am using the non woven from the affiliate link. So far have done 20 books with 9 suffering ink loss. Not insignificant. I have followed the same steps and process from a success to a failure with no rhyme to reason. Do you have any thoughts on whether moving to a hollytex might help. The inks are not coming off in the rinse aid at all. Its only during the paper towel drying. They are slouching off onto the polyester. Help me obi-wan, your my only hope.

[@DrPaulKosnik]

Travis what is your paper towel change out timing? You want to dry the page as quickly as possible.

[@travismoriarty669]

​@@DrPaulKosnikthanks for the quick reply. I am changing them at 10 minutes, then after 30 more, then after 60 more, then after 2 more hours, and finally after 4 more hours. Leaving that until next morning. I started to think the non-wowen polyester was grabbing the ink. Like it wasn't smooth enough. All the books were silver age in this sample. I am not a quitter generally. But I don't like to damage comics either. So I'm flummoxed

[@DrPaulKosnik]

If the inks are bleeding into your blotting materials I think it means you are not drying your pages quickly enough. Try changing paper towels more frequently, especially in the initial stages of drying.

[@travismoriarty669]

​@@DrPaulKosnikthanks for the direction. I will try this and report back with results. Thanks for your time and wisdom. And willingness to share it.

[@travismoriarty669]

​@@DrPaulKosnik, I am reporting back. I have stopped having the consistent ink loss. I sourced some holytex from an online retailed for 9 bucks a yard. That by itself is a night and day step up in my drying time. The previously used cotton substrate from Amazon was retaining a lot of water. I also starting using 2 layers of paper towels during drying. And also am changing them more frequently and then finishing drying in my seal press between bristol paper. So far this has greatly improved the issue. There was a single book that had some loss. It was already water damaged so I'm assuming that was the difference in results. Thanks so much for the training and advice. And all you do for the community.

[@halifaxhiker]

I’ve never watched a comic book conservation video until today so I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about but… it looks to me like the ink loss corresponds with the ridges in the bottom of the photo tray… no?

[@DrPaulKosnik]

Welcome to the channel and You are correct Halifax! We had a robust discussion about it but at some point so of my comments got erased from KZbin. I did a follow-up video in which I discussed it though if you are interested: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bHeWl3aAm9ajrM0

[@JamesDf9621]

Darker room would help,,, and way too much water time too much moisture😢 first wash 3 minutes. I don't believe moisturizing the book , before starting 😢

[@DrPaulKosnik]

Thanks for the tips! How does a darker room help?