captainmarvel1957 wrote:
It just seemed to me that when "contemporary" comics emerged with the Image line that the move to slick stock made it possible to do more with the colors---more subtle shading, color effects, making them almost photographic in quality. I would never have guesed that the same type of art reproduction would have been possible using standard printing techniques on pulp quality paper.

It's a perfectly legitimate question, cap. In fact, I guess the real point of my story is that even Marvel themselves didn't know what could or couldn't be done, until we went ahead and showed them. They'd been extremely concerned that the fine linework and details that were becoming popular were dropping out and being lost in the printing, so we showed them a way to do it (our own method -- ancient Chinese secret) that would maintain the integrity of the artists' work. Those four X-MEN # 1 covers were the ones that sold 'em (and the weekend turnaround on the job, from start to finish, didn't hurt, neither). When they saw that we could maintain that quality on a regular basis, they rescheduled all of their cover production to go through our company (and literally, across my desk).

First time I visited Marvel's production offices, there was a very real fear that their two most popular superstar artists might one day jump ship, form their own company and do their stuff on their own. And within a year, Image was born.

The subtle shading and color effects you talk about were a result of my redoing Marvel's color chart and giving them more colors to work with, at their request, back in the days before everyone just used Photoshop.