Kingdom Vol. 2 - Call of the Wild.

Mark Taylor · 29 February, 2012, 11:09:33 PM

...Arrived through the letterbox today and I'm greatly looking forward to reading it after re-reading vol.1. However, when viewed side by side with vol.1 the interior print quality is notably inferior. Unlike vol.1 the printed 'dots' or pixels which make up the reproduced artwork are clearly visible to the naked eye without even looking that close up, and the colours appear comparatively muted. As a result, Richard Elson's excellent artwork just doesn't have the same impact as with the first volume, in which the reproduction was great and the artwork really jumped out of the page. It won't spoil my enjoyment of reading it but it is a little disappointing.

Is it just my copy or have others noticed the same?

The Adventurer · 01 March, 2012, 04:00:35 AM

Do you have a camera or scanner to show us what you mean?

Ancient Otter · 03 March, 2012, 10:40:25 PM

Is it throughout all of the book or on certain pages? I had a quick flick through my copy today and it seems o.k. on first impressions...

Mark Taylor · 05 March, 2012, 08:40:57 AM

Throughout the book. However, look at other recent GN releases from Rebellion I think it's just that they have changed printing methods at some point because other recent books are printed in a similar way. It's just more obvious with the art in Kingdom because there's a lot of saturated block colour. It's also quite noticable in the Missionary Man trade because of the colouring style in that book.

I don't think you'll even notice it unless you compare it directly to the first book, side by side, as I did. I've now read the book and it didn't bother me that much. Probably It wouldn't have bothered me at all if I hadn't read the first volume immediately beforehand.

Comparing it with the prog, the print quality is about the same as the prog. Look closely enough and you can 'see the dots'. Personally I don't have to look that closely but my eyes have always been a bit more sensitive to that sort of thing than most people's in my experience.

radiator · 05 March, 2012, 08:59:34 AM

Ahhhh - you're talking about the moire effect rather than pixellation.

Yeah, this has effected a lot of the recent Rebellion trades. I thought it was something to do with scanning old strips, but obviously not as it's affecting something as recent as Kingdom.

Bit annoying, but not something that significantly spoils reading.

radiator · 05 March, 2012, 09:00:33 AM

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moir%C3%A9_pattern

IndigoPrime · 05 March, 2012, 10:04:21 AM

Moiré shouldn't really be an issue in newer trades, given that they're being reproduced digitally. Older colour material is more likely to be affected, since you're scanning a printed page and then printing it, which is much of what leads to the interference pattern.

Evil Pants · 13 March, 2012, 06:51:07 AM

Has anybody in North America gotten this yet? I've noticed that Diamond ships most of the 2000AD trades about 4-6 weeks after the official street date, so I'm hoping this shows up soon.

Evil Pants · 05 April, 2012, 06:02:48 AM

Just saw that Diamond is finally shipping this next week. Whoohoo!

IndigoPrime · 21 April, 2012, 02:43:40 PM

I just read my copy and I agree about the repro quality—it's surprisingly poor. It reminds me of US comics or lower-quality US trades, in that you can see the print pattern. This isn't moire from scanning, but halftoning. However, I don't see this as being typical of current books, because Anderson PSI Files 2, Ampney Crucis and the US Nikolai Dante trade (Too Cool To Kill) don't suffer from the same. A duff(ish) print-run, perhaps?