Examining What Went Wrong With ‘All-Star Batman’ #10
All-Star Batman & Robin #10 has caused some controversy since DC Comics announced it was recalling issues scheduled to be on sale today. They described the problem through the Diamond Comics announcement that it was a printing error.
Apparently, Frank Miller’s expletive-filled dialogue was intended to be blacked out but the process employed failed to effectively do this.
The actual dialogue and scans of the offending pages can be found over at Comic Book Resources. According to Heidi MacDonald at The Beat, Miller insisted his dialogue be lettered in and blacked out. The production approach clearly failed to achieve the desired effect but editorial judgment has also to be questioned.
According to former DCer Brian Pearce over at the DC Archives board, “What puzzles me is the suggestion that the dialog in the word balloons might have printed in a four-color black (essentially, solid black backed up with a small percentage of the other process colors), while the bar that was supposed to obscure it was just a flat black, and not adequately opaque. ‘Backing up the black’ as it’s called, is often used to give large flat black areas a more ‘rich’ (and less washed out) appearance, or to ward off problems with trapping (when registration is slightly off) — but what strikes me as odd is that there’s really no need to do that with a fine detail like lettering. It’s not really necessary, and against a white background, that would betray even the slightest misregistration. (And even as comics printing and coloring have become more elaborate through the years, lettering inside baloons and caption boxes was genenerally left as only black because it was easiest to strip out that detail from just that one plate for foreign licensees and reprints.)
“And before the usual suspects start speculating on who might lose a job over this, this is an error that would be difficult, if not impossible to spot without a very specific type of proof, or a press proof. (It was probably caught on one of the unbound ‘last chance copies,’ when the books have been printed and bound, but there’s still time to do something.)”
Copies are already being hawked at eBay and its likely that similar to similar recalled comics, such as the Elseworlds 80-Page Giant, it will remain a rare collectible.
Unnoticed in all this was that Action Comics #869 and DC: Decisions #1 were also recalled for other printing problems. The reasons behind these two remain unclear.
In this space on Friday and Saturday, my esteemed colleagues Mr. Davis and Ms. Thomases waxed on about the political situation of the day. Whereas there is no more important issue facing us as Americans in this moment in time (and it has considerable impact on non-Americans as well), I will not follow in their wake this week. I’m sure I will in the future.
In a story that has had more twists and turns than the graphic novel it’s based on, the legal battle over the movie rights to Watchmen is in the final stretch. Gary Allen Feess, a federal judge, set a trial date of January 6th for the copyright suit between 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers. The date is two months before the film’s scheduled release.
As most of us know, this year marked Superman’s 70th anniversary. And as if that weren’t enough to engender conversation about the Man of Steel, Brad Meltzer’s new novel Book of Lies has prompted quite a bit of discussion concerning Martin Siegel, who died during an armed robbery and whose son Jerome "Jerry" Siegel subsequently wrote the story of a bullet-proof alien who was invulnerable to all frailties.
1938 – Superman/Clark Kent is finally introduced in Action Comics #1. Although Siegel has plotted out the name of Superman’s parents and planet, none of these are actually named in this issue’s origin story. Superman is said to have great strength, resistance to conventional injury, and is able to leap 1/8th of a mile.
1941 – Superman #10 features our hero actually defying gravity for the first time by hovering in the air. Previous to this, it was always stated in the comics that he could only leap over great distances. Superman #11 confirms that Superman can now fly, just like in the cartoons and radio shows.
September roars in with a new TV season on the way, one of the year’s last big conventions just around the corner and our usual load of new comics and DVDS, plus:
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Warner Bros. has given a green light to a Jonah Hex script from Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank). "Pre-production will begin January 2009 before principal photography gets underway in March 2009 in either Louisiana, Georgia or Arizona,” the producers told 
This column is unusual in that I’m starting to write it in the doctor’s office. There’s no emergency – it’s just time for my annual mammogram and breast sonogram, and the doctors are running late.
