Hey everyone! I wanted to show off this little thing I bought on ebay (thanks to Koom for pointing me toward it). This is a page of separations from Supreme #41.
Essentially, a separation is four clear sheets, each with a different color from the four-color printing process: Cyan (C), Magenta (M), Yellow (Y) and Black (K). When you line them all up, they make the full page as it should look like when printed.
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| Here it is without the black layer. You can see the colorist's contribution pretty clearly. |
Your desktop color printer does this all at once for anything you print. But for a comic that was printed at around the 40,000 number, it would go on press, with four gigantic drums (one for each color). Inside each drum is the plate, which allows that color (C,M,Y or K) to go through.
It takes a pressmen to ensure that the final product has the correct amount of ink, lines up perfectly and looks like this separation. They do this for every page.
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| Here it is with magenta and yellow |
One interesting to note about these separations. Generally, they're saved by the publisher and called the "film." When Liefeld licensed Supreme to Checker to print the trades and hardcovers, Checker didn't work from the film. Instead, they made scans from the printed pages. It's why they don't look as good as the original comics, which were printed from the film. But also, it's clear that Liefeld doesn't have the film anymore, either. So if there's ever going to be a reprint, it's going to be another one from scans.
