Five Cent Seurats

January 3, 2011 5:13 PM

Four Color Process is a blog which reposts magnified details from old comic book panels. The images become semi-abstract and very striking (and surprisingly non-Lichtensteinian). Some favorites: Ruined City, Steranko's Strange Tales, Ghouls, Swirl Lamp, Kirby's Silver Surfer, Romance, Novelty Magic, Ditko's Dr. Strange, Man at Conference Table, Homo Comicus, Easy to Do and finally a comparison of contemporary printing with the old four color process. [via The Front Section]
posted by Kattullus (21 comments total)

Comic Book Cartography, by the same blogger, has been posted previously.
posted by Kattullus at 5:15 PM on January 3, 2011

I am this far away from dropping $5 just so I can favorite this again. FANTASTIC.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 5:22 PM on January 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

"Man At Conference Table" is gorgeous. I wish I had a giant framed print of that.

Cool find!
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:50 PM on January 3, 2011

Great stuff. Really good find, Kattulus.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:54 PM on January 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, and "Five Cent Seurats" ... good, very good.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:56 PM on January 3, 2011 [2 favorites]

Lots of interesting images for iPhone wallpapers. Thanks!

I'd link to some, but they seem to be using temporary cloud urls.
posted by crunchland at 6:14 PM on January 3, 2011

Homo Comicus is my current desktop background.
posted by Kattullus at 6:19 PM on January 3, 2011

Absolutely incredible. I will be looking at these for a long, long time.
posted by penduluum at 6:23 PM on January 3, 2011

I want a poster.
posted by rubah at 6:26 PM on January 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm surprised at how lovely and fascinating these are. Textures of papers and inks.
posted by Jode at 6:28 PM on January 3, 2011

and surprisingly non-Lichtensteinian

I never liked Lich. He didn't seem to understand the medium he borrowed from. The sendups of him are usually better.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 6:30 PM on January 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

Half the fun of old comics is studying details like this... I love it! In the past I've snagged a few odd cosmic images and put them on T-shirts for myself, especially Kirby's work. Great find!
posted by Ron Thanagar at 6:40 PM on January 3, 2011

Brilliant, thank you! I think I will try to paint some of these.
posted by retronic at 6:44 PM on January 3, 2011

Brilliant, thank you! I think I will try to paint some of these.

I was sort of thnking the same thing. Some inspired cropping going on there.
posted by smcameron at 6:57 PM on January 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

The other thing I was thinking, related to painting, was how the bleed-y mixing of colors of the enlarged dots of the 4 color process reminded me of how some painters mix paints on the canvas in a vaguely similar way (e.g Bato Dugarzhapov comes to mind). Not that they are really all that similar, but I think I like the look of them both for similar reasons having to do with how random/irrelevant details seem to merge together to form the image in your mind, if that makes any sense.
posted by smcameron at 7:03 PM on January 3, 2011

This is a great find, thanks.

I was reading here earlier today about how reprints of older comics can suck when they try to put in airbrushy shadings on stuff that was originally destined for cheap pulp paper.

So I really liked this quote from the Steranko link:

"Forty-year-old pulpy reproductions may in fact be the definitive editions, anything else being a cheap approximation."
posted by marxchivist at 7:12 PM on January 3, 2011

#1: Lichtenstein is surprisingly non-Lichtensteinian when you get into him.

#2: Holy shit this is good.
posted by cmoj at 7:59 PM on January 3, 2011 [1 favorite]

Out of register!

lovely, actually -- that's just a Pavlovian response.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:13 PM on January 3, 2011

#1: Lichtenstein is surprisingly non-Lichtensteinian when you get into him.

QTF. After a (somewhat) recent exhibit at Chicago's MCA, I came away with a much better impression of Lichtenstein.

In my dreams where I own a gay bar in Tales of the City San Francisco, Homo Comicus is the name of my bar and that print is its logo.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:23 PM on January 3, 2011 [3 favorites]

I love these! love the texture of the paper fiber.
posted by quazichimp at 11:47 PM on January 3, 2011

Not to worry, Alvy Ampersand - I favorited it just for you.

And because it's a great post!
posted by IAmBroom at 10:06 AM on January 4, 2011