Flexograping it

Whenever anybody talks about the experiments with flexographic printing in the 1980s, it's almost always regarded as an unmitigated disaster. Most comics are printed on paper shinier than my arse in the year 2024, but people actually seemed to be genuinely upset by what flexograph did to their comics, back in the days of newsprint.

DC and Marvel both tried out the process on a wide range of comics, from New Mutants to Conquerors of the Barren Earth, and was occasionally used on some fairly important comics, like the first issue of Crisis on Infinite Earths. 

It was an attempt to get the most out of the crappy paper stock of the day, pushing up the vibrancy of the colours to an abnormal degree, giving everything a neon sheen, and nobody in the comic community had nice things to say about it. It scorched the retinas, they said, and the whole process had massive problems with colours bleeding outside the lines.

The fan press of the day was full of the scorn, but I always thought it looked terrific. There is a part of me that always likes his comics loud and garish and over the top, and the flexographic process gave it plenty of that. The subdued tones of the newsprint didn't give that kind of thrill.

Nobody cares about this kind of thing anymore. Nobody worries about the difference between Mando and Baxter paper. But these old comics, with the experimental garishness, they're still out there, and they're still as brilliantly eye-scorching as ever.