invincibleoverlord wrote:Wow, this just keeps getting weirder….

1. About Stephen's Bella… I could swear I see faint marks where the graph in the rooms' should be.
From looking at his photo it looks like a copy of an offset version with the copier set to "lighter", and it lost the grid…or maybe it's a second or third generation copy of a copy.

I can see what you mean, but I believe what you're seeing is the map on the page behind the one that's visible in the photo.  That's evident when you shift the pages by sliding them between thumb and forefinger through the bag.  I'll try to get another shot with the pages slightly separated if possible.

mbassoc2003 wrote:

afoolandhis$ wrote:I can see what you mean, but I believe what you're seeing is the map on the page behind the one that's visible in the photo. That's evident when you shift the pages by sliding them between thumb and forefinger through the bag. I'll try to get another shot with the pages slightly separated if possible.

Does that mean the other pages have a grid but the last one doesn't?

Hard to say without opening the bag, but I'll try to get a look at some of the other pages.

FoulFoot wrote:[ Image ]

Yep. That looks like a photocopy to me. This is a yellow cover version with the sketch of the tower on the front? Is the concensus thet the yellow tower copy was photocopied by TSR once Wee Warriors left the fold?

Again, from the contributor:

My best guess, looking at the material empirically, is that my black folder version is made up of printed map pages and photocopied text pages, which suggests that, originally, the makers decided to print more copies of the map pages than the text pages because the text pages were easier to reproduce with a copy machine and would require less toner, thus saving money.  It may very well be that the black folder was an attempt at a deluxe edition after the first run was sold.  It could also be that the black folder was an in-house special.  I just don't know.  If you remember Mike Kuo, he bought a black folder in shrinkwrap off of Ebay a few years ago.  If he still has it, he might be able to shed some more light.

It's obvious that my yellow-covered version is a complete photocopy, except, maybe, for the cover.

Okay, more pics here.  These first ones are of an interior map page in the Bella PoVQ, taken through the baggie.  The quality isn't the best, but it shows what I've been able to see on the other map sheets:  they don't have grid marks inside the rooms.





Here are a couple of closer shots of the map on the back page.  In the first one, in the uppermost room, you can just make out a circled "5" indicating room 5 on the adjacent map sheet.  These pics are meant to show that the traces of grid lines Mike was seeing on the previous pic of this map sheet are showing through from the sheet behind this one.  You can also see the hatching/shading from the underlying map sheet showing through inside the rooms.  The second pic here shows pretty clearly the lack of grid lines inside the rooms.





Finally, here are a couple of scans from my BF copy.  I noticed no streaking on the copyright page (looking down into the folder, since it's glued in).  The second pic is from the "Kit Use" page.  Check out the "v" in "consecutive".





It doesn't look to me like the bagged one here is a photocopy.  Any thoughts?

Offset printing plates are made by first photographing the thing you wish to make a plate of. Therefore, the "master" copy of PotVQ was typed (for the text pages) and hand-drawn (for the maps). These pages were then photographed.

The negative images are then "developed". However, instead of shining the light onto a piece of white paper (a photo), the light is shone onto a chemically-treated, flexible aluminum plate. Another chemical is applied (technically, a "fixer"), and then the plates are scrubbed clean of the chemicals. The latent (now positive) image is left behind on the plate.

These plates are then wrapped around metal drums in the press, and paper is wrapped around another drum. That's where the term "offset" comes from -- the printing drum is offset from the paper drum. The printing drum is rolled through ink, the paper drum is brought into contact with it, and voila -- you have a final, printed image.

Note that this final print is only one color. To get a second color (or more), you need to run it through the machine with another ink well. While Wee Warriors *could* have run their press with two colors -- black and grey -- they instead used the halftone technique. This technique is used in newspaper pictures -- a series of fine (black) dots, that when viewed from a distance, give the appearance of varying shades of grey. This process is cheaper -- you only have to run one color.

To get to your question, the "missing" gray grid could have gone missing in one of three ways (that I can think of):

1) The page is a photocopy, and the copier (scanner) did not have the resolution to pick up the gray details. In this case, however, I'd still expect to see some jagged, broken remanants.

2) New plates were made from either the original "master", or a new master was made. Or even, plates were made from an already-printed copy, if the master wasn't available. At some point in the photographic development process, a cheaper (or quicker) method was used, and the halftone grid didn't resolve.

3) The grid was removed on purpose. Again, this could be done from the master, or even from the negative image itself (but this is much harder).

There's maybe a possibility I'm not thinking of here. It's too early in the morning.

Foul

Foul, yours is sure a great simple way of explaining complex things.

The fact is that halftones don't generally fare very well when they are very dense (80/90% coverage and more) or very light (10/20% coverage), especially when dealing with commercial (and cheap) print runs - which I guess is the case.

The firsts tend to result black, and the seconds fade into nothingness.

So, there's a distinct possibility that the grid simply vanished in this way.
Also, problems on the printing plates could cause streaks of varied density in the final output. A too long exposure to the photographic process could also cause this... making the final image too light and "burned".

The possibilities in blotching print runs are nearly endless... I learned from my own errors  :?

Those are good points.  There's certainly a (strong) possibility that the gray grid was added separately to the printing plate -- i.e., two exposures.  If a second printing plate was manufactured for later print runs, they may have done away with the added complication and expense of a double-exposure.

As I mentioned, though, the gray grid is not gray at all.  It's black dots.  So it wouldn't have made any sense to make two separate plates, and run the paper through twice.

Foul

stormber wrote:Is there another reason the grey grid is off kilter?

Yep.  If they had made two exposures onto the same printing plate -- one exposure was the map, the other exposure was the grid.  The more I think about it, the more that makes sense -- and also helps explain why the grid is missing on some later copies.

Foul