Quote from: steveinthecity on March 17, 2017, 04:33:15 AM

Quote from: SAGG on March 16, 2017, 06:49:14 PM
Actually, Hot Dog used to be Archie's dog before he was Jughead's. I recall a story like that, though I can't find it yet. Anyone else remember it?

PEP #224. "Father Knows Beast".  I haven't come across a reprint in several years.

from the GCDb entry for the story:

QuoteSynopsis:
    Fred claims not to like Jughead's dog, but when no one's looking it's a different story.

Whoever indexed that story appears not to have been aware of the confusion at ACP regarding who Hot Dog's owner was, in the early stories pre-dating The Archie Show's airing. The story description sounds familiar, as if I've read it, but I know I can't have read the original comic or any reprint from the 1970s to 1990s, so I'm thinking it must have been reprinted in some collection (or digest) within the past decade or so. 

Yet another Hot Dog lookalike (but this Baby was after Hot Dog was already created. This is from 1986). Archie artists sure liked sheep dogs!

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 22, 2017, 01:43:11 PM
Yet another Hot Dog lookalike (but this Baby was after Hot Dog was already created. This is from 1986). Archie artists sure liked sheep dogs!

You have to wonder how much of that is the colorist's responsibility. When these 'Hot Dog-lookalikes' appear in stories, the colorist could have chosen any shades of coat from gold/orange to tan/brown to various gray shades, and if he had, we might not even be discussing those examples as 'psuedo-Hot Dogs'. Sometimes, as with this particular example, I wonder if the colorist even bothered to read it. He might just have looked at the big dog in the artwork and decided 'that must be Hot Dog, so white it is, then'.

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 23, 2017, 03:23:19 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 22, 2017, 01:43:11 PM
Yet another Hot Dog lookalike (but this Baby was after Hot Dog was already created. This is from 1986). Archie artists sure liked sheep dogs!

You have to wonder how much of that is the colorist's responsibility. When these 'Hot Dog-lookalikes' appear in stories, the colorist could have chosen any shades of coat from gold/orange to tan/brown to various gray shades, and if he had, we might not even be discussing those examples as 'psuedo-Hot Dogs'. Sometimes, as with this particular example, I wonder if the colorist even bothered to read it. He might just have looked at the big dog in the artwork and decided 'that must be Hot Dog, so white it is, then'.

  That's true. I hadn't thought of that.


I have a silly question, what do they use to color the comics, markers?

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 29, 2017, 02:21:34 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 23, 2017, 03:23:19 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 22, 2017, 01:43:11 PM
Yet another Hot Dog lookalike (but this Baby was after Hot Dog was already created. This is from 1986). Archie artists sure liked sheep dogs!

You have to wonder how much of that is the colorist's responsibility. When these 'Hot Dog-lookalikes' appear in stories, the colorist could have chosen any shades of coat from gold/orange to tan/brown to various gray shades, and if he had, we might not even be discussing those examples as 'psuedo-Hot Dogs'. Sometimes, as with this particular example, I wonder if the colorist even bothered to read it. He might just have looked at the big dog in the artwork and decided 'that must be Hot Dog, so white it is, then'.

  That's true. I hadn't thought of that.


I have a silly question, what do they use to color the comics, markers?

It's actually kind of complicated to explain, since there was a different system for coloring comic books printed using the old pre-computer technology system of four-color printing. That system basically used only 4 inks to print the comics, and a graduated screen-density for each of the 4 inks - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Each of those inks could be printed in one of four screen densities - 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% (those would be the little dots you see if you look really close, excepting 100% which was solid ink). All possible colors would be named by a combination of letters (to indicate which of the four inks) and numbers (to indicate which of the four screen densities). In reality you can't combine black with any other color ink, and so that left 64 possible colors.

When the colorist was coloring, he or she was really just creating "color guides" for the printer to use to create the "color separations". Each page would need one separation of a single color ink for each color used on the page, and a separate printing plate would print that color on each page, so the colorist could only use markers or color dyes (Dr. Martin's was a standard brand of watercolor used, more commonly with a brush) which matched the possible combinations of the 3 inks (yellow, cyan, magenta) in those four densities. The individual separations would be lined up using registration marks so the printer would know the separations would all be correctly aligned after the paper had been run through all four printing plates. To be on the safe side, the colorist most often wrote notes directly on the color guides so the separator at the printer's wouldn't have to guess. This Superman page was colored by Glen Whitmore, who also did a lot of the coloring for ACP:



Nowadays depending on the printing technology available, it's easier to just color everything on the computer, because the colorist can then do the actual separations as the final step in the coloring process. There's a real difference now between the way the color printing looks if you look at an older (1980s) Archie digest and compare it to a new one.

A lot more detailed information on this is available here:
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/comics_color.htm
and here:
http://www.comicartistsdirect.com/articles/coloring.html

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 29, 2017, 06:37:18 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 29, 2017, 02:21:34 PM

Quote from: DeCarlo Rules on March 23, 2017, 03:23:19 PM

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 22, 2017, 01:43:11 PM
Yet another Hot Dog lookalike (but this Baby was after Hot Dog was already created. This is from 1986). Archie artists sure liked sheep dogs!

You have to wonder how much of that is the colorist's responsibility. When these 'Hot Dog-lookalikes' appear in stories, the colorist could have chosen any shades of coat from gold/orange to tan/brown to various gray shades, and if he had, we might not even be discussing those examples as 'psuedo-Hot Dogs'. Sometimes, as with this particular example, I wonder if the colorist even bothered to read it. He might just have looked at the big dog in the artwork and decided 'that must be Hot Dog, so white it is, then'.

  That's true. I hadn't thought of that.


I have a silly question, what do they use to color the comics, markers?

It's actually kind of complicated to explain, since there was a different system for coloring comic books printed using the old pre-computer technology system of four-color printing. That system basically used only 4 inks to print the comics, and a graduated screen-density for each of the 4 inks - Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black. Each of those inks could be printed in one of four screen densities - 25%, 50%, 75%, or 100% (those would be the little dots you see if you look really close, excepting 100% which was solid ink). All possible colors would be named by a combination of letters (to indicate which of the four inks) and numbers (to indicate which of the four screen densities). In reality you can't combine black with any other color ink, and so that left 64 possible colors.

When the colorist was coloring, he or she was really just creating "color guides" for the printer to use to create the "color separations". Each page would need one separation of a single color ink for each color used on the page, and a separate printing plate would print that color on each page, so the colorist could only use markers or color dyes (Dr. Martin's was a standard brand of watercolor used, more commonly with a brush) which matched the possible combinations of the 3 inks (yellow, cyan, magenta) in those four densities. The individual separations would be lined up using registration marks so the printer would know the separations would all be correctly aligned after the paper had been run through all four printing plates. To be on the safe side, the colorist most often wrote notes directly on the color guides so the separator at the printer's wouldn't have to guess. This Superman page was colored by Glen Whitmore, who also did a lot of the coloring for ACP:



Nowadays depending on the printing technology available, it's easier to just color everything on the computer, because the colorist can then do the actual separations as the final step in the coloring process. There's a real difference now between the way the color printing looks if you look at an older (1980s) Archie digest and compare it to a new one.

A lot more detailed information on this is available here:
http://facweb.cs.depaul.edu/sgrais/comics_color.htm
and here:
http://www.comicartistsdirect.com/articles/coloring.html

Thanks DCR! and thanks for the links.  Man, it sure was difficult back then.

Quote from: 60sBettyandReggie on March 16, 2017, 12:24:00 AM

Quote from: MLJ 1939 on April 17, 2016, 04:49:03 PM
Archie had a Hot Dog-esque dog named Bonaparte for one story in Archie Comics #33. He even made the cover of Archie Archives #10! Archie's other dog Oscar, who appeared in a number of Sahle-era stories, did not bear a resemblance to Hot Dog.

I just came across this Oscar dog. I had never heard of him before.

This one kinda looks like that Oscar dog