I got this. What a bummer I have to say.

The material looks incredible - this has to be the best looking scanned book I have seen.

Sure there are some problems, but overall - it looks really good. I don't like the way they deal with the color white outside the dialogue boxes. They strip it clean of any color - I would have left it with some newsprint tone - its too jarring. Colors like flesh tone are 25% magenta 25% yellow on top of white - they left the newsprint tone under colors like these - white blends. But other things like white shirts and such are stripped of all color data and are very noticeable in their whiteness.

To my eye, I detected a change in method at issue #21. Up until that point, the color had a very soft feel to it as if the cyan, majenta and yellow channels had a light median blur applied to them -- as if someone were trying to create a more solid looking color from the large dots. Then at issue #21, its gone and the appearance of the book gets a bit more digital - as if the blurring of color technique was dropped. This is all conjecture on my part, but I would guess this is where Harry starts work on the book as he favors a less altered approach.

I was very curious about why an earlier poster suggested the book appeared to be a hybrid of full and partial restoration. Due to the reduced size of the art, the dots are much smaller - so after this color blur was applied - it almost makes it look like solid tone up until #21.

But again - this is an amazing restoration job, by any terms. It's really masterfully done - all the way through - and I applaud the three gentlemen responsible for this labor of love. I looked at this and said - "I can't make a material improvement over this." That means a lot to me, because I would rather someone else did this stuff than me - there's too much work - and I'm an outsider yelling from the stands at this point.

But here's the catch - the damn thing is too small! I busted out the ruler and a Golden Age page from this series was about 6.5 inches across panel borders. This book is barely six inches. I know that doesn't sound like a lot - but its a pretty large reduction - around 10% smaller than original print size. BUT HERE"S THE STUPID PART: THE GUTTER BELOW THE ART IS AN INCH AND A HALF -- ITS A GIGANTIC WHITE EYE SORE!! So you have an inch and a half of wasted paper below the art, then the art is jammed into the binding to make it fit conventional trade size.

Would anyone have seriously objected to an extra inch of depth on a book? I know people don't like it when the heights are different - but if it stuck out and extra inch from the shelf would that be objectionable??? I don't think so.

The result if a very tiny looking reproduction - not in any way helped by this huge white border under the art. I look at an editorial decision like this and it makes me want to put a baseball bat to someones head. Whoever made this decision - please go work for a text based magazine - because you are no friend of comic art, and greatly dissed the guys that produced this awesome restoration. What's next, postage stamp size reproduction of Sunday pages? An inch of additional depth would have allowed the pages to be actual size, as well as providing a more balanced margin around the art. Really, its just such a waste - mostly because the fix is so simple!

All this because a few knuckle heads fans complain when something doesn't look like an encyclopedia set on their shelves. It makes me sad, because the presentation of this awesome reproduction is so significantly compromised by this one decision. They did all this work so you have to pry the thing open to see the art??

But you can write 20 friends phone numbers on any gutter of this book, or maybe a lengthy diary entry (like this, for example) lamenting the editorial decisions made on books like this.