Sheets of Suckpax 2 cards hot off the press

Had a great day at the printers yesterday!  A great team, relaxed and expert.  Several pressmen and managers came around to check the progress, and meet and greet.  Some of the cards are a bit raunchy, and the whole job is very different from their typical work.  I think a few came around to see who had brought in such odd stuff.

I was excited about the printing, and they put up with me running around with my camera.  Above are the stack with fronts only printed.  These are about to be flipped over for backs to be printed next.  They have a huge clamp that grabs the whole stack, then pivots 180 degrees and puts them back down.  I arrived at 11am for “press check”, which is to observe the first sheet printed for quality.  The fronts were right on the money.

Punching the printing plate for mounting in the press.

The most important issue for press check was the backs.  The Sucklord has put secret messages on the backs, and the color balance is critical to have the whole decoder system work properly.  We had done multiple experiments pre-press on the same material, to get the art as close as possible.  I had expected to need some adjustments at the press (raise or reduce opacity of ink) to get it right, but to my happy suprise it was exactly correct the first sheet, no need for changes.

The sheets have to sit and dry for a day, and will be cut up into individual cards Friday morning.  I will be picking them up in the afternoon.  On the same trip I will be picking up some materials for special inserts.