Sean697 work in progress?

[Sean697]

It makes me wonder if it depends on the type of binding. I actually pulled straight up from the spine and not out while holding the heat gun in my other hand blowing air on it. I never had any glue. And the pages came out perfectly with a straight unblemished edge. But it's possible the Game Buyer had very little glue? Maybe some bindings have glue on the pages as oppose to just in the edge?

[marktrade]

It makes me wonder if it depends on the type of binding. I actually pulled straight up from the spine and not out while holding the heat gun in my other hand blowing air on it. I never had any glue. And the pages came out perfectly with a straight unblemished edge. But it's possible the Game Buyer had very little glue? Maybe some bindings have glue on the pages as oppose to just in the edge?

That's still a better angle than what I was doing originally.

There's definitely glue that runs onto the pages on a lot of what I scan, sometimes a full centimeter in from the spine. I'll run into problems with those pages still but this gives me hope that if I take it with a different angle it might improve things.

I have to manually check and separate each page individually even after using a stack paper cutter. Most of the pages are cleanly separated but there are always a few that stay together because the glue ran further into those pages than others. And if I don't separate those before putting them into the sheetfed scanner than the pages with crumple and damage.

[Sean697]

Sheet fed scanner? Ah no wonder you crank these out so fast. All manual flat bad here. I would imagine you have to have the pages pretty good shape to scan that way.

[E-Day]

That must be once hell of a scanner if you can get scans that look that good from a feed scanner. I tried using the ADF on my Laser Multifunction and they looked bad. I might try it again and fiddle with the settings. I would love it if I could scan an issue in several minutes instead of several hours.

EDIT: I take back that they look bad. They actually look quite good. But they also look pretty crooked. Most are fine, but every few pages will go through very crooked to the point where a portion of the page is cut off.

I might give it another whirl when I start scanning EGM #95. If it saves me time in the long run I might start using it simply because I have a giant stack to scan and it seems like it's not shrinking. Right now scanning takes a long time, but editing does not since I added a strip of construction paper to my scanner plate which stops the top edge from being cut off a bit by default and it means the page is straight more often than not, so it takes less editing time. I will have to see how long it takes me to edit an issue scanned through the ADF.

[marktrade]

I still spend hours editing them. :(

[Sean697]

Game Buyer Issue 4 is complete. That was the worst of the magazines I had to scan. I wanted to use it as a test for debinding. It came out rather well. But the last 20 pages are so so.

Next up is EGM Issue 22.

Going a little out of order, but I wanted to do the Sonic cover for awile so I'll knock this out first before going back to issues 18,19,20. Actually if I do this issue, then 19, then 27, I can do all of the 3 16-bit mascot covers back to back to back! (Sonic, Bonk, SMW)

[aloram]

Awesome. Looking forward to more issues from the Game Player's/Players/UGP/Game Buyer universe. That magazine got really good starting in 1995 in particular, though 1994 marked a significant change from 1993. Once Mark Higham took over as Editor in the March 1994 issue, the magazine went in a new direction.

[parallaxscroll]

Amazing work, Sean!

[VGBounceHouse]

I've used a heat gun before but it just occurred to me, while reading this, that I only used it while pulling the page in the opposite direction from the other page, with the magazine in the open position. This would pull off many small chunks of clue along with the page, which I found annoying and not fit to put into the scanner. I also had small success with getting a clean separation. Even while melted, the glue was pulling off ink from the page. Anyway it occurred to me that maybe my problem was that I was pulling the page in the wrong direction and that I should have been pulling the pages all in the same direction, away from the spine instead of away from each other, while the magazine was in the closed position.

So I just tried it that way on one of my duplicate issues of NextGen and had a lot of success! The pages come off much more cleanly and I seem to be getting all the page content. I'm definitely going to practice with this more.

Any recommendations from either of you guys on a heat gun? I'm happy with pulling the pages out by hand as I've done for EGM 65 but at the "section breaks) a gun could loosen that extra glue that added minor tears.

[Sean697]

Any recommendations from either of you guys on a heat gun? I'm happy with pulling the pages out by hand as I've done for EGM 65 but at the "section breaks) a gun could loosen that extra glue that added minor tears.

I would just go to Home Depot or something and get the lowest wattage one they have that would be more than adequate. Plus heat guns are useful for lots of other things as well. I supose a hair dryer could work but they generally don't put out enough heat, and it would take forever to loosen the glue. I got zero tears. I'm definitely using it when I get to my next bound magazine.

[adultdoug]

Thanks for your effort Sean. And thanks to others for voicing your guys' support. I knew when I found this site, its passion that keeps it growing and being awesome. I can't wait to collect them all.

[Sean697]

Man I rue the person that applied scotch tape to the center of pages of this EGM I'm scanning. Really slowing down my editing taking it out. Especially because over the years the adesive deteriorated and and formed these black stains that bleeds trough the the 10 pages before and after the tape. Especially bad trying to edit around the center page thread where it goes right through the text. Spent over an hour on that one page.

[Sean697]

EGM 19,22,27 are up on the main page. It took me about a month to do these 3. 27 was especially long because of the Sega Force mini mag included inside of it. So I figure that is about my pace right now. 3 a month, depending on magazine length and condition. I wanted to scan all 3 of these mascot covers together. I may think about changing out the Sega Force we have for download with the one in issue 27. Or at least updating the pages where this scan is better quality. But that can wait as I'd rather do new scans first. Also the Sega Force we have is an actually newstand version and not identical to the one in EGM 27. There are only a few pages different. Mainly the barcode on the cover and a couple of extra/different pages at the back advertising EGM subscriptions.

Also I may have been able to do this quicker but I didn't have a favorable schedule this month. Plus I have NBA league pass this year to watch the a Golden State Warriors and the are having a historic season so I've been watching every game. Definetly prevented me from scanning more.

What's next? I'll probrably look to see what EGM or Ultra Game players has the most votes and I'll do that next. But would be nice to have that most wanted list to refer to to make researching what has more votes easier.

Edited March 9, 2016 by Sean697

[Sean697]

The votes have spoken. Next up is EGM 18.

Edited April 16, 2016 by Sean697

[kitsunebi]

Despite the toyline and cartoon having jumped the shark by the time of the above-pictured Captain Gridiron, I actually really enjoyed G.I.JOE on the NES. One of the few games where I tried to finish it on every difficulty, as the locations of things were different, and careful selection and leveling of your characters was essential to beating later stages. One of the best licensed games of its time, in my opinion.

[E-Day]

I will extract that Sega Force and make it a stand-alone download in the Sega Force sub-section.

[parallaxscroll]

The votes have spoken. Next up is EGM 18.

Awesome. In the letters section of that issue they have pics of Strider for what they claim is the NEC SuperGrafx version (not the normal TurboGrafx-16 / PC-Engine, but the more powerful SuperGrafx released only in Japan. However the pics were likely from the arcade game. What happened to the canceled SuperGrafx version and the rumors about it is stuff of myth & legend.

This is the page I'm referring to.

[Sean697]

So I'm editing EGM 18 after finally finishing scanning and straitening the pages. It's been a slow month due to work schedule, spring break with my family off, taxes, and watching basketball. I should have time to edit it fairly fast. I'm 10 pages done but the cover needs some work. From far it's not bad but up close its a white cover so the waxy film on the cover picked up a lot of dirt so I'm cleaning it up extensively. Might take anothe 30 minutes cleaning up the cover alone. The rest should go fast. There about 5 images I combined this issue, mostly mega man 3 maps, and some two page art like the Dick Tracy Page that has a huge pixel art image split across two pages.mthey all came out nice. On one of the mega man maps in snake man's stage, the page break cut off one of the enemy sprites where I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be when combining. I actually watched a play through of the game on YouTube to identify the enemy in that section, find another one of him on the page and fix it with the clone stamp. Yes I am dedicated to getting it right I guess.

I have only one staple bound issue left to scan, the Battletoads cover. These issues take much long to scan because I take out the staple and have to align them on the scan plate. Then individually name the pages and keep track of them as I'm scanning because they are out of order. It just takes longer because I'm going to staple these issues back together to preserve them. After that I'll be debinding and the scanning will go much much faster. Possibly in one or two sittings for a whole mag.

Edited April 14, 2016 by Sean697

[LamondFan90]

So I'm editing EGM 18 after finally finishing scanning and straitening the pages. It's been a slow month due to work schedule, spring break with my family off, taxes, and watching basketball. I should have time to edit it fairly fast. I'm 10 pages done but the cover needs some work. From far it's not bad but up close its a white cover so the waxy film on the cover picked up a lot of dirt so I'm cleaning it up extensively. Might take anothe 30 minutes cleaning up the cover alone. The rest should go fast. There about 5 images I combined this issue, mostly mega man 3 maps, and some two page art like the Dick Tracy Page that has a huge pixel art image split across two pages.mthey all came out nice. On one of the mega man maps in snake man's stage, the page break cut off one of the enemy sprites where I couldn't tell what it was supposed to be when combining. I actually watched a play through of the game on YouTube to identify the enemy in that section, find another one of him on the page and fix it with the clone stamp. Yes I am dedicated to getting it right I guess.

I have only one staple bound issue left to scan, the Battletoads cover. These issues take much long to scan because I take out the staple and have to align them on the scan plate. Then individually name the pages and keep track of them as I'm scanning because they are out of order. It just takes longer because I'm going to staple these issues back together to preserve them. After that I'll be debinding and the scanning will go much much faster. Possibly in one or two sittings for a whole mag.

Sean, your hard work & effort is so highly appreciated!

[Sean697]

Powered through the editing in EGM 18 on my day off yesterday. Due to NBA playoffs and the back cover having more editing than I anticipated I couldn't finish. Have about 4 pages to go so should be out later today for sure.

Edited April 19, 2016 by Sean697

[aloram]

Looking forward to it, thanks!

[Sean697]

The votes have spoken. Next up is EGM 77 with 18 votes. I think this odd that this issue has the most votes to preserve. I'll give you guys 24 hours to get more votes in if you want something else. From EGM, and Ultra Game Players or Game Buyer marked as acquired. Although I am kind of looking forward to this issue. I got it off Ebay still sealed in its plastic bag. Which should make getting this issue out MUCH faster.

[aloram]

Great issue. I just read through it again last year.

[Sean697]

The votes have spoken. Next up is EGM 77 with 18 votes. I think this odd that this issue has the most votes to preserve. I'll give you guys 24 hours to get more votes in if you want something else. From EGM, and Ultra Game Players or Game Buyer marked as acquired. Although I am kind of looking forward to this issue. I got it off Ebay still sealed in its plastic bag. Which should make getting this issue out MUCH faster.

Opened the sealed issue of EGM 77. So much easier editing a virgin magazine. I scanned the supplement, a stratedy guide for DKC 2. I'll post that tonight as a preview. And I updated the cover gallery with a better photo. You can see the difference below. (Though the existing was not bad by any means, this one was perfect.)

This issue also has a 3DO poster in the bag and Mindscape "Visions" ad insert.

o

Here is the link to the DKC 2 strategy guide now. Will be included as part of the whole issue when done as well as standalone.

https://community.retromags.com/files/file/3791-strategy-guide-from-issue-077-december-1995-donkey-kong-country-2/#.VxhT3_krJaR

Edited April 21, 2016 by Sean697

[Sean697]

So I learned today using a heatgun to debind EGM 77. Don't go too fast. The pages were coming out so easy I'd just pull and place on the pile. Well it seems you need to let them cool off a bit as when I went to scan some of the pages reglued themselves together. So I had to go back the through the pile, reheat them and pull them apart, wave the pages in the air a few seconds, then place it on the pile. So ya, let that residual glue dry again first.