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Question about cleaning old comic pages
I keep seeing people at the shop try to wipe dust off silver age books with a dry cloth, which can scratch the ink, so I always tell them to use a soft brush instead, like the one I got from a kit in Chicago last year.
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danielwhite3mo ago
Yeah, and it's wild how many folks don't know about a simple soft brush. I had a beat up copy of Fantastic Four 48 that was just covered in that gritty dust, and a dry microfiber cloth was making it worse, smearing more than cleaning. I switched to a big, fluffy makeup brush my wife wasn't using, the kind with the really soft bristles, and it just lifted everything off without any pressure. Totally get what @the_jenny is saying, it's like watching someone slowly ruin the cover. That brush method saved that book for me.
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julia6222mo ago
That "gritty dust" is the real problem. It's not just sitting on top. It gets ground into the paper fibers from being stored wrong. A brush helps, but if it's really in there, you're just moving abrasive grit around. You need to lift it away completely. I've seen books where the dust was basically glued on by old humidity. At that point, nothing you do at home is safe.
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