No new comics today, and still no news about when we might get our next New Comic Book Day. However, Booster booster Aaron has found something very interesting on the website of book publisher Penguin Random House.

Per the listing at http://prhinternationalsales.com/book/?isbn=9781779506726:

Booster Gold: Future Lost
Written by Dan Jurgens
Illustrated by Dan Jurgens
HARDCOVER $39.99 US DC Comics
On sale Sep 01, 2020 | 400 Pages | 978-1-77950-672-6

BOOSTER GOLD IS THE HERO OF TOMORROW...TODAY!

Booster Gold knows that being a superhero is a good business for three reasons: money, fame, and adventure! But Booster will have to learn that the easy life of super-heroics comes with results he could've never imagined.

Follow along on Booster's incredible and time-bending adventures--but what happens when the golden boy of the present...returns to the future? If Booster Gold is going back to the 25th century...he's going to need some superheroic help...maybe even a partner? What will Booster's future hold?!

Collects Secret Origins #35, Action Comics #594, Who's Who Update 1987 #1, Booster Gold #13-25, Millennium #3-7

That's such good news, it's almost worth staying inside all spring and summer for!

Times may be tough, but I promise to still have $40 in my bank account to buy this when it hits shelves this September (Coronavirus permitting). I doubt I'll be the only one.

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Booster booster Aaron Hale is currently selling ten pages of the original color guide for Justice League International #25 on eBay.com.

What's a color guide, you ask? Time for a brief history lesson!

Computers and modern printing techniques have changed things, but for most of the history of comics, all hues were printed from a few shades of one of three distinct colors. Below is artist Todd Klein's color chart from the 1980s when he worked at DC Comics. It has codes for each possible color, where "Y" stands for yellow, "B" for blue, and "R" for red. The "2" meant 25% saturation, "3" was 50% saturation, "4" was 75% saturation, and no number was fully saturated, pure color. When JLI #25 was released in 1989, 124 colors were possible.

DC colors on cover stock via KleinLetters.com

Like a kid with a single box of crayons, the colorist filled in the black and white drawings with watercolor paints to match those colors. The less fun part came after the paint dried. That's when the colorist had to go back over their work to provide the printer of the comic with an appropriate code for each color used so that the image could be reproduced. The colored and coded page was called a color guide, and that's what Aaron is selling.

Justice League International #25, page 11, panel 1 as planned

(If all that sounds like a lot to do, keep in mind that it was followed by a much more labor-intensive process called color separation. Using the coded pages of the color guide as their template, the color separator would paint sheets of acetate to be used when photographing the original art for transfer to the four printing plates needed for the CYMK color process. Printing comics was hard work!)

Justice League International #25, page 11, panel 1 as printed

Aaron's auction ends tomorrow, so don't drag your feet. If you'd like to lay your eyes (or your hands) on a bit of Blue and Gold history, hurry over to eBay.com today!

(And if you'd like more information about how comics are made, check out Todd Klein's fine blog at kleinletters.com or Klein's book co-written with Mark Chiarello, The DC Comics Guide to Coloring and Lettering Comics.)

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After I asked last Monday about what your Booster Gold shrines looked like, Aaron Hale got in touch with me via Facebook. His office is like a museum for Booster Gold original art!

Check out these pics of some of his framed pieces. (Click any for a larger image.)

Dan Jurgens splash page from Booster Gold #10

Mark Waid and JG Jones signed issue and cover art from 52 Week 15

Marc Campos art from Justice League America #90

Aaron Lopresti signed cover art (with corrections) from Justice League International #1

Kevin Maguire commissions with Justice League International #8

Wow.

Just wow.

Aaron, I bow down to you. Thanks so much for sharing.

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September is here, which means we're just a few weeks away from Booster's Futures End one-shot. But if you can't wait that long for some professionally produced Booster Gold art, take a look at these recent commissions:

The image on the left, drawn by artist Ale Garza, is the latest addition to The Blot Says' Booster Gold sketchbook from The Houston Con.

The image on the right was a commission of Joe Rubinstein's inks over Kevin Maguire's pencils for Alan Aaron B. Hale. (Sorry about getting your name wrong there, Aaron! I stayed up too late this Labor Day, I guess!)

Click either image to link to a larger pic. Both of them are Boosterrific!

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