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SMALL WORLD by DON ROBERTS debuted in The DAILY RECORD back in 1982. I liked the strip, so cut it out and affixed it to my wall. When we moved house in 1983, I rescued it and put it on the wall of my room in our new home. Four years later when we moved back to our previous abode, I did the same thing in reverse, and there the strip has resided for the last 28 and a half years. Until recently that is.
As you can see, over time, the strip has rippled and faded in the rays of the sun, even though it wasn't directly exposed to daylight. Alas, such is entropy. I can't find any information about collected editions of the strip, nor any images of it on the internet, though there is a brief mention of it. Therefore I had no other choice but to try and restore the strip to something resembling its former pristine glory. What you see below is the first step in that time consuming process.
Working from the above strip, I re-coloured each panel as best I could, but I was presented with a problem. The original colours had become so faded and washed out, I simply couldn't discern what they were, except in a few isolated cases. (I'm slightly colour blind.) My mission then became one of making the strip look presentable so that I could restore it to its place on the wall in a readable form. I therefore ignored trying to duplicate the original colour scheme and just aimed at making it look as good as possible.
The finished result is below. Not perfect by any means, but it took me hours to re-ink most of the line-work. (I had to work on an A4 printout, which isn't entirely conducive for restoring fine detail.) That in itself was another big problem, because I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at in some instances, even in its original version. However, it doesn't look too bad, is readable, and due for replacement in its accustomed spot once I've published this post. So, how did I do?
Paeans of praise are very welcome (hint, hint).
Update: I thought the blue background was a bit bright compared to the original, so decided to paint over it with a lighter shade. I think it looks much better. See below.
