Cleaning a comic
without ruining it.

Most of the damage I see from cleaning was done by people trying to help. A wet wipe across a cover to lift a smudge. A pink pencil eraser on a fingerprint. Sellotape over a tear "to stop it getting worse". Every one of those turned a small defect into a big one, and a couple of them turned a blue label into a purple one. So before the how, the line you must not cross.

The restoration line

CGC recognises three kinds of cleaning: water, solvent and dry. Its position is that dry cleaning is not restoration, and that water and solvent cleaning are. That sentence decides everything you are allowed to do at home.

So the answer to "can I clean this comic?" is "with a dry pad and almost no pressure, sometimes". The answer to "can I wash this comic?" is no, and it will be no whoever asks it.

What dry cleaning can lift

• Loose surface dust and dirt, the grey film a comic picks up from a decade in an open box.
• Light grime and smudges on matte covers.
• Pencil marks, prices written in pencil, the old dealer's grade in the corner.
• Some fingerprints, if they are dry marks on an older matte stock rather than oil set into gloss.
• Residue left behind by tape, sometimes, and only with patience.

What will never come off

• Set-in fingerprints on glossy modern covers. The oil has bonded with the gloss. CGC lists fingerprints among the defects its own pressing and cleaning will not fix. Rubbing at them dulls the gloss around the print and you end up with a bigger, duller mark.
• Stains. Water, tea, damp, rust from the staples. They are in the paper, not on it.
• Foxing and tanning. Chemical change in the paper. Not dirt.
• Sun shadows and fading. The ink itself has changed.
• Pen and marker. Anything that has soaked into the fibres stays. Trying to erase it takes the printed ink off first.
• Anything on newsprint interiors. Interior pages are far more fragile than the cover. Leave them.

If the mark is on that list, stop reading this page and price the book with the mark on it. There is no home method, and the professional methods are the ones that come with a Conserved or Restored label.

The tools that are safe

• A dry cleaning pad or sponge for documents. The bagged pads of soft grated eraser sold for paper conservation. Gentlest option, good for the grey film over a whole cover.
• A book cleaning putty. The soft, kneadable putty sold for cleaning paper and books, under names like Absorene. Rolled or dabbed, never rubbed. Reserve it for matte covers; the makers themselves advise against it on modern glossy stock.
• A soft white vinyl eraser. For pencil marks only, with almost no pressure, in one direction, on a part of the cover you have already tested.
• A soft, clean brush. To sweep away eraser crumbs. Never blow on the book, because you will spit on it.
• A clean flat surface, good light and clean dry hands. Not optional.

Not on the list: pink erasers, ink erasers, magic sponges, kitchen roll, cloths, anything damp, anything from under the sink.

How to do it

1. Test on the back cover first, on a small area near the edge, over both a printed part and a white part. If anything lightens or dulls, stop. The book is telling you no.
2. Work with the book flat on a clean surface, out of its bag, with a board underneath the cover you are cleaning so nothing presses through.
3. Pad or putty first. Light dabs and short strokes in one direction, away from the spine, with the weight of the tool and nothing more. Let the tool do the lifting. If you find yourself pressing, stop.
4. Eraser only for pencil, only over the mark, only in the direction that takes the crumbs off the edge of the book.
5. Brush the crumbs off before you close the book or bag it. Eraser crumb left inside a comic ends up as a dent under the next book on top.
6. Look again under a lamp. Compare to the untouched area. If the cleaned patch is duller or paler than its surroundings, you have gone too far, and that is your lesson for the next one.

Modern glossy covers: different rules

Anything printed on coated glossy stock, which is nearly everything since the 1990s, is less forgiving than the old matte covers. The gloss scratches, dulls and picks up the texture of whatever you rub it with. The putty makers say not to use putty on it, and I agree. If a modern glossy cover has dust on it, a soft brush. If it has a fingerprint, leave it and let a professional press include a dry clean as part of the job. If it has a smudge, decide whether it bothers you more than the risk of a dull patch does.

When to stop and get a professional

If the book is worth grading, do not clean it yourself at all. A professional press comes with a dry clean done by someone who does it every day, and the risk of you dulling a cover you were about to spend money slabbing is not worth the twenty minutes saved. If the book is old and the paper is tanned or brittle, the same applies, because old paper marks and tears far more easily than modern stock. And if there is putty residue, eraser crumb or a scuff from an earlier attempt, know that graders note it: cleaning putty pressed into a cover shows up in the grader notes.

Photograph before and after

One habit that costs nothing: photograph the mark under a lamp before you touch it. If the cleaning works, you have a record. If it does not, you know exactly what you changed, and if you are selling the book you can describe it honestly. I would rather buy a comic with a described smudge than a comic with a mysterious dull patch where a smudge used to be, and so would every other buyer who knows what they are looking at.