I have a problem, my friends...

(You don't say?!)

Yes. 

As I work through my grief, sorrow and turmoil, I fill those gaps, those moments with items that hearken back to another time - another memory - another life. 

As I've mentioned here, I've purchased a lot of books recently all in the hopes of keeping the flame glowing in the name of my son.  I'm starting to realize that this ambition might eventually become futile.  I've used this hobby in the past, to reconnect to my soul - to help me identify who I am, what I am, and what is most important to me. 

To quote the dearly departed Robbie Robertson, "With a breath of kindness, blow the rest away."  (Robbie Robertson, "Golden Feather", 1994).

There's one problem here...

That was a line written around 135 years earlier by a woman by the name of Dinah Maria Mulock Craik.

She was an English novelist and poet.

The research here becomes muddy but it's there.

I would say "Google it" ... but "Google" is not your friend here.

Anyways, here is the context of that lovely line...

... Dedicated to my dear wife.

I believe we were on our way to somewhere in Canada, or on our way back, when we found out about the album (CD) where that song appeared on.

That was 30 years ago!

And now here is the comedy of the night.

My wife and I took a drive south tonight to seek some 'Antique Shops'.  We found one and about 40 miles south and then some.  I found some more modern comics I had been looking for (Wonder Man and Midnight Sons) and was able to these 4 books for under $15... that was a win!  I'm going to have to make a phone call to this antique store because the booth that had these comics, had them in this awesome vintage comic rack and I need to see if the owner would be willing to sell it.

Anyways, on the way back home, this song came on and I said to her, "I keep forgetting how much I like this song"...

At which point she replied that I hadn't forgotten because I apparently I say this every time this song comes on. 

But it's revealing isn't it?

Ripples.

"It's like life..."

I should have a promising update soon regarding my latest CGC submission.

I dove headfirst into the CGC Pulp grading waters and I'm anxiously waiting for the results.  That being said, I can't believe the turn around times on these (positively!) and I'll certainly be posting on that soon enough.

Happy Easter CGC world.

I never saw myself as a religious person but things change so quickly these days, don't they?

No, I don't subscribe to one religion but I thought this was very charming...

About a month ago, my wife and I took a trip west to Rochester, NY. 

Our daughter was on spring break in Florida with her roommate... they went to Disney World in Florida.  She was on a mission to find Geppetto and give him a hug but apparently she was unsuccessful in this world quest. 

So on this weekend, my wife and I took a drive and we ended up there, in Rochester, NY.  We stopped at a local used bookstore that we like, where I found the signed Vincent Lopez & Sonny Skyler piece.

The bookstore is called Small World Books and it's a great little shop.  If you should ever stop in there, you have to meet Rex, their wonderful mascot / house cat!

So we spent some time in there and bought a few items but as we were about to leave, we looked in this room that was sort of an 'oddball' room where there were more children's books and foreign language books.  We took a quick walk around and were about to leave when I saw this book sitting on a shelf next to a few random tools. 

I picked it up and said to my wife, "Holy Sh!+"!

Inside the cover, the price listed was $200.  I was so dejected!  I ran into the owner of the shop one last time as we were about to leave and I had to spark a conversation in which I told him that I had never seen a copy of this book in person and was thrilled to have seen it in his shop.  Of course he asked me where the book was and I told him that it was sitting on a shelf by itself next to some tools.  It was then that he remembered the book and said to me that it had 'some issues'... he mentioned the spine being partially detached, which it was. 

Are you surprised that awesome bookshop owners know exactly what condition their books are in?!

Anyways, he asked me if I would take it at 50% off - $100!!!

I should've jumped, right?!

But no, I was with my wife and so I had to demonstrate restraint .

My friends, those are the worst words one can mutter when contemplating a life changing deal! 

Ok, maybe "life changing" is a bit too dramatic...

I was somewhat annoyed on the drive back home despite enjoying a wonderful cigar...

Hello, St. Michael.

I see we'll have a mutual understanding going forward...

Anyways, this pass on this book purchase ate at me so much that on the next day, I informed my wife that I was going to call that bookshop, purchase the book and hopefully have my daughter pick it up for me when she returned from Spring Break. 

Oh yeah, it was that serious.

So what was the book?

Well, I happened to take a few pictures that day and here it is...

The Shadow Knows!

Ripples never come back.

It took a few phone calls but I was ultimately able to secure the book for $100. We had to drive back out there a week later to pick it up but it was so worth it to me.  When I went to pick it up, the bookshop owner told me that he had glued the spine as it was loose prior to my purchase.  To me, this was a bonus as that was exactly what I was planning to do with this copy. 

After this one purchase, however, I now felt the need to secure the entire 3 volume set... of course, right?

And so I did. 

I found the second and third book at a discounted price on Mycomicshop.com and was very happy with that...

I was now set with the whole 3 volume set of Shadow books by Street & Smith.

To be continued...

This is just an amazing 80'S tune...

This whole sound track!

I just saw a current picture of Phil Collins this evening... oh my.

I'm not sure what it is about these two songs, back to back, but I really like them.

And another favorite of mine...

How did I end up here tonight?

Who do you choose as your partner...

Crockett or Tubbs?

''

... Of course Don Johnson inspired my look and dress of the middle to late 80's but Philip Michael Thomas was so integral to the series. 

I can't believe he's 74 now!

Mid week edit -

I'm not sure why, but I've been kind of stuck on Genesis and Phil Collins for a few weeks now.  I'm not sure what exactly sparked that except for maybe recently seeing and hearing about Phil Collins' medical condition. 

I think I just wanted to watch videos the other night...

Anyways, I mentioned that I would hopefully have an update on a couple of Pulps that I sent in to CGC and I was thrilled to get those back yesterday.  To say that I'm very impressed with this experience would be an understatement.  To start with, I mailed these out with USPS Priority Mail on Monday, March 18th under CGG's High Value tier.  I placed one at a value of $500 and the other at a value of $1000.  I was very surprised to see that just a few days later, on Friday, March 22nd, they were listed as Received in the system but not only that, they were already moved into the Scheduled for Grading category! Well seven days later, on the 29th of March, they were graded and then ultimately shipped out on Tuesday, April 2nd. 

The total turn around time from the point of me sending these out on Monday morning, March 18th to me receiving them back on Saturday, April 6th was only 19 total days!  The fee for the High Value tier (max value = $1000) is more than double the cost than the Vintage tier (max value = $400) but these were two very important copies to me.

The grades I received were right in line with what I was expecting to see based on what I saw from other graded examples on line, so I was happy about that. 

As far as the holder itself, I like it a lot.

They're very thick as you can imagine and seem pretty substantial.  I'll post some pictures here soon but first I have to talk about what I ultimately sent in.

I only have a handful of Pulps that I would want to get graded so I went through around seven or eight and pulled out two.  Once I had heard that CGC was looking at grading these, I immediately knew what my first one would be, which is a copy I talked about here, but what should I send in with that one?  It took me a little while to decide but ultimately, I chose the one that kind of opened the door to a whole new reality for me.  So yes, the obvious first choice was that Shadow Magazine, November 1, 1936 issue featuring the (now hopefully) infamous story, 'Partners in Peril'.  The second book I chose to send in, was I guess the bookend to that November 1, 1936 issue... that being the October 1, 1936 issue which featured that amazing cover George Rozen cover that I felt must have had a huge impact on Bill Finger and Bob Kane.

As a side note, I just found out that Alex Ross did an homage to that cover.  The funny thing is, I think it was last spring or summer that I told Rob that I had this great idea for a move script about the life of Walter B. Gibson and the character development of The Shadow... in passing, I thought it would be cool to cast Alex Ross as both Jerome and George Rozen.

I believe it was in the winter of 2022 when I bought that first Shadow Magazine issue from October 1, 1936 and then some months later when I found the nicer copy.  The copy on the left was my very first pulp of The Shadow that I purchased.  And then of course I thoroughly documented that purchase of the November 1, 1936 issue that I bought at PulpFest last summer in Pittsburgh. 

Again, these are the raw images...

So when I sent these into CGC, based off of what I was seeing already in graded examples, I was hoping that the October 1, 1936 issue would get somewhere between a 4.0 - 5.0 and that the November 1, 1936 issue would grade out between a 2.0 and a 3.0 based off of the chunk out of the bottom and the staining on the back cover.

Like I mentioned in the previous post, I was very impressed with the turnaround time on these and even more pleased with the CGC grades and here they are. 

These are the actual CGC scanned images and not from my scanner...

Again, I really like the quality of the slabs and they are very thick... they did a great job of making the side nice and clear so you can easily see the spine. 

I'll try a little later  to get a picture or a scan of the spines to be able to better show that.

In general, they're about twice as thick as a normal comic slab.

One thing I didn't realize until I was putting these books together to submit them was that both of these issues have the punched hole in the upper left corner.  I'm not sure if that was done back then to designate copies as 'remainders',as was done with comics where they would have the top third of the covers ripped off to submit back to the distributors for credit, or rather some other designation.

Regardless, I'm very, very happy with these and as of right now, the October 1, 1936 (#111) issue is the lone copy on the census, while the November 1, 1936 (#113) issue is the second highest graded with another sitting at a nice 4.5!

...

...

My only true disappointment though is that there was no notation on the issue #113 (Nov.1, 1936) of Detective Comics #27. 

That would have been the ultimate icing on the cake!