I don't iron shirts so why should I iron my comics?

I began originally in ?Pressing the Issue?. Pressing was a term I heard before and disregarded it. I heard it from time to time when I was younger and would hang out longer at a comic book shop allowing me to overhear such conversations. Bottom line was I didn?t care. These days I just enter, buy, and leave however, when I go to a comic book convention I like to look and gawk before I purchase. About once a month, and I say once a month because they only happen ten times a year, on the outskirts of Philadelphia in Essington gathers a group of shops that sell their comic books in a large room. It?s called the Philadelphia Comic-Con.

I was there this past April checking out a raw copy of X-men #213 and a raw copy of Daredevil #505 variant. Next to me, to my right, I heard two people discussing the books they were going to buy for the sole purposes of grading and then selling. Something I wish I could do (maybe to understand better you can go read Buy to sell Part 1 and 2). As they were in discussion with the proprietor I heard them say something which shocked me into researching, I heard ?CGC is getting soft?

I continued to look over the two books to purchase and they continued on looking over their own books that they were going to purchase. I didn?t try to listen in but they were rather boisterous in their discussion and they talked about pressing. I listened but only nonchalantly. I decided to make my purchase and walked away as they were still going on and on about pressing them and then sending them off to CGC.

Since I started to collect CGC graded comic books my views have changed, however slightly and I decided to read up more on pressing. Maybe I am old enough now to really research my hobby. They do say write what you know and I am doing so much that I can to inform myself on my hobby. In my search I found Classics Incorporated, checked them over, then made my way to Wikipedia next (because let?s face it, no search is any search without something from Wikipedia showing up.) As pleased as I was with the information I found on the former I was not as pleased as what I found on the latter. I did find the following quote from Wikipedia

?There is a disagreement among comic book collectors on the definition of restoration. Some collectors feel that ANY work done to improve the quality of a book should be defined as restoration. CGC does not consider ?pressing? to be restoration??? disagreement?why is there a disagreement?

As I mentioned to find a definitive definition on pressing as pertains to the Comic book marketplace I searched and could not find one, but layman?s terms of pressing is ?uses heat to smooth out wrinkles?. At least Wikipedia led me to another site that interviewed Steve Borock (if you Bing his name and Iron Slab it will lead you directly to the interview.) In this interview he was asked about his personal opinion about pressing. Two words sum it up ?Who Cares?. Now there were some 138 words after those initial first two. Now mind you I did go on and read the entire interview and after reading the answer of who cares was from an arrogant piece of vile uncaring money grubbing comic whore. I was wrong. I can empathize with the guy and even share some of the same thoughts but I absolutely disagree with the ?Who Cares? comment. To me that is akin as being in a fight with any of my ex-girlfriends and getting the answer whatever.

I do recommend that you go read this interview and form your own opinion. As I continued to research this more I read that Steve Borock has left CGC (I am sure you already knew that) on 7-Jul-2008. He left for greener pastures on amicable terms. How come when any company says they left amicably it is always covering up?well we just didn?t get along anymore. Maybe his view of pressing was part of the reason?

MY thoughts (if they count and you have read this far)

A car wash does not restore a car much like a bag and board does not restore a comic book. However a good detailer could cut the car and make the cars look as new as possible increasing its resale by a couple hundred dollars however any scratch you can get your nail into won?t come out and will decrease the resale value.

However, from what I read a good press by a professional will take out the stress lines (stress lines I equalize to scratches) from the spine. So why ?pressing? wouldn?t be considered restoration when adding a piece of tape to hold a ripped page together is considered restoration. In closing how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop? The world may never know.

Thanks for reading

Tnerb