Rune

True and congrats with the great books! Personally I'm trying to get some early Romita Sr. Spidey books at 9.6 WP or better, but recently it seems that these books have all vanished from dealers (ok, CConnect just had #50, but that will be the last one to get ) Maybe the CGC grading and distribution phase is over, and I'm too late Did manage to get a few though, these are probably my best: Tried to track down a few of your books in the Registry, but could not find them - have you begun adding your books to the Registry? - Maybe I looked under the wrong name, otherwise could be a great thing to do (just like I'm sure Vaillant has now published his Kirby FF #62 page on CAF - although my old eyes also had trouble finding that piece, must be my dirty glasses ... )

I once wrote this in another thread: "Another matter, beyond preserving books, is preservation of (original) comic book art. Some of us like to get the art framed, and getting this professionally done using anti-UV museum glass (or even conservation glass with 99% anti-UV) can be expensive. Ok, I have not tried this myself, I love to support my local frame shop, sigh, but going through Gerber's products, there may be ways to provide great UV protection for your art - without paying a premium for anti-UV glass. So how much can we cut expenses trying to get the art framed similar to using extremely expensive conservation glass? 1. Gerber 4-mil Mylar D archives can be bought here - assuming the art is 10" x 15", 1117R (= 11 1/2" x 17 1/2") should be fine - cost is $16 per 10 pieces (plus shipping): http://www.egerber.com/category.asp?CategoryID=450&SubcategoryID=559 Remember that Mylar D is something special: "Our specially Impregnated Mylar D stops 99% of the UV light. Mylar D is accepted as photo safe to direct contact and is used internationally by archives and museums. Yes, it costs 8 times more than standard Mylar, but it blocks UV hundreds of times more than other plastics." Source: http://www.egerber.com/aboutpreservation2.asp This way getting UV protection similar to conservation glass may be done for a fraction of conservation glass prices, simply by inserting art in 4 mil thick Mylar D® snugs. Then I guess you can purchase whatever frame you want and just insert the art Again, I have not tested the above, it's just an idea - but this way you may be able to frame a piece of original art and get 99% UV protection for less than $20 (if you can find a matching prebuild and inexpensive frame). Or Mylar (D) archives may just be a good way to store art... (note that this post is not intended as some kind of Gerber commercial - there may of course be other Mylar producers offering similar solutions, I just did not take the time to investigate if other kinds of Mylar provide 99% UV protection)." Normal light will also damage your art in the long run. Thus using museum glass (92+ % anti-UV) does not mean that your art will never fade - but it may slow the speed of fading by about 50% (still, UV protection or not, art should never be exposed to direct sun light - same goes for books of course). I think the source for that info is hidden somewhere in Doc Joe's Journal thread (that's the problem with threads spanning 500+ pages - not easy to find stuff! ) And you'll want constant low temp (like 64 - 68 F) and about 40% rel. humidity too

And now there's 44 Conan the Barbarian #24 CGC 9.8 books, this one was graded 1 month ago: Get it here: http://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2Fauctions%2Fsearch%2Easp%3F%5FSORT%3DYES%26where%3Dsell%26title%3Dconan%26ItemType%3DCB%26f1%3DCondition%26ODire1%3DDESC%26f2%3D4%252C%2BIssueNumber%252C%2BVolumeNumber%26ODire2%3DASC%26f3%3DMaxBidX%26ODire3%3DDESC%23Item%5F1053549&id=1053549

Congrats - looks really great with the black double passe-partout and shiny metal frame (thumbs u And hopefully that's museum or conservation glass

Wife wants to renovate the house, so my OA future looks bleak this year. Did manage to grab a Nightwing cover by Tommy Lee Edwards, and I am a great fan of the Steampunk aesthetics: Tommy Lee Edwards' Steampunk Cover on CAF

Bought these in 2014, all behind museum glass (96% anti-UV or better), all published original art (covers or splash): (To show the art best I opted for 1024 pixels width, might be too big if you're on a small screen ) George Perez: Prime #15 Scott McDaniel: Daredevil #327 page 2 Dale Keown: Indestructible Hulk #6 - with more than 1300 views by far my most popular piece on CAF Irv Novick: DC Presents #69 Bryan Hitch: Fantastic Four #556 Denys Cowan: Marc Spector: Moon Knight #23 Matthew Haley: Firestorm #12 Doug Mahnke: Green Lantern #16 All professionally framed using acid free materials and piano black hardwood (for the frame). Don't think my wife will appreciate more framed art, so I might need to find another way of storing and displaying pieces...

You're welcome. I am not sure if you are thinking about the #16 preliminary pencil drawing or the other? The preliminary pencil drawing is described here: "This is the original preliminary pencil drawing, penciled by Barry Windsor-Smith, that is the basis for the cover of Conan #16 (Marvel/1972). The printed cover was produced from a photostat of an inked version of this drawing (I had this photostat at one time, and you can see it by clicking on the link above this description that reads "Printed Cover"). The original inked drawing that the photostat was made from has never turned up to my knowledge. These pencils are on a strathmore-type board measuring 11+1/4" by 14", with an actual penciled art area of about 9+1/2" by 10". The titles and indicia are just a copy made from the comic and laid over the art for display purposes. I photographed this in a frame, but I will not ship the frame and glass, only the art and the copy of the surrounding words (if you want it)." http://www.kochcomicart.com/Featured.asp?Piece=1603 Yours for 16k (thumbs u

Great thread (thumbs u For some time I have tried to collect photos and scans of these original art Conan covers, you can find several of them here: http://s1270.photobucket.com/user/runesr2/library/Original%20Art%20Covers?sort=9&page=1 My votes: #4, #6-8 and Annual #1. Best, Rune

Great thanks to "Fred" (aka Spaceforce2000, news posted in the Comicarl-l newsgroup) for mentioning that the Conan the Barbarian #1 original art cover finally has surfaced, I cleaned the photo up a bit: Source: http://www.comicartfans.com/GalleryPiece.asp?Piece=1191543&GSub=8848 So here you can now see a collection of 16 of the 25 different original art covers behind Conan the Barbarian issues 1 to 24 and Annual 1: http://s1270.photobucket.com/user/runesr2/library/Original%20Art%20Covers

It's actually very tedious and depressing, stick to Conan! Had actually forgotten about that movie! But it cannot be more boring than Boyhood? I also saw The Theory of Everything and stayed awake to the end (had hoped that the movie contained more info about his amazing theories and calculations) I also saw Birdman to the end and did like the giant bird cgi (which lasted about 10 seconds) And Annabelle Ida was sort of ok - guess the sinister plot kept me going But I did not finish Dracula Untold (I might give it a second try some day) Did enjoy Better Call Saul last week (thumbs u - And Jupiter Ascending 3D was better than I anticipated* (same thing goes for Taken 3, then again my expectations were extremely low). Guess the best movies the last year were Guardians of the Galaxy, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Big Hero 6 and Interstellar. Now I am watching Comic Book Men Season 4 (with the wife, she loves it, she thinks the guys are so nerdy and funny ) and Big Bang Theory. You're right, Barry Smith's Conan is better than most movies Although I'm currently reading DD Born Again, Y! - The Last Man and then The Killing Joke, who really needs movies? *As I tried to explain to a friend, who was conviced Jupiter Ascending would be a complete waste of time, you actually could give that movie a rather good rating without watching it, because out of maximum 10 (IMDB) stars, it would automatically get: 1 star for Mila Kunis 1 star for $175 mill budget 1 star for being directed by the guys behind the Matrix (The Wachowskis) 1 star for 3D 1 star for spaceships So basically you know it is at least a 5/10 star movie! (thumbs u

Another #23 is coming up for auction on HA.com (and has now been added to the Photobucket library ) : Get it here: http://comics.ha.com/itm/bronze-age-1970-1979-/conan-the-barbarian-23-don-maggie-thompson-collection-pedigree-marvel-1973-cgc-nm-mt-98-white-pages/a/121507-13234.s Graded Nov 18th 2014.

This amazing book arrived today, perfect centering and cover orientation (also from May 2014 like #5, see my previous post): Get it here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Conan-the-Barbarian-9-CGC-9-8-W-1171309014-/390987170792?ssPageName=ADME:SS:SS:US:1120

And this one surfaced yesterday (graded May 2014): Get it here: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Conan-the-Barbarian-5-CGC-9-8-W-1171309012-/390986968554?ssPageName=ADME:SS:SS:US:1120

Just added 3 more books, all recently graded: CLink has them all, get them before Dec. 2nd ;-)

Thank you There's nothing in life like maintaining my small Conan garden (less stressful for the back too (thumbs u ) Actually never saw this movie, but from its' title I assume it's about a guy checking his CGC book collections each day (just like me), and a wife who thinks that's a waste of time

And today's Census overview, only Universal & Signature, 9.8 or better, a total of 364 books (drum roll): Not many differences here since last year, although #1 still seems to be increasing - to break it up: Max. 5 books in Census: #11-12, and 18 (thus these books are the most scarce of all). 6 - 10 books: #4, 6, 10, 14, 20-22, and Annual 1. 11 - 15 books: #2-3, 5, 15-17, and 19. 16 - 20 books: #23 21 books or more: #1, 7-9, 13, and 24. Or an average of 15 books per issue... (median 12, with interquartile ranges 7 to 18, sorry I'll stop now ) PS. Could not help it, currently 7 new books have arrived in 5 months, so Census is increasing about 1.4 books per month, wonder when it'll stop...

And a new Conan the Barbarian #1 just arrived (and has of course been added to the scan library): It was graded Oct. 17th 2014, and CLink auction start date is Nov. 19th: Conan the Barbarian #1 9.8 WP Comiclink Auction PS. A good to know that I am not the only one who did not appreciate the colors in the latest Dark Horse reprints of the early BWS issues ;-)

Interesting to see Conan as a blonde Especially since I do believe Robert E. Howard wrote it differently: "Hither came Conan the Cimmerian, black-haired, sullen-eyed, sword in hand, a thief, a reaver, a slayer, with gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, to tread the jeweled thrones of the Earth under his sandalled feet." Of course there must be some artistic freedom allowed And interesting to see such books from other countries. Personally my interest in Barry Windsor-Smith's books started when I read these four albums (each 84 pages, no commercials - just pure BWS art from start to finish, full color on very thick high-quality paper, released 1978-1980): Album 1 contained Conan the Barbarian issues 4, 6-8, Album 2 issues 9-11, Album 3 issues 1 - 3 and 5, and album 4 issues 12 - 15 (apparently the publisher was highly selective, but then again the books were published in a small market). Maybe the colors were too bright and vivid, but I grew up with those, so these colors are to some degree still my reference (still I do like them much more than the recent computer colors in the Dark Horse TPBs)

Seems you got yourself into a bidding war with the another bidder causing the price to increase a lot Of course you may have ended there anyway, highest max bid always wins. But why not snipe using Gixen.com or similar solutions? I never bid more than once, and I always do it 6 seconds before the auction ends, it has never failed, thanks Gixen ;-) Bidding that late, other bidders have no chance reacting to your bid - but they may of course be saved if their max bid is high enough. (Sorry if this subject has already been covered, I did not take the time to read all posts in this thread)

You're welcome :-) I just checked the quote, and the text has now been removed from Wikipedia - a copy of the original text can still be found here: http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Gil_Kane and here: http://cflmall.com/HDBMW/index.php?title=Gil_Kane I do not know why Wikipedia removed the text (the current Gil Kane Wiki-article has a lot of references, the old one did not, so maybe the above is not true or Wiki could not find a reference to support the info... At least the quote does not seem that farfetched to me, because it partly explains why Kane suddenly provided art for the early Conan books, issues 12, 17-18 and 23 - and some of the early Savage Tales and Savage Sword books). Gil Kane (Eli Katz) died in 2000, maybe Roy Thomas and/or Stan Lee can validate the info (unless the evil and extremely annoying Alzheimer guy has stolen it ) ...

The cover just went from 2.2k to 5.5k (without BP), although I am guessing you had nothing to do with that... It's no BWS cover, so it'll probably be more inexpensive, my estimate will be about 50k, we'll see Kane had a great passion for Conan and he supported the Conan comic books beyond the art, excerpt from Wikipedia: "Sometime in the late 1960s, Kane temporarily acquired the publishing rights to Robert E. Howard's pulp magazine barbarian, Conan, with the intent of reviving the character in a magazine format, à la Savage. However, he was unable to gain financing for the project, and the rights reverted to the Howard estate. When Marvel Comics licensed the character in 1970, writer Roy Thomas initially considered having either Kane or John Buscema draw the comic book, and Kane actively campaigned for the assignment, but editor Lee considered Kane too valuable as the company's premiere cover artist to allow him to devote large amounts of time to a commercially uncertain project. Kane would later provide art for the Conan comic book, which by then was one of Marvel's hits." Of course it would be something special to own Kane's first published Conan the Barbarian cover (= #12!)...

The Conan the Barbarian #12 original cover just surfaced for HA auction, and I have added the scan to the library Conan the Barbarian #1 to #24 plus Annual #1 Original Art Covers You can bid on it here until Nov 22nd 2014: Conan #12 OA Auction Good luck to the bidders Still, I am quite happy with my own #12 9.8, after all these years there are only 3 in the Census and none better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preamplifier http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_power_amplifier Hope that helps

Interesting, although I rarely get to use it, I still have my old trusty Technics system, all units work perfectly Stereo Control Amplifier Stereo Power Amplifier Quartz Synthesizer AM/FM Stereo Tuner Microprocessor Controlled Stereo Cassette Deck Programmable Compact Disc Player Stereo Graphic Equalizer Oh well, and I have several back-up units, should some of the primary units fail (thumbs u (2 other tape decks, 2 amps, another tuner, another cd player - and another equalizer ) Those were the days - seems like mp3 is good enough for everyone these days Currently I am mostly using these good old Sony MDR-DS8000 headphones, the sound is still simply amazing, 50mm drivers: And still lights up like a Christmas tree