BLUECHIPCOLLECTIBLES

It's an unused panel from the HTD magazine. Penciled by Gene Colan. The movie ended up doing the scene even after it was deemed a step too far in the magazine

You outbid me for that one. I thought it should be worth more than it went for, but was overly influenced by people who say that unused or prelims are not "investment" pieces, which I have to remind myself is code for "I don't have any, and only what I have is valuable"

First Marvel superhero on the newsstands, predates MM1

I had exactly the same problem several years back and alerted them to it. They indicated they would get on it and fix the problem. Apparently they haven't

Romita's a great guy. If you read other interviews with him, you will find him describing lengthy sessions with Lee breaking story (which mitigates the narrative that Lee did nothing) And if you read interviews with Lee you'll find quotes from him saying Romita would often plot stories on his own (which reinforces that Romita did a lot of plotting but mitigates the narrative that Lee never gave him credit). When you collaborate with people over a long period of time on many stories you find that ideas generally flow around the room and back and forth between those involved. And you will find that even the generally generous people tend to remember and highlight their input more than that of others. If you haven't experienced that, you'll read quotes from people talking as they remember those sessions and you will remember and value only the statements that reinforce your pre-formed conclusions about who did what and why. Especially if you're willing to embrace contradictions from the people you want to believe and disregard inconsistences, for the same reason.

skimming through this to read the comic scans (thanks for posting, btw!) I see many references to the "Marvel method" which misunderstand the process. Sometimes an artist was sent off off with little more than a basic idea, but other times the conversation about the story was very detailed. There's a prevalent presumption (in this thread, anyway) that there was no dialogue or detailed descriptions of the action pitched in those story sessions and that the dialogue was uniformly done by the artist in a first rough first draft in the margins of the art, and then simply reformatted into -script form by Stan Lee with few (or even no) revisions. But many people who worked with Stan in those sort of sessions can tell you that Stan Lee loved to describe action and you couldn't stop him from pitching dialogue if you wanted to. The artists routinely worked much of that dialogue and action into the storyboards, and then Lee added the finished dialogue and captions (and fairly often sent pages back to be redone) Yes, it got the point on some titles (Kirby with FF and Ditko with ASM) where the artists did much more. And the first person ever to say so was Lee, himself.

It's absurd that a book should sell for more with the paper removed than it would be with the paper intact and color touch on it, but it does. And that makes us look like a silly people

I'll presume you know more than I do in that regard, but reading the other comments it seems that some attempt to destigmatize conservation is in order so 1) people are not incentivized to do unnecessary things to a book because a prior cleaning means it will forever be deemed as if it's "100% restored", so they may as well take a low grade book that's been cleaned and give it full on recreation style resto to make it a 9.6, because they'll be damned the same either way, and 2) we can move further away from the idea that "intent" matters more than extent. If two books have been exposed to water, we shouldn't place greater value on the one that's had a bucket of mop water spilled on it, just because that exposure was accidental.

As I understand it, and as most people outside this hobby feel, a thing is not permanently altered by any process that is reversible. Leaf casting can be removed. If dirt has been removed and you prefer dirt on your book, it can be put back.

I was never a collector of horror books but occasionally I would pick one up if the cover was especially clever or striking. This one qualifies. The only time I bid seriously on a piece of horror comic art was for a prelim of this cover, which I considered superior to the final. Bidding went above what I expected so I dropped out just shy of the winning bid, only to decide later the final bid was below its relative value.

Extreme rarity also means fewer people placing bids to protect the value of the copies they own. And fewer people talking about how valuable it is and how much it should be worth because they have one, some or many. If you have an Ultimate Fallout in 9.8, you can rest assured that many, many people will be happy to talk about how it's worth a fortune..

It's ironic that Heritage will not put in the listing any information which might explain its cultural value -- such as "first appearance of Spider-man" -- but they will include the name of a former owner.

Easily arguable as a being at least as influential, if not more so than, any other book coming up tonight. And I say that as a guy who no longer has one

And Pep 22

Years ago, discussing the missteps in the Howard the Duck film, I laid considerable blame on the reliance upon the pun-reliant retcon of Howard as a denizen of "Duck World" and not, he as originally created, as a resident of a world that was very much like our own, with all the same species -- except humans -- and the dominant, most intelligent species being the ducks. People only vaguely aware of Howard lore then, and now, don't seem to understand the vast creative and existential difference between those two concepts. And somehow it fails to persuade them when you point out that Howard thought humans were "hairless apes" and would occasionally expect other animals on earth to be as anthropomorphic as they were in his home universe. I flipped through some old Howard books recently and came across this book which made it clear that Howard's home universe was populated not only with ducks but also with talking dogs, conniving chickens and annoying apes. So, for no reason other than it will give me an excuse not to work another few minutes, I am posting herein said proof.

When you're buying something that expensive it seems sensible to spend the money to have a resale number and treat it as an investment (and how hard is it to justify that a 3.5mil comic appreciating at that rate is meant as an investment? Even if you have to pay your accountant to fill out quarterly forms for that account, it would take a long time before those espenses outpace the several hundred grand you save in taxes.

Didn't say they weren't Stan's mistakes. He should've had somebody proofreading, but there's no evidence of anyone doing that reliably. I was responding to the contradictions that got embraced here, first saying the letterer fixed his mistakes, then that he didn't. It just feels like a pattern that all statements herein are deemed true if they reflect badly on Stan, even if the slams contradict each other. Feels as if the contradictions don't matter because it's all working backward from the goal to malign Stan. Kirby was in that mode for a while, making such wild contradictions that even his most ardent fans feel the need to address them, but always with the caveat that his contradictions and falsehoods don't matter if they serve the Greater Truth that Stan was . Ditko's statements that Stan wrote it and gave him a revised five page outline are glossed over or ignored because they aren't convenient to the narrative that Stan did nothing. I won't go on because I cannot spare the time to go back and forth re-reading this thread, cutting and pasting, etc, and there is no way I am willing to take the time to match and respond to every post. I know will you outlast me in that regard,.

A much underappreciated book. A case could be made that it's the first Marvel (Centaur/Timely) superhero on the newsstands, predating Marvel 1

The errors that you made a concerted effort to make pictures of and include in your post were spelling errors. Not grammar. It is the job of every person in the production chain to correct errors they have noticed. If you believe otherwise, why didn't you take issue with, or seek to correct, the other post, which opined that the letterer quietly corrected many of Stan's mistakes?

Have you read the synopsis? I know Ditko said he was given a 5 page synopsis which was revised from the earlier synopsis given to Kirby. But I never heard that the pages still exist, or that anyone else, including Ditko, has called the final synopsis "lame".

You might also ask how many of Stan's errors was Artie SImek supposed to have corrected? And the answer is -- All of Them.