sfcityduck

The 6.5 came up two items before the 8.0. One less bidder makes a difference.

New Thor is going to be mad.

Well ... Hariri has admitted that he was influenced by Hollywood hype to obtain a copy of All-Star 8. Hariri and Gal Gadot: He likes the movie scene - here he is with Zach Snyder: But, he was inspired to collect comics by an editorial cartoon that portrayed his father, a PM of Syria who was assassinated, as Superman. Hariri's favorite character is Superman, and that's why he owns the top graded Action 1s.

Where would you put Jumbo 10 on a list of such FH sci-fi covers of that period? After all, it's basically a Planet try out cover (Oct-Nov. 1939) as (correct me if I'm wrong) it was the first FH sci-fi cover. Jumbo 11 was also sort of a sci-fi cover, and Jumbo never had any more - presumably because Planet came on the scene.

To me, that view is the CGC talking. Overstreet's list have always been of PURE SF, Horror, Romance, etc. genre comics, not a list of genre covers. Maybe CGC has come to dominate the hobby to the point where the OPG should run top 10 lists of covers by genre, but that is not what those lists have been about for the past 40 years. Famous Funnies is not a Sci-Fi genre series like Planet. It's a strip reprint book that alternates Sci-Fi strip covers with a bunch of other strip genres. It's a wholly different animal from Planet.

Thanks for this topic, it's helpful.

Overstreet should address the pedigree, file copy, association copy, and signature copy concepts somewhere in a text piece. But, I don't think they need be separated in the pricing data. Many of the most valuable copies of a particular comic ever sold were not pedigrees (e.g. Action 1, AF 15, All Star 8, Batman 1, etc.). The "bonus" for a pedigree or file copy is both highly volatile and also inconsistent between pedigrees with a number really getting no bounce at all over same graded non-pedigrees. Association copies and signature copies are even more volatile and hard to judge.

I agree this list is more accurate, but items 2, 4, 8, and 9 aren't Sci-Fi genre comics (just SF covers). They are anthologies. And Space Adventures 13 is a superhero book. My Top 10 Sci-Fi list would start with Planet 1 and include some other Planets along with potential contenders WSF 29, WS 12, WF 13, WSFA 1, Mystery in Space 1, Strange Adventures 1, any maybe a couple other true SF comics. It'd take some research. But you can't judge the books by their covers. I'd notably leave off the list New Fun 3 and other anthologies that have SF covers (e.g. early Jumbo, Action 12, strip reprints like Famous Funnies, etc.). Same for superhero books.

Strongly disagree with this list. Overstreet's list is of Sci-Fi comics, NOT SF covers! While the omission of Planet is unforgiveable, I can't agree with a number of books on this list. * Fantastic Comics 3 is not a Sci-Fi book. It is a multi-genre anthology like Action Comics. The cover is a superhero (Samson). The interior includes spy and knight stories and Sci-Fi. * Famous Funniers 213 is also not a Sci-Fi book. It's a strip reprint book. Buck Rogers, Dickie Dare, other adventure and non-fiction. * Superworld 1 is another anthology book. Interior has mystery/detective/Little Nemo/adventure/fantasy in addition to SF. * Batman 59 shows you aren't even trying to keep on Sci-Fi. * Startling, Contact, and Blue Bolt, I'm less familiar with but aren't they all anthologies?

I agree that it is not the size (or quality) of a collection that defines whether you are a collector. It is the desire to collect, to stay passionate on the subject, to read comics, to learn new things, etc. that define whether you are a collector as opposed to just an investor. I took the OP's post as discussing a person who decides to focus on investment return to the exclusion of the other aspects that normally define collectors.

I agree it's a good investment strategy to have investments you can readily sell. A single GA or SA significant key is far more liquid than thousands of lesser SA or BA books. But, once you implement that "investment strategy," I think you are no longer really a comic collector. You're just an investor, like Parrino who was mentioned up thread, and your enjoyment of the books will be limited to investment return. Displaying the books would likely be a bad idea due to fading and paper deterioration, far safer to put them in a climate controlled safety deposit box.

A year or so ago, bought a Four Color 456 (Uncle Scrooge 2 "Back to the Klondike") for three figures, sold it a few months later for over 60 x the purchase price. Downgraded to a copy that made me happy and funded more purchases.

Dazzler started as a movie treatment. They thought that they were going to make it big capitalising on disco.

I guess you So the "not" was not a typo for "now"?

Don't get me wrong, I think Wolverine was the fan favorite X-Men member by the 130s, and likely before. But, back then it was a team. You're right the first erosion of the team concept was the 1982 Wolverine mini. But, while that was cool, it was not followed up until two years later with the Wolvy and Kitty mini which sucked. I don't think Wolverine really became "THE X-MAN" until the mid-1980s, meaning he didn't need the team anymore. It was all about him.

Not that I know of.

I actually agree with RMA when he states that "Wolverine was NOT *THE* big draw for the X-Men until the late 80s (generally, 1986 and beyond)," but only because I think prior to the time period the draw was the team as a whole. Byrne felt an affinity for Wolverine from the start. And the scripts started to make Wolverine a really interesting character fairly early into the Claremont/Byrne/Austin run with the portrayal of Wolverine as a wild animal-like barely controlled killer in the Savage Land arc. And let's not forget the infamous and shocking murder of the guard scene.Wolverine was rapidly becoming many fans "favorite X-Men" after this seminal scent in X-Men 132: And the following story in X-Men 133: He was definitely an interesting and fan favorite character by then.

LoL! marvel certainly liked the attention! That or the Eagle award covers are cents variants of pence originals!!

Which, I think, is a reflection that back then it was not collector demand which drove sales. That changed fairly quickly with the rise of the direct market. But, back then, sales data doesn't tell you what fans thought. To get that insight, you have look at fanzines, adzines, and talk to people who lived the period. We all knew X-Men were the "it book" back then and Byrne was the "it artist." The Eagle Awards are pretty definitive evidence of the popularity of the books amongst fans.

Sales data serves a function, but that function varies over time. For the Golden Age, sales data tells you a lot of about the pop culture significance of characters because comic books were a much more important piece of pop culture back then as compared to now. Sales data does not tell you anything about comic fandom of the time. For the Silver Age, sales data is not real helpful in identifying fan favorite comics because the newsstand market was still strong and fans were trending towards comics which appealed to an older readership. The best source for info from that time period are recollections, fan publications and awards. The late 70s to 80s, I admit, is a transition point. The import of sales data increases as the direct market becomes the dominant venue for fan purchases. By the mid-late 80s sales date is really important. But, that had not yet occurred, IMHO, in the time periods we are examining for X-Men. Sales data just doesn't tell the story of 1977 and 1978 fan favorites. Note I say "fan" favorites, not critical favorites. Comic Reader was not an "industry publication," it was an ad zine / fan zine. Comic Buyer Guide was an ad zine / fan zine. There were many others. They all survive. As do the pure fan zines that dominated the time period, such as Comics Journal. They are all much better original sources that tell you much more about what fans thought than sales data. Same is true for dealer and collector recollections. Maybe you had to live through that period as a comic collector to understand, but a statement like this is just wrong: "unfortunately, the collector market of the time was still too nascent for a lot of that material to have survived, or for those observations to have been made in the first place." The collector market was nascent in the early 1960s. By the mid to later 1970s, it was established. The 1977 OPG was the Seventh Edition. And while Bob was not known for being on top of brand new comic pricing surges in that time period, it is notable that only two years after GS X-Men 1 had come out, he'd already doubled the price from two years earlier. And I'm sure that was overly conservative a price increase.

The fact that Dazzler was given a title before Wolverine says zero about the two characters' respective fan popularity. It does say a lot about Marvel's marketing strategies, not much of it good. Dazzler was an intentional ploy to create a movie exploiting the Disco era which never really took off, outlived its relevance, but which certain Marvel personnel could not let go of (misplaced hope in getting to Hollywood). The only reason Dazzler 1 was so popular was because we were all suckers who thought that it would be the next GS X-Men 1 due to the fact it was direction market only, not because people loved the character (I don't know anyone who did). We all learned a lesson about supply and demand. Your memories are much better evidence of Dazzler's true popularity vis a vis Wolverine. Especially since, when it came to team books, back then the fan popularity of a character was not necessarily a mandate for a solo title.

Spawn, Venom, 90s drek is all Latin to me.

See my above post. Good historians do not ignore oral history, original texts, and the proper context.

The OP's question was "When did these books hit and become the it comics?" It was NOT when did these comics top the sales charts. They are two different things. The OP's question is for comic collectors, not a question regarding newsstand sales. Because in the 1970s those were two different things still. And the fan press on X-Men, as evidenced by the 1977 Comic Reader cover I posted, is reflective of the reputation Byrne had gained at Charlton and Marvel before going to X-Men. He was a fan favorite artist, and joining X-Men made that EVEN MORE of a fan favorite book. X-Men 119 reflects, as mentioned up thread, an Eagle Award: X-Men won the favorite comic award from the Eagle Award voters in 1977, 1978, 1979 (also best writer, artist and inker), etc. As I said, it was a fan favorite early on. The Eagles, by the way, started in early 1977, and the voting in 1977 was reflecting popularity for the 1976-1977 time period. X-Men 98-100 were nominated for favorite continued story in the 1977 awards. Did the fact the comic was a fan favorite impact overall newsstand sales in the late 70s? Apparently not. I suspect 7-11 and Safeway were not anywhere near as responsive to fan demand as the direct market would be. But newsstand sales are a different issue than fan popularity (e.g. whether they were "it comics").. RMA's analogy to Spawn is not a good one because Spawn came out in an entirely different time period, well after the direct market dominated and comic stores had proliferated. The notion that sales stats are a better reflection of the "it comics" perceived by collectors than fan recollections and fan publications and fan awards is not at all scientific. It is the opposite of the paradigm used by good social scientists and oral historians.

Yeah, I think there's a problem with your analysis here. First, the "first appearance" of a non-comic originated property in a comic book is no where near as important as the first appearance of a comic book originated property that goes on to success in other mediums. It's just not that big a deal to buyers that a comic has the first "Robin Hood," first "Three Musketeers," or even first "Tarzan." This is true for the many TV inspired comics. Second, quality matters. The early issues of Star Trek suck. Scooby Doo, on the other hand, translated well to comics. So I would not say that just because Star Trek is a bigger pop culture phenomena than Scooby Doo it is worth more. The reality is that many high valued comics are not pop culture phenomena at all - they are just valued by comic collectors.