sfcityduck

They still have work to do but they are on track. The documentary makers could not have dreamt up a better ending to that game. I have read the doc is making Rob and Ryan around the same $ they are losing on the team. No doubt that Season 2 will have a much larger viewership. And the profit/loss equation improves with promotion because income increases for the club and, ironically, costs likely go down.

What industry? The film industry is known for using independent contractors.

What are you guys complaining Disney did again? With all the whining I am not sure what outraged anyone.

“Per employee?” l’d agree if you were saying revenue matters less than profit. But who cares about the number of employees? They are just one element of cost.

Not quite original since he started Mad in 1963 but Sergio A. Still going strong.

Wow. What a long life. I hope he enjoyed it all. I certainly enjoyed mangling Mad Magazines to see the fold-in's!

It only takes two irrational bidders to lead to an irrational result. After all, comics have no value other than what someone is willing to pay on any given day. There is no fundamental or intrinsic value to a comic. So outliers are common. And the CGC 9.8 key market is full of irrationality.

Seems pretty obvious that prices have fallen considerably on a wide swath of books across the grades. So much so, that I think the title of this thread should be: "Are prices still falling or have they stiffened up a bit?" Sure some mega-keys are still moving upward with leaps and bounds, but those books are a price point where the only people who buy them are immune to general economic trends and have no need to make rational decisions, so they are not a good indicator at all. In contrast, a GS X-Men 1 in mid-grade is a pretty good indicator of what ordinary collectors might be willing to splurge on. And those prices are falling.

As was just stated the Bolsheviks reflected the ethnic make-up of their society. Trotsky was Jewish but Lenin and Stalin who won the power struggles were not. Kirby and Lee’s ancestors were Russian Jews but they were both born in the US. All of that is academic to zephyr’s argument because when CA 1 came out the USSR was still in bed with Hitler. That is why there were comics like this:

The USSR was first on team Hitler in WWII working with him in carving up Poland. Then the Nazi’s invaded.Russia AFTER CA 1 came out. So seems doubtful that Nazi sympathizers upset with the CA1 cover were upset due to anti-Communist sympathy. More likely they were just anti-Jewish bigots. Did not know that Jewish Jacob Kurtzberg born in the USA was the same ethnicity as non-Jewish Russian Lenin and Georgian Stalin. LoL! Again doubt that is why CA1 was attacked by Nazi sympathizing “America firsters’” who favored US isolation and abandoning England and France. FDR, history shows, got US entry into WWII right and so did Timely.

It doesn't. But Heritage says it is.

You've been saying it for quite a long time. I think you've spent more time on this thread than you have watching the show. Needless to say, many folks disagree. All shows have their fans and detractors.

As a practical matter, the highest grade an old collectible book from the 1930s could get is "Fine." See below grading scale. And, yes, I have some 1930s books with immaculate dust jackets.

Hey! I was born in 1966. Us old geezers can handle more than a just a run around a neighborhood a couple times a year. It's better for things of that vintage to run around a bit more frequently. Enjoy it!

Thanks for the answer. But I'm still mystified as to what the criteria for a "provenance status" is. To me, good marketing is based on factual claims, not pure puffery. I see so many false claims in the comic world it makes me wonder if this hobby is populated by suckers. So many false claims are made that have been thoroughly debunked on this site. An example: On March 26 Heritage sold this Action 61: The description?: Action Comics #61 (DC, 1943) CGC Conserved VG 4.0 Off-white pages. This classic Atomic radiation Superman cover is by Jack Burnley. Only one problem: That cover is from June 1943 (e.g., before the A-Bomb or radiation scares). That's an oil field fire cover not an atomic radiation cover. The background shows four oil drilling rigs in the background. The men are wearing classic oil fire firefighting gear. Superman is dropping down to plug a pipe going down into the earth that is clearly on fire (a chemical reaction) not emitting radiation. This "radiation cover" B.S. has been debunked on this site repeatedly and the error pointed out to Heritage, CGC, and OPG. I believe Clink even fixed its description once when this error was pointed out to them. And yet, dealers love to call this a "radiation cover" in the hopes that A-Bomb collectors (like me) will be suckered into buying it. To its credit, CGC does not call it a "radiation cover" or try to link to the A-Bomb. Heritage, to its shame does. That's not marketing. That misrepresenting. A different example: On March 19 Heritage sold this: The description? Four Color #386 Uncle Scrooge (Dell, 1952) CGC VF+ 8.5 Off-white to white pages. Uncle Scrooge in "Only a Poor Old Man", with a Carl Barks story, cover (Uncle Scrooge's fist cover appearance), and art. Only one problem: FC 386 is NOT Uncle Scrooge's first cover appearance. Not even close. More like his fifth. This one has also been debunked many times on this site. It is a monumentally dumb claim that's obviously false because seven issues before FC 386 this comic came Scrooge was on the cover of FC 379. FC 386 isn't even the first scrooge cover by Barks. Barks did the cover of FC 353 (33 issues before FC 386), a Duck Album, with Scrooge on the cover. And there were Scrooge covers before that. Yet this false claim is repeatedly made by Heritage and dealers even though CGC does not call FC 386 the first Scrooge cover. Not marketing just misrepresentation. I'm just tired of seeing false claims repeated so often that lazy folks begin to believe them. Describing this Fantast collection as one of the "greatest collections" ever is just plain dumb. We ought not let that kind of "puffery" pass unchallenged.

It's truer than you think if you read the volumes of Tolkien's notes and unfinished tales. Face facts, there are only a few pages about this time period published during Tolkien's own lifetime.

I am monumentally unimpressed by the treatment CGC has given this depressing non-pedigree collection. First, CGC says this: "This collection was awarded provenance status by the experts at CGC and named the FANTAST Collection in honor of Dale Watts’ online pseudonym." WTF? "Provenance status" is awarded? I assume it was purchased to be meaningless hoopla to aid Heritage in selling comics. Have any non-Heritage collections been "awarded provenance status"? Is there a list somewhere of the "provenance status" collections? And why is this collection worth that designation when other collections don't get that designation? And what happens if this Fantast guy bought a Cage book once owned by Berk, does it get triple provenance status? Total B.S. Second, CGC says: Now that's a back story that makes me want to buy a comic book! Might as well call this the "Sad Stereotypical Comic Book Loser Collection"! Is this really how we want the hobby promoted? Is this the story we want for the first "special label" non-pedigree collection? Totally stupid move by CGC. Third, my appreciation of CGC's intelligence is further unenhanced by this bone-head comment: "After Dale passed away in August 2020, Darren found what might be considered one of the greatest comic book collections of all time, certainly worth millions of dollars." Again WTF? "One of the greatest comic book collections of all time"? Large yes. Some enviable books yes. But not legendary in quality. Not a pedigree. Really, not as "greatest" as numerous collections that are well-known (DA, Bangzoom, Verzyl family, etc.) and even collections that I know of that are not so well-known. So what happened here? Again, I'm assuming that CGC decided to trade in credibility for cash. I'd be ok with that if we could all get personalized labels on our CGC books. That would be cool. This is not.

Thank you Fantagraphics! They are finally circling back to the early Barks volumes starting with vol. 4:

Great article about Wrexham's finances: https://theathletic.com/4372950/2023/04/04/wrexham-accounts-2021-2022-reynolds/ Worth noting it does factor into the equation the earnings the owners make from the documentary (unknown but increasing) or the two owners net worth (Rob $50M+ and Ryan $250M+ easily).

Worth also noting that Caniff was employed by the govt. to do govt. publications and posters during WWII including this rare poster that recently sold: His own cartoon for military newspapers, Male Call, I believe he did in his spare time for free.

It is historic fact that FDR’s Administration engaged in a strong lobbying and propaganda effort aimed at the American people to support entry into to WWII over the isolationism then pushed by a strong faction in the US. The truth is the US had effectively entered WWII before Pearl Harbor or even Cap hitting Hitler. That’s not politics it is just the truth. But we will have to disagree as to why FDR the great progressive wanted the US to support the Brits against the Fascist regimes in Europe. I don’t think it was to promote the interests of banks or munitions companies. But probably not a proper topic here. Whatever the motivations of FDR, WWII is a war I am glad we fought. Including because it led to some incredible comic covers. But you are 100% right that many of those lacked realism. One reason I am a huge fan of cartoons like Up Front which gave a more realistic view of the war in their own quirky subject to military censorship way:

That cover was certainly unusual. More so because unllke Timely I have read that DC had largely stopped doing WWII before the end of the war because they felt it hurt their sales (they apparently felt kids wanted escapism from the stress of the war). I am aware that the govt. supported propaganda for employment of the disabled into the 60s as this poster by Caniff shows:

I think most of his inventory sold on ebay are copious amounts of Harvey or other "warehouse" books that were not ideally stored. High volumes, unread, not great page quality or state of preservation. He is accurate in his descriptions too. But man is he cashing in 189,000 sales with a 100% ebay rating and 3,600 followers. DA can be proud that Adam may objectively be the most well-regarded dealer in comic history. I know that the books I've bought from him, some on special requests, have made me happy. I can only guess what the cash value of his sales are. If he's selling off DA's cast aways, DA was hoovering up books at a rate that was record setting. If not, Adam's got an incredible network and, if so, frankly he deserves it.

My guess is it probably depends on where you lived. Having lived my life on the West Coast, my view is that you'd probably more likely get people wondering why you wanted to know the religion of a funny book character. I've seen comic fans debate many things, but never the religious views of Spiderman. I will say this to support you: Comic publishers love the way folks shell out for Christmas comics. So I'm pretty sure most Marvel, DC, and Fawcett comic characters (and probably many others as well) can be found to have had a Christmas cover or story at one time or another, including those controlled and owned by Jewish creators. But, that's not a matter of theology, that's a matter of money. And I suspect a fair number of folks in certain denominations hate Santa Clause as a non-Christian and Christian subverting gateway drug towards atheism. They think its a small step from learning Santa is a myth to concluding God is a myth as well. They may well be right. Comics may also serve the same function. You definitely are taking us in a new direction. Not a topic I've given any thought to.

Stan showed some editorial courage at a key time in the history of the comics industry, writing and running an editorial many publishers were afraid to emulate: