sfcityduck

Fresh Back from CGC, first to be graded, top of census, iconic pop culture, unknown to most: I just love this Census entry:

First issue I bought off the newstand. Much loved. I blame it for becoming a comic collector.

Yes, BZ's thread (see the stacks behind the books?). I saw that collection for sale out of Virginia (aside: why all the great collections - DA etc. - in that state?). Made me wonder if BZ was selling. Then I noticed that BZ's Return of Tarzan has the bookcover, so those aren't his books. BZ's look better.

Ian Fleming is a fantastic author! From Russia With Love is a good book to start on. The London Times, a very serious paper, ranked him in the top 15 of the Greatest British Authors since WWII.

Yeah, for me it was Bedrock's ERBs. Too bad BZ isn't around to post some of his book cases. They are the stuff of unobtainable dreams for mere mortals like me:

Not dissing those books that remind me of some of Bang Zoom's shelves, it's just I am all about nostalgia - and I was a kid when those Superman/Batman/Shazam books came out. So PM me!

Spinner racks are a great way to store what you read - the well-loved PBs especially:

Coolest thing on that shelf is the Shazam from the 40s to the 70s. I still need one of those.

Living Room has two built in shelves. On the right of the fireplace are what I think of as comic art books: On the left of the fireplace is what I think of as fine art books: But it is in my messy office where I store what I think of as my comic collected editions for reading and price guides: My actual comics are stored away beyond easy access and my paperbacks and other collected editions are in a family room on spinner racks with additional shelving for fiction and non-fiction hardbound books (non-art or comics).

It is far easier for me to come up with a Mount Rushmore for artists working in newspaper cartoons (which had better artists than comics): * Winsor McCay (do I really need to explain why?) * Hal Foster (better than Frazetta, Wood, and all his other imitators) * Alex Raymond (better than Moldoff and all his swipers) * Noel Sickles/Milt Caniff (only Toth in comics came close to mastering their style) * Honorable Mention: Bill Watterson (just can't leave him off the mountain, even though he is modern, and his creativity gets him above Shulz) The comic book Mount Rushmore is hard because I pick based on covers AND interiors (giving more weight to the interiors) and am not trying to pick the prettiest artist: * Will Eisner (do I really need to explain why?) * Carl Barks (his art was so good that he was called the "good Duck artist" for drawing stories within the constraints of the Disney style because even so they stood head and shoulders above all others) * Bill Everett (hugely important and long career in which he mastered both covers and interiors - something his contemporary Schomburg didn't really do - and evolved his always appealing style to fashion both some of the greatest early GA covers and some of the greatest PCH covers of the 1950s, without ever looking cartoony) * Harvey Kurtzman (over Bernie Krigstein) (like Krigstein he revolutionized the way in which comic stories were told, and the art styles that could be used to tackle the most mature subjects). Honorable mentions: Shuster (way underrated) and Baker (revolutionized mature romance art and storytelling).

He was definitely correct in his reading between the lines of Wonder Woman, and he wasn't alone in his view of Bruce and Dickie. From 1950, firmly GA, when innuendos were common on comic covers:

Plenty of prominent gay conservatives, even a very prominent gay white supremacist. So having Tim Drake be a bi-sexual character isn't a liberal "virtue signal," it is just a reflection of real life. I get that old guys (of which I'm one) sometimes get uncomfortable when they see changes to characters they first read about when they were kids. The introduction of versions of Spiderman who are latino or female etc. was controversial when it happened. I remember the vitriol I'd read on comic boards about how Peter Parker was a white male so all Spiderman characters should be a white male. But you know what? That Spiderman movie with all the many variations of the character that exist now was a contender for the best Spiderman movie ever. The variations enhanced the character. The guys claiming Miles Morales didn't "advance the character" look pretty foolish today. No reason to be shocked or outraged that we have a bisexual Robin. No reason to call it a "lazy" move. All comic scripting is "lazy." They are stories that never end, and they tend to go from gimick to gimick (deaths, revivals, retcons, marriages that never stick due to "dream" treatment stories, costume changes, etc.) which almost never "advance the character" in any permanent way - especially in this modern era when creative teams don't last very long on a book. The fact that we've had Grayson, Jason Todd, this new kid, the girl in Miller's books, and even a "Roberta" in the GA running around in Robin costumes over the years tells you all you need to know about how irrelevant the notion of "advance the character" really is in the comic book world. Far better to sit back and see if the story ends up being entertaining than shaking the cane and shouting "not on my lawn!" LoL!

On Wertham and the whole Bruce and Dickie thing, worth noting that (1) Wertham was right about Wonder Woman and the whole bondage thing and (2) he wasn't the first to make innuendos about Robin. From 1950:

Different hands. Look at the "4". (Although, worth noting some Promise books have a "c" on them and what you are calling an "L" could be a "c"). Perhaps the letter is a code that denotes the recipient store or distributor?

Smart call, when I got back my Short Order Comix 1, a day or two before starting this thread, and realized that it was an 8.5 with less than my expected PQ still topped the census, I jumped onto eBay and grabbed a super nice copy of SO 1 (and a bonus 2) for $35. Then, and only then, did I start this thread.

It is a giveaway. You see them around.

CGC generally relies on OPG, but CGC has accepted notations I've suggested that include info that is not presently in OPG. I think if the info is verified to CGC's satisfaction, that's all ok. I see Heritage get far more things wrong than CGC, so I think they're doing a fine job. I just prefer more info over less.

Completely agree. Funny Aminals is clearly the first Maus prototype, a very strong meta-Maus which was the seed out of which Maus grew. Clearly historic. But, "Prisoner on the Hell Planet" is actually part of Maus. An essential part of Maus that is central to one of the most powerful sequences of the story. It is the first time any part of Maus saw print. Which would I view as more historically important or valuable? I rate them pretty equal. Reasonable minds can differ.

It is not about giving CGC credibility to decide, it is hoping that the stuff CGC puts on the label is accurate and complete. Not too much for a consumer to expect. They get a lot right, and I've gotten them to change some label notations in the past (and also gotten OPG to change some of its info on listings). That's part of being a good citizen in this community of comic collectors - ensuring accurate info gets shared.

Art Spiegelman's Maus is the only comic story or graphic novel to win a Pulitzer. Which begs a question: Which of these two comics is the first appearance of that story? CGC says Funny Aminals 1 is the "First appearance of Maus by Spiegelman." But the three page story in Funny Aminals entitled "Maus" is just a simplified prototype of the story what would ultimately appear in the Maus serialization in Raw and the subsequent compilation as a Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel. None of those three pages were deemed worthy to make it in the graphic novel which won the Pulitzer. One the other hand, Short Order Comix 1, which CGC doesn't bless with any notation at all, contains the entirety of the comix within the comic that appeared in Part 1 of Maus the graphic novel: Spiegelman's Prisoner on the Hell Planet. Prisoner on the Hell Planet is one of the most powerful parts of Maus, and it is studied by students across the country. Put simply, Short Order Comix 1 is the first time that any pages of the Maus graphic novel that won the Pulitzer Prize ever saw print. Yet, CGC doesn't recognize that. I was glad to get back my census topping Short Order Comix 1, but I was sad that CGC didn't follow my request on noting the first appearance of Prisoner on the Hell Planet. Pretty disappointing that we can't get recognition for the first appearance of part of the only graphic novel to win a Pulitzer.

I seem to recall seeing one sell at auction once, but can't recall when or where. Edit: Here you go - Carl Barks and Norman McGary Donald Duck and the Christmas Carol | Lot #92006 | Heritage Auctions (ha.com)

You mean you think it will top $3.25M?

I was thinking about the CA and Wonder Woman results and the whole movie hype concept. Even so, my collecting started in the 70s and my personal "Golden Age" is the early/mid 80s. Spider-Man was more a corporate symbol (ala Mickey Mouse) than a hot character back then, at least in my mind. By the late 80s, I was getting out of comics and missed the whole Mcfarlane thing. Wolverine and Batman were probably the two hottest characters for most of the 80s in my recollection. X-Men generally were Marvel's gravy train back then. So tastes change over time. These days I find that various versions of Spider-Man might be more interesting than Peter Parker himself. But, that's just a matter of taste. I'm not denying in any way shape or form that AF 15 is considered the most important SA book for Marvel by many. So I expect it to get a lot of interest. I'm curious how much. It's no where near as rare as Action 1 or Detective 27. And there were a lot of comic collectors picking up that book back in the day. I've heard a lot of guys who started collecting in the 60s tell me that it took them just a year or two to get the complete Marvel SA. So I've got to think that other very high grade AF 15s will emerge out of long held collections. You hear rumors of such books. High end collectors probably recognize that risk, just as they have to know that there are better ungraded copies of Action 1 and D27 than what's been graded so far.

All good points. But, I've seen a lot of irrational exuberance in the predictions for supposedly "hot character" mega books. Folks were swooning over the San Francisco copy of Captain America Comics 1 CGC 9.4 and it couldn't top the price paid for an AS 8 non-pedigree in the same grade. So color me a skeptic, but I've been wrong plenty of times before.

That AF 15 will have to do better than $2M to beat out an Action 1 Larson 8.0. The KC Action 1 8.0 sold for $1M in 2010. A year before the then sole (I think) AF 15 9.6 sole for $1.1M. Since then, we've see the 8.5 Action 1 sell for $3.25M. $3.25M for the fourth best copy (assuming MH is no. 1), with the Larson and KC as the next two best copies. So the way I see the question is whether what is now a top four AF 15 (there is always the risk with a 1960s book that a really great new copy will emerge as the many guys who started collecting in the 1960s start liquidating) is worth more than a top six Action 1 (with a cool pedigree).