RCheli

Sugar and Spike is a great series, and its got good value, but the pool of people looking for it is pretty small. The same goes for some of the more valuable genre titles of the Golden/Silver Age. The St. John's Romance Giants are highly collectable... but not by a lot of collectors. They have high value, but put it in front of 100 collectors, and maybe 1 or 2 will care. Same goes for Sugar and Spike.

The first comic shop I ever went to was Cap's Comics Cavalcade, which was in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. (About a half hour west of Allentown.) It was 1984, and they had everything. I was able to buy about a dozen Daredevils from the 30s and 40s, all in pretty great condition, for a buck or two each. Later on, Third Street Comics Emporium opened in Easton (a little closer to home), which became Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt. That was a pretty bad shop. Beachhead opened in Allentown, which was run by a surly guy. The last time I was there, about a decade ago, he still wasn't accepting credit cards. Cash only. Finally, in 1985, Dreamscape Comics opened in my hometown of Bethlehem, and I was one of the first few customers. Within a few months I was working there, and I worked and shopped there off and on for the next 15 years. The owner passed away suddenly a couple of years ago (probably the fittest comic shop owner on the planet -- the antithesis of Comic Book Guy) at a pretty young age, and it's barely hanging on (they don't get new books any more -- just selling their old stock, open a few days a week). I haven't been back in a looooong time. But it's sad to know what it's become (and what it had become in the last 5 or so years the owner was alive -- a little too much "Hoarder" happening, if you know what I mean).

Joe Sarno would've done a lot better sales wise near the end if he started ordering trade paperbacks. He was so against them -- he only wanted to sell the individual comics. Very nice guy. He and Larry Charet were the deans of comic book stores in the city. Larry's Comics -- which closed right around the same time as Joe Sarno's -- was up on Devon on the far north side of Chicago. To say that it was dirty is an understatement. I didn't move here until 2001, so I didn't see either shop in their heyday.

I was just going to post the same thing. Nova #1 has probably hit its peak.

Can you do a GoFundMe campaign for $10? I'd chip in 75 cents.

Someone should e-mail and ask how many Turok #1s there are. Or Shaman's Tears. Or Tribe.

I've sold stuff to comic writers -- long runs of series -- I'm assuming in preparation for writing the character. But nobody known outside of comics.

Is this where we provide thoughts/guesses on the medical issue you both share? I'm guessing something with a Pringles can...

I was thinking the same thing. Also, I'm surprised at some of the recent auctions for books that, while cool, aren't really very uncommon or high grade or particularly worthwhile.

Everyone -- and I mean EVERYONE -- has a Heroes, Inc. #1. Not many people have a #2. (Honestly, if you're a comic collector/dealer and you don't own a copy of Heroes, Inc. #1, I'm sure there is somebody with a case that would be willing to hand over one to you.)

They need to collect this run and McGregor and Colan's Marvel Comics Presents run into one hardcover. I'd buy it in a second.

I saw that. Of course, mid-grade, non-key (for the most part) late Silver Thors aren't the biggest draw.

That's absolutely not true. Kane was a pretty dreadful artist, that's for sure. But he was drawing comics for National for at least two years before he created Batman, and I doubt that he was already having ghost artists before he even became a name for himself. I doubt if Kane drew more than 20 Batman stories in his life, though. He didn't seem like a very good person in the least, but he was a smart businessman. In a time where creators were regularly mess upon, he managed to get and keep his name on his creation for 75 years. He was able to package a specific amount of pages every month for National, thereby giving him an income and allowing him to reap the benefits of Batman. The same couldn't be said -- in their lifetime -- for Siegel and Shuster, Simon and Kirby, Hibbard, Beck, Burgos, Everett, etc.

Although not one of the oldest by any means, I remember when a comic shop (Dreamscape Comics) opened up in my hometown when I was 13 (this would be 1985). Anyway, I found out about it because I was coming back from some school trip and the bus was stopped at a light at Broad and Third Avenue in Bethlehem, and I looked out the window and I thought I saw a sign that said "comics". I couldn't be sure, but after school that day, I hopped on my bike and rode the 2 miles to the store. The thing I remember about it was that it was a cold autumn day, and when I walked into the warm store, my glasses immediately fogged up. The happiest moment of my life was suddenly delayed because I couldn't see! Anyway, I eventually started working there and became very good friends with the owner. Comicstock from the boards (Jim) bought into the business about 5 years later and was part-owner for a few years. Nick, the owner, died two years ago very unexpectedly. He was relatively young and in great health. The store had gone downhill over the past decade, and I hadn't been there much since I moved to Chicago, but I will always remember the good times. The Lehigh Valley had a few shops that opened up in the 80s. There was Cap's Comics Cavalcade that first opened in Kutztown and then moved to Allentown. Third Street Comics Emporium in Easton (which was renamed Mr. Monster's Comic Crypt). There was Beachhead Comics in Allentown (which was an interesting place to say the least). Many others opened up in the 90s and later, but those were the oldest that I knew of.

The first half of the show was not good. I was really, really worried. The second half was much better, but I'm still not wholly convinced. Some of the acting was amateurish, and the dialogue was very corny. I'm not happy that already 5 people know that Barry Allen is the Flash. Whatever happened to a secret identity?

As a life-long Flash fan, I'm incredibly excited. I haven't watched any of the current CW DC shows (Smallville, Arrow, etc.), so I'm coming into this as a virgin of sorts. But it looks very cool, and anything would be better than the early 90s Flash show.

So... if anyone ever suspects my stuff of being overgraded, I'd much rather them send me a PM than me look like a fool. Everyone makes mistakes. I often grade stuff when I get it, put a post-if on the bag with the grade and any major defects, and then don't look/think about them again until I sell them, and I've overgraded some things (and probably undergraded some, too). But I'd much rather someone -- anyone -- just send me a message that says, "I think that you're a little high on the Action #1 you have up. It looks like a FN and you've got a NM. What gives?" Now, I'm not saying that I have something at VF and you think it might be a VF-... But I'd rather be a trusted seller that has to swallow their ego and downgrade a book than have one where people won't buy from because they think the stuff isn't the grade advertised.

Ah, Mr. Element. The creepiest costume/mask ever. (I always liked his Dr. Alchemy get-up better.)

Just won this auction yesterday, and with the #106, I now have every Flash comic from #105 up. Not the super-high grade gems that some of you guys have been sharing (so jealous), but I couldn't be happier. (And the price was great.) Now I just need to get Showcases #4, 8, and 14...

I just picked up a nice run of the Layton/Micheline Iron Mans in 9.4-9.8 (raw). I've sent out the booze cover and first Rhodey to get graded. Such great books.

I mean, there's that signed Captain America #1 with Joe Simon's signature that just makes me really sad.

I am biased because I don't like signatures on the cover of comics, so take this with a grain of salt... I would never have Lee or anyone sign this book. There are plenty of other keys out there that Lee worked on that would be a better option. You are limiting who will want to buy this in the future, and Lee's signature is just not that uncommon. He's the Pete Rose of the comic book world. I would definitely not do it.

I think the Legion really lost their way in the post-Crisis/post-Byrne Superman reboot era. They were no longer as relevant to the DC Universe, as suddenly we had to start explaining who that Superboy was and what was he doing in the future (if there never was a Superboy to begin with). I've picked it up over the years -- the Great Darkness Saga, the baxter reboot, the Legionnaires (because I love Chris Sprouse's art), but it was just so overly convoluted.

25 years ago, there seemed to be no hotter book than Adventure #247. Then, for the longest time, nobody really cared much. It's still a major key, but it may be the 20th or 25th most important Silver Age book, when for a while, it was 4th or 5th.

I am not GATor, but... Job numbers were just an accounting thing. Jobs were assigned by an editor to the writer, the penciller, the letterer, and the inker, and they just needed a way to track them through the various steps -- both for accounting purposes and for job flow. Some job numbers in fact had the editor's initials -- see SL for Stan Lee or even AG for Archie Goodwin in the later black-and-white magazines -- but don't always assume that Stan or Archie or whomever actually did anything with it other than maybe assign the story. The job numbers are slightly interesting where you can see stories that may have been finished a couple of years earlier but never printed at the time (for whatever reason). So in an issue of Marvel Tales, you may have C-341, C-361, and C-081. The job numbers are often listed in various indexing sites (www.comics.org, for example), but they're by no means complete.