AJD

Your copy of Starting 52 to my copy of Startling 52

Let's have an impromptu LTMM 20 club! (love that book)

Just for fun, here's a two page filler story by Paul Wheelahan from Jumbo Comics #3. Life on Saturn... a "boiling planet so close to the heat of the sun"!!!

A few comments, not so much for your low value book but in general for taping. (Caveat: I'm an interested amateur in paper conservation, not a pro.) As a general principle, anything you do a document should be as reversible as possible. Not all archival tapes are created equal and there's a reason that the price varies so widely. The cheap ones in Officeworks are likely to give poorer outcomes. If you are going to tape a completely split cover, tape it lengthwise alone the spine, the way Point Five suggests. The reason it split is that it's brittle, and trying to do 'less harm' by using smaller pieces at odd points could lead to more tearing during handling where the strong tape meets the weak paper. Any form of adhesive tape, archival or otherwise, bonds the adhesive to the paper, which complicates removal later and would probably require solvents other than water. (See the detailed explanation here.) Even good archival tapes can be a pain to remove. Archive quality Japan paper and paste is always water soluble and is a preferable approach to sealing tears and reinforcing spines.

Man throwing grenade to man throwing himself on grenade

"may not ship to Australia"

Yeah. Those are beautiful books for sure.

Thanks Peter. No ads at all, just comics from go to whoa in these.

I've been on something of a Prince Valiant kick lately. These copies were sitting on eBay for well over a year, just rolling around again and again, so I sent the seller an offer. I think both parties are happy now. It's nice to get consecutive issues too, as the stories are serialised. And I get to post some Hal Foster work. I love the negative space and silhouette work on this page. And I know the influence of Foster on Carl Barks' The Golden Helmet has been noted before, but it jumped off the page at me here. Call me old-fashioned, but a comic world in which books with Foster, Hogarth and Raymond are up with Superman and Batman for value makes eminent sense to me!