AJD

While I'm here, I might as well post my complete collection of Fox books. And this Australian copy of Jo-Jo. I think the cover might be Australian, but the contents are pure Fox.

Low grade, but mine.

Yes. Here's the cover of #4 I just pulled my copy out to re-read it. It was a little better than I recalled, but nothing to write home about. There's some nice Johnny Craig, John Severin and Reed Crandall art in it. Here's the Crandall splash.

So, is this the Fox Feature Publications Appreciation Thread, or the Fox Features Publications Appreciation Thread? Either way, there are some wonderful books here. I just read through the past 40 pages and am in awe of some of the books you guys own.

I can't recall the last time I upgraded a book in my collection, but this VF Piracy #5 was headed for too low a price on Heritage to resist. Here's a fun Jack Davis drawn "house ad" for the New Direction titles. I have all issues of all of the titles except for Extra. I have one issue (#4) - it has an excellent cover, but it's a pretty dull read.

I can do better than that. I bought a GLOD that said "coupon clipped". I cracked it out (was always going to) and found that it was a panel clipped out of a page with story on both sides. So much for "buying slabbed books for peace of mind about what you're getting".

Dang it - didn't proof read well enough. I noticed the red squiggly "typo lines" but assumed it was just because I'd put the British/Australian English "u" in there. Which reminds me... Australians spell "colour" thusly - or do we? I'd vaguely puzzled about that anomaly, and was talking to an old dude (TM) recently, who told me that there was a flurry of enthusiasm for a move to American spelling after the end of WW2. The Disney books would seem to be a prime vehicle for such a move - hence (I'm guessing) the spelling on this April 1949 book. See you in Phil's parking lot @Duffman_Comics

Another day, another duck. Hopefully Donald painting a fence won't set off a #bizarrerant about non-anatine behaviour (backs away from @Duffman_Comics, avoiding eye contact). As you all know, I've been collecting WDC&S 1-100. But if I see a chance to grab a nice copy of a higher number at the right price I'll do that too. This one fits the (duck) bill. Here's the back cover Wheaties ad, with a photo of basketball player and possibly distant relative Bob Davies. Is it just me, or does Bob look about 103 in that picture? We had "Weeties" in Australia, and the packs often had premiums, including plastic toys, comic books (like the US Cheerios editions) or trading cards. Here's a Batman card from 1966.

Cheaper ones.

Textbook 4.0 for me And the greatest cover in the series. Kurtzman at his finest.

I'm also at 4.5 I love that series.

Why the popcorn? The OP already said that Overstreet does it the wrong way, and listed the places that get it right.

Here's a surprising one. Only just "GA" in 1954, but close enough I thought. Just nine in the census - there are 40+ of the issues all around. This one has since been released into the wild, so there are now eight.

Funnily enough, I now realise that I have seen that one many years ago - I remember the scene with the ants. Thanks Harry! While I'm here, this also recently arrived: A lovely solid copy of this book, with great pages. And the first appearance of ... Clarabelle Cow's Cousin Bertie... Bertie first appeared (once) in a Pluto strip in 1940, waiting three years for this chance to shine. He also features in a story in #37, and makes a brief appearance in a text story five years later... never to be seen again in an English language book. This is cool though: an ad inside the front cover for an hour-long animated short "Victory through air power": (Sorry about the fuzziness, but I didn't want to stress the single staple by squashing the book flat!) You can watch the (mis-titled) film below - the Disney film begins at 22:30 after a slightly bizarre intro - and read about it here.

I've wanted one of these for years, and finally landed one in a heritage auction. I'm not planning to collect all of the MMMs (or maybe not even any more) but this one fits quite well with the war bond 'spirit of 76' covers I have. What I didn't realise is just how big these guys were - it only just fits into a magazine size mylar. And here's the back cover: an ad for a Donald Duck short I don't think I've ever seen.

A "potted" recap of the plantman. I see what you did there. I also laughed out loud at the second quote. I say "ni" unto you.

Another Australian Fiction House book today. After I leafed through it I thought about returning this one because it had undisclosed staple rust with migration. But these are so hard to find... so I took out the staples and cleaned them with steel wool, dried them thoroughly and gave them a coat of acrylic sealer before putting them back in. My first conservation work, and I was pretty happy with the outcome. I have lots of small tools because of my model building hobby, and a small pair of pliers with masking tape on the jaws to prevent scratching works wonders. One of the staples looks perfect, but the other one has a small kink from being opened and re-closed. Otherwise, though, the book looks great. Here's an UtC pic. I love the panel with the elephants. Thanks to @Point Five I picked up a great Australian comic today with both local and professional links for me. More once it arrives...

The GCD says "64 ?" if that helps.

Nice summary Harry. I think I read all of your posts. I think I could say that they average 1.0 "likes" from me. I'll be interested to see what you think of later JIM/Thor. I like ASM, and some of the Lee/Kirby FF run (I also find some of it almost unreadable - looking at you, inhumans) but I think Thor 126-165 holds up better than all of the others. The space opera nature of it has aged more gracefully than the 60s family and character driven dynamics of the others. I reckon, anyway. You may choose to disagree, and I look forward to seeing why.

The one time I let someone come to my place for comics the guy was really weird. I ended up offloading stuff quite cheaply to get him out the door. (Might have been his plan, I guess, but he didn't seem that calculating.) I'd stick with your original plan.