AJD

Meanwhile, up the shallow end of the pool... the set of 16 Cheerios giveaways from 1947. I really like these fun little comics. (Set completion thanks to @Point Five )

My daughter is a paramedic. She can confirm that speedboarding is a good way to meet her.

Disagree. The 10 point grading scale makes no sense if 9.8 is the highest. FWIW, I think that it would have been much more consistent to have 9.0, 9.5 and 10.0 - where 9.0 includes today's 9.2, 9.5 = 9.4 and 9.6 and 10.0 = 9.8, 9.9 and 10.0 (And get rid of 1.8 while we're at it.) Of course, there's less money in the whole business of grading if you do that, which is why they don't.

They sold more in the first place. No mystery there.

I'm a bit suspicious of those 'Dell file copies'. I have other Dells that are file copies, and are clearly marked as such by a large rubber stamp: But others are designated as file copies but have no distinguishing marks at all as far as I can see. Here's one I own, cracked out. It's a nice copy, for sure, but I'm not convinced it ever lived in Mr Delacorte's filing system.

I might be an old curmudgeon*, but that Marvel blurb sounds pretty dire. I'm hoping it's better than I fear. *Narrator: yep, he is.

The same bad man preparing to hurt the same kitties, Canadian variant

Great stuff Mr Duck. I hope you don't mind me linking something related in your thread. Here is a short about a famous B-17 that had some Caniff art on the nose "A bit o' Lace" (I've started it at the close ups of the art)

Preparing?

Oh, and here's what #1 looks like.

I'm not a Phantom collector, but I've been dipping into the series from time to time for about 50 years. I still buy one every now and then, and usually buy the 200 page annuals. Here are some answers to your questions as I see it. They are a mix of reprints of old stories, compilations of the still ongoing daily and weekend strips and new specially drawn for comics stories from various parts of the world. There are many similarities between the stories, though some of the recent ones have gone into new territory, like the Sunday series last year set in an underground civilisation of 'almost humans'. Yes, about 600 years of it, from the first Phantom on. The Phantom has aged verrrrry slowly, but he has married and had children in the time since the character first appeared. They have been around all my life and as kids we used to get them as giveaways in bags of goodies at local fairs. The comics haven't changed much at all, other than the production quality and the layouts of the stories produced for comics.

On top of the pile up and right of his head is this one.

Oh, you mean 160-180F, right? For the developed world unused to freedom units that's 70-80C

Actually 'Vibrant Reds' is a pretty good band name.

"Extensive rat chew"

Miss Wrap and the 9.9s were a controversial band.

Just to totally quantify the pain, allowing for the inflation of the intervening six years, the break even point was $9,640, so the book achieved about half its 2018 price in real terms. And then there are Heritage fees...

I suppose this is out too then?