Ken Aldred

I’d imagine it requires extreme precision.

Particularly from the mid 90s onwards, Richard Starkings has been a prolific font designer and a key figure in digital lettering for comic books.

Learned something. Never noticed that Aparo lettered.

Yup. Forgot about him. Strange though, being a lifelong fan of X-Men, and Starlin’s Captain Marvel and Warlock. I’ve always liked small, neat lettering like his and Joe Rosen’s. Very prolific on the Bronze Age comics I grew up with.

Joe Rosen Sam Rosen John Workman Leroy (EC's favourite)

Yup. Can’t stand those. I’ll wait for a better presenting copy.

Yes, I know ! I’m really surprised I haven’t seen the phrase used here. An obvious marketing tool for the leftovers.

$2 would be dirt cheap. Eventually the boxes will be priced at at least $10 a copy, as drek books cease to exist, and instead are recategorised as ‘dormant keys’. All such comics are, even now, sleeping giants, waiting to be awakened from decades of slumber by signals from the media.

It's a great, very useful resource.

But, Devil Dinosaur was where it all fell into place. Looking back, a work of insane genius.

Yup. Love the energy in Kirby's work.

Yup. The double splash pages tended to be hyper-detailed, not so much the rest. Some exceptions, such as when he’s drawing overly complex, futuristic-looking machinery in the panel.

I was going to say, not unless Colletta erased it, but that’s quite a good example to the contrary.

Roussos had a much grittier, rougher finish to his inking when compared to Sinnott and Stone’s much smoother, slicker styles. I don’t mind it, though it pales in comparison to the others.

Even if I bought a book with ‘To Ken’ on it, it would still feel quite false as I’d know it was done for another Kenneth and not me. There’d be no sense of attachment.

I’ve been out for several years now, so the current escalation simply reinforces that distancing. Well beyond any degree of affordability for me. Still, the good thing is that it allows me to focus more on actually reading comics in a relaxed manner rather than obsessing about chasing the unobtainable. I’m getting a lot more out of my reading now than at any other time over the last 40 years, and digitally, at bargain rather than nasally haemorrhagic prices. I’m still getting what I want out of the medium, even if I’m not a cash cow anymore.

As far as Kirby goes, I was lucky to start reading his work at a great time in the early 70s, when I could experience his best artwork from the Golden and Silver Ages as reprints, and his early Bronze Age comics month-by-month on the newsstand, such as The Fourth World and The Demon. As a kid I wasn't too critical of the differences in storytelling between the two periods that I demarcated above, always being more blown away by the power, energy and creativity. His artwork does begin to suffer in comparison from the mid-70s onwards, especially back at Marvel, but, thinking less critically and seriously now, his "flaws" are compensated for by very entertaining, unconstrained ideas and over-the-top dialogue, which I appreciate more now than I ever did as a teenager. It's the 80s period, when his art really declines badly, which greatly saddens me.

Always loved Kirby's art. My first comic contained a reprint of X-Men 1.

Yup. I’ve never been bothered at all. Focused on the contents, story, art, rather than a barcode or suchlike. A nicely-presenting copy and I’m happy. But, there are different types of focus, so the OP’s question is fair enough.

The only other contender would be the comic book burning shown in ‘Professor Marston and the Wonder Women’, where outrage in the 1940s to his obsession with BDSM, as prevalent in his comic stories, led to the torching of Wonder Woman and Sensation Comics in order to protect the youth of America. Unless that was made up for the film. I’ve never read it here.

Easy to put a positive spin, here. Treat them as historical documents, literally illustrating social issues of the time, learn from the past, be ashamed or even appalled by what you read, and move away from all that and hopefully contribute to stopping history repeating itself. This was discussed at length in the Dr Suess thread. It's worth looking at these books now, at a time when we have both progressive, liberal movements and also the reemergence elsewhere of extremist xenophobia. There's still a lot to be obtained from reading Golden Age. Eisner's depiction of Ebony in The Spirit was misguided, something he was later very apologetic for, but, the social missteps aside, that doesn't stop The Spirit from otherwise being a work of graphic, sequential art genius, though of its time. I have the complete DC Archive run.

I can’t stand abusive and narrow-minded snobs like this guy, who clearly has limited experience and knowledge of the medium. There’s no direct or consistent correlation between market price and intrinsic quality. You might be just as, or even more thrilled by reading a comic from a dollar box, with a great story and superb art. It isn’t necessarily about prestigious keys. Focus on what you enjoy, from any period, company, genre, character, artist, writer, and ignore the kind of amateur criticism that was aimed at you.