Ken Aldred

I’ve never met Byrne, but I bumped into Peter David in the Aloft Hotel before a London LSCC convention. Extremely bad-tempered and terse. Quite off-putting, and I didn’t bother going anywhere near his table at the show itself. Same convention, same hotel, met Arthur Adams, had a great chat - as always, in his case.

And it's copied from John Romita's original design sketch. Quite a definitive image there.

Ah, interesting. That explains why insect damage is permissible in Mile High's grading criteria for their NM comics.

Is that a Venom or Sabretooth reference? I forget. There was something similar, I'm sure.

Don't forget the must-have Foom 2. Essential addition to any Wolverine collection.

Yup. Even if the ad was attractively presented in a nice frame, I would still prefer my Hulk 180 9.4, attractively presented in its plastic slab.

From what I've read online, a common definition is 'The market has spoken' . I wish there was greater consistency, however.

This recent trend does seem a bit desperate.

I associate him more now with Daredevil. Still one of Spidey's most dangerous opponents, though.

The earlier, darker stories had a lasting effect on me after reading some of them in the DC 100 pagers, back in the 70s. Still my favourite parts of the Archive collections.

Just because a comics storyline happens to be completely insane, that alone should never stop you from enjoying it.

I've always preferred the darker tone of early Dr Fate and Spectre in More Fun Comics to the increasingly lighter or comedic stories that you get in the later issues.

Gerry Conway's story was messed up. Doc only did it to go black widower on her, get hold of a nuclear power plant she'd inherited and obtain some weapons-grade Plutonium from it.

It's going to be at the back of my mind while reading his stories, but it's hardly a case for going through my collection, pulling out books containing his work, and then giving them the lighter fuel treatment. More showing a bit of thought and respect for some of the other creators associated with his comics, such as George Perez, Gene Colan and Tom Palmer, who were absolutely great when I met them.

In the hands of a top writer / artist team, realising the potential of the concept, I'm certain The Big Wheel would feature much higher in the pecking order than he does currently. Very underrated.

Sounds like a cross between Green Goblin and Morbius.

Congrats. Great Richard Corben book.

He's playing Steve Trevor.

I have to agree about Marv Wolfman. Terrible attitude when I tried to chat with him at LSCC. Extremely disappointing, as he's written some important books such as Tomb of Dracula, New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths, and someone whose work I'd admired since the 70s.

I've got nothing at this level of difficulty. Some very ambitious and impressive collecting achievements here.

As a New Yorker he may sound a little blunt to some, but having a fairly blunt, northern English accent myself I really can't be negative about that. I just understand it could polarise.

It's also the run that tied the prototype HOS 92 story into continuity as being an actual previous incarnation of the swamp elemental, years before Alec Holland.

In the 'criminals are a cowardly, superstitious lot' origin scene, instead of a bat flying in through the window, a baseball is thrown through and Bruce Wayne takes that as inspiraton and becomes the Baseball Batman.

I think that's what irritates me the most. It could also be someone at the opposite end of the spectrum, like me, who's simply very OCD ; protecting a high grade, perhaps expensive book which I care a lot about from damage, and presenting it to a creator whose work I admire. That level of consideration could, in other circumstances, be interpreted by them as respect rather than greed. It's a shame that purist collectors now get tarred with the same brush.

It has gone a little off topic, admittedly. So, apologies to the OP. I had to answer the question about what shop, and where. A classic case of 'too much detail'. Despite its flaws, I still struggle to rate the store as worse than Forbidden Planet in Manchester, though.