Ken Aldred

Possibly the worst I’ve ever encountered here in the U.K. was during the 90s. He had a two-tier system, ‘Fine’ and ‘Near Mint’, where he’d take the Fine or Near Mint price for the book from the British Price Guide and half it. Except… ’Fine’ condition was anything that looked a bit like a rag, VG, G or even less, (I got sent some really crappy-looking Marvel horror mags) and ‘Near Mint’ was anything which superficially looked in nice shape, possibly what we’d call Fine to Very Fine or better. So, the pricing wasn’t quite as generous as it sounded. Compounding this was a lot of clearly superficial cover grading going on. I bought a Son of Satan 1 which looked really nice externally, but, the usual amateur mistake, no Marvel Value Stamp inside. I wrote back, possibly returned the copy, can’t remember as it’s 3 decades ago, and never heard anything more. As I said, incompetent amateur hour grading, to be polite, with all the finesse of a scrap metal dealer, which I believe was one of his other interests.

Evil Dead 2 : Dead by Dawn, made much more sense and was much better. Similar skull poster design as well, much the same idea really.

The first sentence, about Aussies being tough and badass, is true. The rest is a total fabrication based on a classic scene from Sgt Fury 1.

I can believe it. Australians are tough people. It’s a little known fact that in World War 2 an Australian took out a Messerschmitt flying above him by tossing a perfectly-timed hand grenade at it, an event later plagiarised by Stan Lee in Sgt Fury issue 1. As a result, the cover shown above and your claim are both quite plausible.

Just about to post the link. It’s a great resource.

If it was in better condition, I’d be in a probable minority of picking Marvel Premiere 15. One of my favourite Bronze Age origins, some very nice Gil Kane artwork.

Forgot about one of my favourite, extremely surreal villains, Johnny Sorrow. (Dr N-R-Gee’s appearance, above, reminded me of him.)

Definitely great taste in comic art.

I’ve always liked the Kirby Eternals run. It only really derails hard with the Hulk storyline towards the end. Nice to see a very common book becoming more affordable again, though.

Haven’t read it, but that’s a recommendation for me.

Great selection there.

The Good Asian 1 to 10 2023 total = 197 A good crime noir comic set in the 1930s, with a background emphasis on the anti-Chinese racial intolerance of the period. Nice artwork.

To me, it feels too much like staring into a black hole or total eclipse. A background void of nothingness. I don’t like it.

Yes, I know.

Strangely, I find this easier to look at. Too much hard contrast for me between the black background and the lettering. As long as the rings are toned down like that and aren’t too loud, it’d actually be fine.

Looks like Warlord. Wrong colour scheme, though.

What super-hero wouldn’t be intimidated by ‘The Trapster’s’ paste-pot gun and glue bucket. It’s invincible. May as well just give up. Almost as scary as an Ultimate Nullifier.

Congrats. A great series. Classic Batman.

I respect that review, its cathartic honesty. You can feel the intense pain and suffering. Powerfully emotional.

Think that’s from the portfolio. Another item I used to have.

That is. Mid 80s Aquaman. Waves in the costume that more looked like blue flames to me.

Yup. His extremely repetitive figure work.

That was just before I started reading comics. My first JLA / JSA story was coincidentally another reintroduction just a few issues later involving the Freedom Fighters, which I posted earlier in the thread.