Gatsby77

Umm...except that there were a handful of artists trying damn-hard to imitate McFarlane. Stephen Platt, I think, was the most obvious example. Moon Knight 55 took off precisely because it featured "a new artist who drew like McFarlane" -- and among his early covers -- Moon Knight 55-57, Prophet # 4 variant and Prophet # 5 may as well have been drawn by McFarlane. Capullo's another one -- there's a reason he was the first to follow McFarlane on Spawn -- he'd been mentored and trained up by him. I'd even argue that Liefeld was heavily influenced by McFarlane, who both inked and co-penciled some of the early Liefeld New Mutants issues.

Damn - I'm looking for 9.8 McFarlane Hulks, but already have the # 330. Awesome books! GLWTS!

I'm not familiar with them but I'd add Ostrander's run on Spectre in the mid-90s. -- Amazing writing and great covers (including 3 of the first 15 that were glow-in-the-dark).

All of this. Plus: Astro City Green Lantern 76-89 (people forget that for decades GL 76, 81-82 & more were more key for their Denny O'Neil stories than the Adams art) Ditto Denny O'Neil with Batman 217-251 Animal Man 1-20 100 Bullets 1-50 Y: The Last Man (all) Wonder Woman vol 2 # 20, 170 Infinity Gauntlet Civil War (seriously -- it was like Secret Wars, but...good)

I've said it before and I'll say it again -- Comcast needs this much more than Disney does; and they could still lease comic book characters to Disney a la Sony.

This. Collecting for pure investment would be incredibly boring. Given $50k for investment only, I probably wouldn't buy more than 10 books but I'd buy multiples of them for liquidity sake -- like X-Men 1, GS 1, ASM 129, Daredevil 1, Hulk 1, Hulk 181. So...assume a total portfolio/collection of 40 books total, comprised entirely of those six books. Most of these have already had their "movie bump" but should remain solid collectable investments for at least the next decade or so. The key? - Relatively expensive already (it's easier to sell a $500 book than 10 $50 books) - Liquid -- Need to sell 15 copies of Hulk 181 or ASM 129? Easy to do in a week. Sure, you'd miss some minor speculative keys, like not buying 50 copies of Thor 337 and cashing out when Beta Ray Bill (re-)appears on screen, but the blue chips are the blue chips. They're known and they're boring.

Yeah - as was already noted, Fox News isn't part of the deal. Sky News (UK) is, however -- and the deal's more about that than it is comics -- Disney's broadcast footprint outside of the U.S. is -- they're desperately trying to change that.

Yeah, but AT&T just bought Warner Bros. Which I think is a major reason Comcast was/is going after Fox. Prediction: Comcast now buys Sony.

Agreed. Excellent movie that -- like Guardians before it -- showed that even a C-list hero could make for an A-list comic book movie.

It's worse than that, though. Comic book movies have already largely redefined the word key to mean simply "first appearance." Classic storylines, artist runs, and even -- to a certain extent -- classic covers, are not as "key" as they were 8-10 years ago.

Even I'd have a hard time recommending comic books as an asset class, and I've been collecting since 1989. Despite that accumulated knowledge and a disciplined approach -- and I've spent up to $2,700 per comic -- it's still difficult to eek out a profit that matches that of equities. And I rode the Marvel movie wave that saw my books including Avengers 1, Daredevil 1, TMNT 1, X-Men 1 and esp. Strange Tales 110 (x 3) all double-triple within 4 years. I don't see that happening again anytime soon and over the long haul I think we'll see massive reductions in 80% of the market as my generation (early 40s) -- the last who bought comics off the shelf voraciously as teens eventually eases into retirement and cashes out. Stocks and real estate -- for example -- are far better asset classes than comics.

? You're right -- but Spreads was talking about the opposite. -- Not a distressed comic book seller, but the sheer stupidity of a buyer paying more than $30,000 for a 9.6 copy of Green Lantern 76 just a few months after the stock market crash -- when nearly all equities were still available for rock-bottom prices.

Okay -- but it wasn't a massive decline after that first sale. The GPA average of the first three sales of the book in 9.6 -- involving at least two different copies -- was $26,000. Three sales in 9.6 at an average of $26,000 is a fairly short time span is a more reliable indicator of value than sole-first-to-market, no? Still a massive decline for a blue chip key in the years since, given that the book has recently sold for less than $6,000. Also, I've made that exact same "wait and see argument" for Copper books ranging from GI Joe 21 to Batman 428 to Harbinger 1 to Wolverine 35. In each of those cases, I think we'll see a steady continued census growth of 9.8 copies -- as in fact we have already for all but Wolverine 35.

Don't disagree that Kirkman likely held back a few hundred copies of Walking Dead # 1. And _of course_ re-subs. I should have noted, "7,266 copies ordered" -- based on Comichron and other sources. Still, seems a bit disingenuous to disregard the "copies ordered" when there's a hard number listed for the book just a few posts after you use the Cap City numbers for early McFarlane ASM to make a point. I get that indies =/= mainstream Marvel/DC titles in terms of over-printing and distribution, but all published data (of which you are normally so fond) note the book had a print run of "about 7,000 copies." You're of course entitled to suggest that the true print run may be double or more than that...but such an assertion puts the onus on you to back up, not us. Either we trust the listed Cap City / Diamond / etc. published data across the board or we do not. You can't pick and choose.

Compared to 4 million? A'yup!

Not sure about that. Superman # 75 had a reported print run of 4 million copies and was the best-selling book of the year. First month orders for Captain America # 25 were just under 300,000 copies (far far rarer), and yet demand was largely satisfied within a month due to the magic of internet distribution.

On a side note, I'm waiting for the Werewolf by Night 32 bubble to burst. Don't get me wrong, I love the book (and the title itself). But its run-up over the past few years has been based solely on speculation that a) Netflix or Marvel will eventually feature him and b) that feature will be good. Don't disagree with a, but b is suspect. If a solo Moon Knight Netflix series is as poorly executed as Iron Fist or Defenders, look for it drop like a stone. It also cracks me up that it now looks like we'll see a Morbius project before a Moon Knight one.

Forgot if this was mentioned pages back, but Green Lantern 76 in CGC 9.6. From what I believe is a record-high (for a 9.6 Bronze book) GPA price of $30,500 in June 2009 to the last listed sale price of $5,856 in Aug. 2017. Yeah -- it was a "scarce-in-high-grade no-9.8s-then-on-the-census" deal but it's still more than an 80% loss on a high-grade Bronze key in less than 10 years.

The greatest velocity of rise and fall I've seen was Captain America # 25. The book went from selling for cover price ($2.95) to selling for as high as $60 within 36 hours of release. As in, sets of 50 copies sold for $2,000 on eBay within two days of release. But by the following week it had settled back down to $10-12 online -- and I later picked up a few copies for cover price from a LCS when their re-orders came in. It was so crazy that folks who set 3-day auctions on eBay won out, while those who set 7- or 10-day auctions left a lot of money on the table. This was the first mainstream craziness I'd seen for a modern book in the eBay era. And worthy of comparing to other similar books from a generation earlier (Superman 75, Alpha Flight 106), which stayed at higher prices far longer because eBay and other online sales venues didn't exist at the time.

I never found Harbinger # 1 for less than $8. However, I did find NM copies of Magnus 1 and 12 in $1 boxes (Bethesda, MD), and god bless Capital City Comics (Madisons, WI). Summer 2004 -- picked up Magnus 0 (w/ card), Armorines 0 gold, Unity O red, Harbinger 0 pink and Hard CORPS 1 gold and more for $4 apiece. That store was amazing.

That's funny because I think FF is unfilmable as live action, but perfect for animation. After four (!) live-action FF films, it's hard to make the case that another would somehow be good simply because Disney might do it. While actually enjoyed Rise of the Silver Surfer, I think the perfect version's already been done with The Incredibles. Really excited for The Incredibles 2.

And keep in mind that the Justice Department just approved an equivalent vertical integration with the AT&T-Time Warner merger, so Comcast needs Fox more than ever. The comics IP owned by Fox is small fry here -- not at all what this is about.

I like this article by Mark Hughes, who is one of the film critics who writes for Forbes: http://qr.ae/TUpsuj He writes: "I think Comcast’s aggressive attempt to subvert the Disney-Fox deal was possibly just jockeying for position to get Disney to give up Hulu and Sky TV anyway, and that Comcast would in the long run rather obtain control of Comcast and Sky, and then use their large amount of cash to buy Paramount and Sony Pictures instead. Getting the back catalogue of movies and TV shows from those two companies, and having a major established streaming service on which to put the library of content, is of vastly more value to Comcast in the long run. Throw in the rights to Sky TV, and I think it’s clearly the best option for Comcast and an easily doable deal for Disney to avoid having to increase their bid to Fox." The significance to his line of thought is that this all started when Fox basically decided they wouldn't attempt to do a stand-alone streaming service. Sony and Paramount are in the same boat -- so all three are acquisition targets for companies who have streaming services and/or plans for such -- potentially Amazon, Netflix, Disney, even Google. Given that Hulu is currently owned by Disney, Fox, and Comcast, the latter has a vested interest in protecting that service. If Disney/Fox goes through, suddenly Disney doesn't need to launch its own streaming service next year -- it just revamps Hulu.

Was Darkseid ever mentioned in BvS? I can't recall.

Not hijacking at all -- the Deadline article at top notes some details of Johns' production deal: His first film projects will be Warner Bros. Pictures’ Green Lantern Corps, based on his New York Times bestselling series that saw an impressive nine-year run, spawning additional spin-off titles and comic book events. Johns will write and be a producer on the film. Additionally, he co-wrote and executive produced Aquaman, which releases worldwide December 21, and is writing and executive producing the second installment of the Wonder Woman franchise with director Patty Jenkins, releasing in November 2019. New Line’s Shazam!, slated for an April 2019 release, is based on his original graphic novel.