F For Fake

And then I would have bought them from him!

Can't believe you nerds are fighting about owning pieces of a comic, when you could be buying up PIECES OF THE MOON! While you suckers are enjoying your paper scraps, I'll be frolicking in the Sea of Tranquility! Sayonara! I'm gonna be rich! https://lunarland.com/

Good on ya, love seeing boardies look out for each other!

I think the Reaction TF figs are super cute, but had decided to not buy them because I just can’t justify $18 a pop for these little guys. This weekend I was at Target, and took a look at the collectible toys section, and saw they had these exclusive figures. I had a little left on a gift card, and a coupon from my b-day, so I decided to pick it up, mostly because of that snazzy foil embossed card, and the paint defect. I may not buy any more of these, or this may have opened a dangerous door. Who can say? If I ever decide I don’t need it, I’ll just throw it up on eBay with a big “RARE PAINT ERROR/DEFECT! CGC IT! OMG!” type description and retire with the earnings.

Went ahead and got the Lee/Claremont Omni ordered today. So glad they made the variant cover available again, as I really liked that "letterboxed" look when I owned it the first time around.

People like what they like. You should collect what you like. I was a copper kid (but not Copper Age Kid...that's an important distinction!) so my nostalgia is largely tied to the 80's and 90's. But I love Silver and Bronze keys because those were the books that I aspired to own as a kid. Those were "old", and "old" was cool. Of course, let's not consider the fact that there's a lot more time between the Copper Age and present day than there was between the Silver and Copper age. Ugh. I'm old. Today, they're that much older, and I love them not because they're great reads (they're usually not), but because of the historical value, the cover art, etc. I don't need to read Avengers 4 to love the book. Heck, Hulk 1-6 are TERRIBLE reads (sorry, fans!), but I LOVE those books, because who wouldn't love those ancient, weird Marvels with the awesome covers, there in the early days of the Marvel Universe? I've never owned a Hulk 1, but I've owned multiples of 2-6, and even though I hope i never have to read them again, I still LOVE those books. Silver Age DC's are legendarily corny, but I still love 'em. One reading will suffice for a lifetime, but owning the books and enjoying their place in comics history, that never goes away, for me. The truth is, if you're looking for comic writing that stands up to the test of time...there isn't much to be found. Most Gold, Silver, Bronze, and yeah, even copper, books are fairly cheesy by current standards. And then 90's, ugh. Somehow even worse! But there are always exceptions. As a reader, I find most Golden Age hero books to be a real chore to get through. However, I do legitimately love Jack Cole's Plastic Man, Eisner's Spirit, and a few others. And most of the horror books are still a joy to read. And EC? Man, EC's are still dynamite! Of course, today, it doesn't matter much what I think about the content. Grails are generally far beyond my grasp, and hell, bronze and copper keys are fast approaching that threshold as well.

Damn, I'm behind on things, I apparently missed UXM 3. Didn't have it on my radar. UXM 2 is getting reprinted next month, right? Hopefully I can dig UXM 3 up somewhere. Looks like UXM Lee/Claremont Omni is still up at IST, so I haven't missed that yet. Crazy times, they're hammering us right after the holidays. C'mon stimulus check! Edit: Ok, I see my confusion now. I guess direct market got their shipments early, as Amazon doesn't show UXM 3 hitting until Jan 19. That must have been where I got the date. Man, gonna be an expensive month, not sure I can get caught up!

Such a great run! I got this one when it came out, read it all in a couple of sittings. No one does that Kirby-esque, operatic mythology like Uncle Walt.

I really dig the sculpt on Scarlett and Roadblock (and the other new Joes), but I haven't been able to find the figures locally at all, and haven't been willing to pay eBay prices...yet. I'd be all over it if I found it on the pegs. The only ones I've seen in person are Snake and Storm Shadow, but I wasn't very excited about them, so I passed. Nice lot of stuff!

Thanks Brother! It was a weird birthday because we couldn't celebrate with family and friends, but the wife went above and beyond to make it a special day.

Thanks! Yeah, I don't do many Pops, but these are pretty cool. Am now wondering if I need the rest of these giant zombies...certainly need Magneto, at the very least, right???

Pretty nice b-day haul from the Missus today. I admit, I may have given her some guidance. I am still digging these new MoTU figs, I may be in danger of going down a rabbit hole. Also glad to have the AWE Striker, and have out that Classified standee to good use, since I’m not collecting the actual Classified series. May need another HISS to balance it out. This Mega Construx Alien Slime Egg is a hoot. Blind “boxed” figures in an egg, sealed in a membranous pouch full of slime! Too funny. Also digging giant Zombie Wolverine Pop. I married well, no question!

Ok, kicking 2021 off with a bang. Went to the lake with the wife for a 4 day holiday weekend. Since it was cold and rainy (January, duh) there wasn’t much to do but play games, watch tv, eat, and read! I tried my darnedest in 2020, but got a late start and ended up a couple hundred books short of the goal of 1000. Love and Rockets v3 #9 - A new L&R is always cause for celebration, but even though I’ve been reading Los Bro’s for 30+ years, the lay-off between issues makes me feel like I need a “previously on Love & Rockets” primer with each new issue. I love Beto, but I often get lost trying to recall all of the Palomar characters and relationships. Xaime’s Hoppers stuff always sticks to my brain a little better. Solid issue, as you’d expect, but nothing explosive. 1 issue Holy Corpse Rising volumes 3,4,5 - I haven’t really kept up with manga for the last 20 years or so, but every once in a while something will catch my eye. In this case it was the gorgeous cheesecake covers. However there’s a lot more going on here, with this tale of a new crusader and his multiple witch wives, hunting and killing witches across Europe. It’s a little kinky, a little silly, very sexy, sometimes extraordinarily violent, and often anachronistic; but it’s very well drawn, features a lot of dense world building with glossaries and maps, and is a lot of fun. Each volume contains around 6 chapters of 25-30 pages, so I’m counting this as 18 issues between the three volumes. Uncle Scrooge - Mines of King Solomon and The 24 Carat Moon. I’m finally, nearly caught up on my Barks collections. Not sure what else to say about this stuff. It’s endlessly charming, beautifully illustrated, and a source of great comfort to me. Barks is widely known to be one of the best to ever do it, and there’s a reason for that! Hard to tally the “issues” on these collections, as some are 22 pagers, some are single page gags, and there’s several in between. So for these purposes, I’d consider 22 pages to equal a single comic, so 180 pages each volume would come out to around 16 issues. Batman by Paul Dini Omnibus - I hadn’t read the Detective issues since they were originally published, and I don’t think I’ve ever read the Streets of Gotham stuff at all. This was a very fun read. Dini knows how to tell a story in a single self contained issue, and he also leans into the Detective part of the Batman mythos. He’s also great with one off characters, and some who I feel could have had more of a career at DC, like Mad Hatter’s Wonderland Gang, the Carpenter, Little Italy and Zzz, the Bed Bug, Abuse, etc. Lots and lots of great ideas there. I’ll give this caveat: reading it all in one sitting, I was struck by just how much violence was centered around children. Children killing children, adults killing children, allusions to grotesque child abuse, etc. Now I’m really not a handwringer or overly sensitive to most things. I don’t have kids, or hell, even particularly LIKE kids. But it hit me kinda weird. So, a “trigger warning” to those who may be unsettled by such depictions. All in all, I still really enjoyed the book. Around 45 issues in this collection. So, that brings my 2021 total to 80 issues. Not bad!

Glad to see the new thread. I came up a couple hundred short in 2020, but I started late. Read a big stack this weekend, will get the totals together shortly. CAL is back! Gonna be a spicy 2021!

Very sad, I was hoping that it all been a huge mix up, and that she'd pull through. For a generation that grew up on cable airings of Beastmaster and Sheena, she was an icon. RIP.

Normally around this time we'd have a house full of friends, laughing and talking and eating while the kids played XBox downstairs. We'd have a little drink here and there, waiting for the ball to drop, and then I'd make a huge midnight breakfast for whoever was still standing. This year the wife is having some leftover pasta from dinner last night, and I just heated up some chicken strips. Going to watch a movie, then probably go to bed. What a difference a year makes. BUT, we are safe and alive and healthy. My parents, her folks, our families, our friends, have all survived. We are both lucky to remain employed, working from home this entire time. We are very, very fortunate, and very, very grateful. Everyone keep your head down, keep moving forward, and stay alive. See you in 2021.

Oh cool, I dig the Royal Starship! There was a great time many years ago when KB was just FLOODED with PotF2 and Ep1 Star Wars stuff, at great clearance prices. I bought CASES of Millennium Falcons and At-Ats at $25 a piece, and figures were 3 for $10, I think, including lots of harder to find Freeze Frame variants. I filled a closet at my parents' house (that's how long ago this was, at least 20 years) with the stuff. But even then, I only found TWO of those Royal Starships. I paid $50 each, I think. I ended up dumping them locally because who wants to ship that? Really wish I'd held onto one, because despite my feelings about the prequels, that is still a really pretty ship!

That's a nice list! I really like the new SW stuff a lot, but I must resist! I got a VC TIE Fighter for Christmas, and a VC Jabba's Palace last year. I'm not opposed to getting more of the stuff if I find it at a good price. Much like with my comics response, I don't really have a checklist or anything in mind. I like to find random treasure locally. So I guess my only real goal is to amass enough of a war chest so that when I go to shows, estate sales, etc in the spring (hoping they'll start bouncing back by then) I'll be able to make a run at whatever catches my eye. That being said, while I have no plan of attack, and am not specifically budgeting for it, this is what I need to complete my G1 Transformers "First Wave" collection, the original 28: Ratchet Wheeljack Bluestreak Starscream Soundwave Shockwave Brawn Gears Red Bumblebee And I think that's it. None of this is particularly hard to find, so I just keep the list in the back of my brain when I go to shows and sales. I could hop on eBay any day of the week and grab these, but the difficulty I set for myself is that I have to find them in person, loose/complete, in good shape, locally, the way I found everything else in my G1 collection. Makes the hunt more challenging and fun! Also takes much longer, but eh, that's ok. I'm not in a hurry. For Joes, I need a few random weapons to complete my domestic Tiger Force set, and I will probably have to resort to a FB group or eBay to finish those, because I don't imagine I'll be finding random backpacks and guns in my travels. I still need a Road Pig and a Gnawgahyde to complete my Dreadnoks set, but those shouldn't be too tough. For new stuff, I gotta have that NECA Quint figure. It comes with crushed beer cans, ferchrissakes! Other than that, I'm sure I'll pick up a few Legends or DC figures here or there. I try to swear them off completely, but I'm not made of stone. Happy hunting, and happy new year!

So I guess the SW bug has bitten, and now I'm picking the DH stuff when I find them for a couple of bucks. The market being what it is today, may as well take a chance!

A couple of pickups from a second hand shop tonight. Nothing crazy,but for a couple bucks, why not? Picked up a set of SW Rebellion at my LCS, which included this fun newsstand Variant, which has the incorrect title. I know we've seen these before, but I still find them interesting.

New costume doesn't do anything for me, but I don't see the need to get bent out of shape about it. It'll change again in a few months. Judging stories you haven't read based on a reaction to a single drawing seems really silly. Am I going to read it? Probably not, but I haven't read a Spider-book in a very long time. But seeing a single image of a costume you think is dumb looking, and then extrapolating that to "All new (Marvel) comics suck!" seems a bit farfetched. Of course, no one hates comics like comic book fans. Everyone wants everything to stay the way it was when they were 15. I get it. As for my personal list, my favorite is the old school blue/red, followed by the "first appearance" look black/red, then the Secret Wars black and white, then the Future Foundation White and black. I think those are all pretty snazzy. And that's it for me. Don't like any of the variations on the blue/red, don't like Iron Spider, etc. But that just means I don't want an action figure, or statue, or whatever, of that costume. I still read plenty of stories with those costumes and didn't go into full blown Old Man Rage mode.

I've been using them for cheaper books for years. Never had an issue. I get the mailers and their precut pads, because I hate cutting cardboard more than just about anything else I can think of. So, for books that are $50 or less, Gemini's work great for me. And as has been pointed out, they slip perfectly into a Priority Legal Flat Rate envelope if you want to go that route. For slightly more expensive books I still go the cardboard sandwich in bubble wrap, in the 1092/1095 priority combo box. These methods work great for me as the supplies are cheap (geminis) or free (1092/1095, legal envelopes), and fast. I've never had a book damaged using any of these methods, but it's not impossible, obviously. I have to weigh my time/cost versus what I'm willing to eat (or deal with the USPS insurance claim process) should a book get damaged. For stuff that I'm not willing to take that slight chance (too expensive to write off easily), I go with nice, heavy box with the sandwich/bubble wrap combo. For slabs, same, though I don't deal much in slabs. I've been selling on ebay for nearly 25 years. I've used Gemini as long as they've been around, I think they used to have another name, didn't they? I remember a few years ago I emailed them because I was so happy with the shippers as well as the shipping speed (I'd ordered directly from their website.) Just wanted to say thanks. Out of the blue, they sent me a free package of 50 shippers. I was very surprised and impressed. Like them a lot.

Surprised to find our stimulus arrived this morning. That was fast! Immediately applied it to a couple of medical bills. The system works? USA! USA! *the system does not work

Oh, are they reprinting Man-Thing??? That's awesome! I slept on it the first time around, and have regretted it for some time now. I had the Essentials and most of the floppies, so I hadn't been in a huge hurry to get the Omni. Thanks for the heads up, I have been out of touch with solicitations and news through the holiday season. Will definitely pick this one up. If you have any affinity for bronze horror, I'd say you should give it a chance. It has that vibe, but is just a little more odd, which makes it appealing. Great Ploog art too.

You make a good point, about being new to the hobby. You're definitely not alone, as we've seen a groundswell of interest in collected editions in recent years. Some are readers who are new to the formats altogether, and others are flippers who finally caught on to our little corner of the hobby. Either way, it means sales, and that's good. If people keep buying, the companies will hopefully keep printing. I have omnis and hc's now of books I never thought we'd see in a million years, so it would definitely seem that a rising tide lifts all boats. I'm also with you 100% on the spines. It drives me bonkers how DC switched trade dress mid-way through runs, particularly on the Bronze House of Secrets/Mystery spines. Ugh. At the end of the day I'm just glad to have the books, but I don't understand changing horses midstream like that. Owners of earlier volumes will likely prefer to keep the same trade dress to all of the volumes, and prospective new readers are more likely to start buying the series with the first volume anyway. Who are they hoping to attract by changing it up on the second/third/etc volume? Drives me nuts.