F For Fake

See, that's my problem, if a book is released in trade only, I'm ok with picking it up. But if I know there's a HC lurking out there, I just don't feel right picking up the paperback. I may have a problem. ha

My wife has a list of websites, phone numbers and emails of folks to get in contact with, should anything happen to me suddenly. Some of you might even be on that list! I've got a spreadsheet with the general value of the collection, just to give her an idea of just how low or high the offers might be. (They won't be very high, I don't keep a ton of stuff for the personal collection.) Assuming I should live my expected lifespan, the plan, like most folks, is to sell most of it when I retire, and we move to someplace warmer and sunnier. Once our parents are gone, we don't have much keeping us here. She has a sister and niece, and I don't have any siblings, and we don't have kids. So yeah, the great sell off and move. Of course, by that time the market may have completely collapsed, and many folks will likely be selling at the same time. But that's ok. I've enjoyed owning the stuff, I didn't consider any of it to be an investment. I have a pension. Anything I'm able to squeeze out of the collection will be a nice little supplement.

COVID related staff shortages + holiday shipping traffic = things are getting heavy. Our USPS guy comes later and later these days. In the "before times", our mail came around 2 or 3pm. These days it's not uncommon to see him around 7 or 8pm. I saw him this weekend, and mentioned how late they had him running around, and he literally said they are just about burnt out, everyone is working overtime because lots of people are out, or have retired or quit. He said he'd been on the road since 6:30am. USPS is an essential service, and like Bob said, these folks are burning out too. On the receiving end, I've got some holiday purchases arriving sporadically. Most things have been hitting their delivery target. I have one piece of jewelry that I ordered for my wife a week ago that is still sitting in California, and it simply says "arriving late", but I assume it'll shake loose before too long. These are times for patience and understanding. I have no doubt that the vast majority of these folks are doing the best they can. All things considered, I'm glad we're getting mail service at all.

And I'm kicking MYSELF for not buying the HC's of all of the BPRD stuff to begin with. At the time I was still buying monthlies, so I had every single Hellboy related book, spinoff, etc in floppy form. I thought "Well, one day I'll pick up the collections," so I sold off all of the individual books. Now those collections...not cheap! Plague of Frogs was such a cool story, too!

Good call! In fact, if that thread exists, we never have to read it, because we just picked #1 and #2 right now. No arguments!

Yeah, this is where I'm at. I'd want the correct version for my personal library, but I'd definitely want to disclose the error to any potential buyers. There are collectors of errors, but usually they're looking for "cool" errors, like the foil books that are missing the foil and therefore have a unique look, or books printed with colors missing, etc. I don't see this interest extend to collected editions so much, as most of those collectors just want the best possible reading version of a story for their library. But still, you never know, there is probably a collector out there who insists on having every known variant of this book. They must exist. Hope you fine 'em!

I don't recall reading that one, but I'd have to assume Avengers Annual 10 ranked pretty high on that list!

The majority of books with covers by Dave Stevens, aside from the Rocketeer itself. Not saying there aren't some cool books in that run, but the majority would still be quarter bin books if not for the Dave covers.

Finished this up last night, having started it in October! My reading really fell by the wayside during the fall, in favor of watching classic horror movies. Now I'm back in a reading mood, but will be hard pressed to hit 1000. This one puts me at 722, I believe. I've always favored HoS over HoM, and this revisit didn't change my mind. But there's still lots to love here, including some classic Wrightson, Redondo etc, and a buncha Neal Adams covers, if that's your thing. I'm not a big fan, especially his cover run here, which is overwhelmed by hideous coloring jobs. I know, I know, Adams revolutionized comic coloring processes, leading to a wider array of color possibilities, but these covers are so very brown/orange/green. Ugh. No thanks.

I ran a thread that was almost all adult books, about a year or so ago. I did like you said, covered up the naughtiest bits, spoilered some of the images, and posted a general warning of adult content prominently in my first post. Didn't run into any trouble.

Very sorry to hear that, certainly hope it all works out ok. As you know, at the end of the day, it's just stuff. I'd hate to give it all up too, but the day usually comes for all of us, one reason or another. You've got your priorities straight and are taking care of your family, and that's very admirable. Good luck with everything.

Can't believe I missed this earlier! I always enjoy these posts. I don't collect Voltron at all, but have voyeuristically very much enjoyed your research and journey in collecting.

I had that game too! I was just aging out of "playing with toys" when the Turtles really blew up, but I still got the first wave of figure and this game for either CHristmas or my b-day, can't recall (my b-day is two weeks after x-mas, so it's easy to confuse). The best thing about that game was the character stands that you mentioned (I believe they were thick illustrated cardboard that slid into plastic holders), and the dice...thingie...I don't know how to explain it. It was like a little seesaw, or mini-catapult, that you'd use to flip/roll the dice. Man that was fun!

Really looking forward to the Hate set, I need to grab the Neat Stuff set at some point as well. I'm not in a super big rush, as Fanta seems to do a nice job of keeping their stuff in print. I haven't read most of his stuff in a long time, so I'm looking forward to a revisit.

I bought the original the day it came out, right off the stands at my comic shop. Later sold it when prices went nuts. I'll pick up this new one at some point, I"m sure. Between Christmas shopping and Black Friday splurging, I am broke until after the holidays (as far as my fun money goes), so I'm hoping some of these books hang on for a while. The good news is that as you've pointed out, IST seems much better, and most volumes from the last couple of weeks have stayed in stock, so hopefully the ones I need will hang on a little bit longer.

I'm not a big Aquaman guy, but I've been tempted to pick these up, as they look very nicely done. I think you're right, I don't expect these were huge print runs, so I'd expect they'll dry up before too long.

Indeed they did! That's one that I skipped, because as you pointed out, it's really not a story at all. Same with the Year Zero and Villains Month and Rebirth omnis. Definitely not something I'm going to revisit as a reader, at least not in that form.

You know, when 52 launched, I decided to try the whole line. Picked up one of those bundles from DCBS where you could get all of the first and second issues for half off or whatever. I did that for 1-3, I think. There were some fun ideas and cool creative teams, and I got into the clean slate approach, as there were a lot of characters and titles I'd never have read otherwise. I dropped most after the third issue, I think I kept up with Demon Knights (which I still think was a fun and very nicely drawn book), Frankenstein Agent of SHADE, Justice League Dark and I Vampire, until they were canceled. Otherwise, within a year, I was back to just picking Batman, Justice League, and Wonder Woman, which is what I'd been buying before the relaunch anyway. So, yeah, it didn't stick for me personally, or a lot of folks, I guess. But I can't really say that what was coming out previous to 52 was much better, you know? Like you said, creatively, as far as the quality of the content, there was no real tipping point, unless someone is particularly fond of Wally West, apparently. That dude and his fans can't catch a break! The last time that I was REALLY into DC was that period between Identity Crisis and Final Crisis, which contained all of the Countdown minis, Infinite Crisis, 52, etc. It just seemed like editorially they really had the whole line humming, and mostly in sync. Those were my favorite DC times since I was a kid in the 80's. But after Final Crisis it seemed like if all kinda fell apart again. One Year Later, Countdown weekly, Trinity, none of it caught me at all. So, why not 52? I'm sure I'm not the only one whose interest in DC had mostly dropped. And then, yeah, my interest fell off again. Rebirth gave another spike, but once again, after a few months, I was back to just Batman, Justice League and Wonder Woman. And these days, I don't buy any DC floppies at all. Sold most of my runs (except for the sentimental stuff from my youth), and otherwise I keep up with Batman, Justice League and WW in hardcover form. So, if DC were to call it a day on publishing monthlies, it won't affect me at all, as a reader. But I'd really hate it for the shops, because I know there are still a lot of those Wednesday warriors out there that the shops depend on, who want DC monthlies, and I don't know that shops can survive without them. As long as comic books are being published, someone will make Batman and Superman comics books. That's just how it is. The thing is, at some point, paper publishing WILL go away. I'm not saying it's in the next five years, or even in our lifetime, but at some point, the final Batman periodical comic will be published, and that will be a sad day indeed.

Ha, see, it's funny because on my end, I'm just recently finding out that people DO like BTTF2! I'm not one to yuck someone's yum, so I'd never try to argue that anyone is wrong for liking it, but I remember that it really didn't do anything for me as a kid, and I guess I grew up expecting everyone thought like me! I owe it a rewatch, for sure. At the time it came out, the first was my favorite movie, I just loved it so much. But I couldn't get into part 2 at all. Meanwhile, I thought part 3 was a lot of fun! I haven't seen 2 or 3 since I was a kid, so I definitely owe both a reappraisal through adult eyes.

Beautiful stuff as always! I've had the SAS Fang on my want list for a long time now, this one looks gorgeous. Did it come like that, or did you have to fix it up? Super sweet!

Yeah, and even console games, if you don't have to have them right away, usually drop dramatically even within a year of release. They're kinda like new cars, they start depreciating as soon as you drive them off the lot/open them. I take so long to finish games (if I finish them at all) I can usually get whatever I want for $15 or so by the time I'm ready to play it. Heck, right now I'm replaying all of the old Halo games, it's been a lot of fun!

I'm pretty sure there have been boardies who are "unknowns" that have had their sketch covers certified before, right? Maybe they'll chime in, as I can't remember who at this point. You'll probably get a better answer in the sig forum.

The fact that a pressing thread in CG stayed this civil for two pages truly shows how things have changed around here. My advice on pressing, whenever I'm asked, is the same: don't. Let the pros do it, if you must. There were a couple of local guys I used to buy from, and then I found out they were pressing their own books. So that ended that! If you feel like you have to do it yourself, there was a very long thread in Modern a couple/few years back where Larry was experimenting with the process, and whatever one's thoughts on pressing (or Larry, for that matter) may be, I found it interesting to read. I'd never actually act on any of the information, but it was interesting stuff. The local guys I know use a t-shirt press, but most of the others I've talked to seem to favor a photo matte press, like Artboy mentioned above. And the pros? Well, they're not talking, and why should they? But yes, if you truly, absolutely must do this, buy it new, so you know it's clean and working properly, and be prepared to pay through the nose for it. My actual tip would be to look locally, maybe local camera/photo shops, or even framing/hobby stores, may have the ability to order it for you, so you can at least save on the shipping. These things are heavy as mess. And has been mentioned, be prepared to ruin hundreds of books before you figure out what you're doing. Have fun! Don't do it!

I think V2 is great for, say, the first 20 issues or so. After that it's spotty, and the later years were pretty dire (as was most Marvel stuff at that time.) Is the Spider-Girl book still a hot issue? I know I picked a few of them out of dollar bins over the years, and they sold great, but I haven't kept up. I can't keep track of all of the hot Spider-related books, it's a full time job!

Those are great choices! These are my three, based almost entirely upon nostalgia I described above, but I think they're all pretty solid stories too!