F For Fake

It occurs to me that I haven't bought any comics for myself (outside of hardcovers and trades) since well before X-mas. The LCS had a 50% off sale that I attended yesterday. I got tied up at work, so by the time I got there, all of the great deals were gone, but I dig snag a couple more mid-grade Kirby's for the collection (Death Wish of Terrible Turpin is, of course, one of my all time fave Kirby stories), and this bronze X-Book. This was one of the first X-Men stories I ever read, in the form of Classic X-Men. I picked up UXM 227 (the end of Fall of the Mutants) and this issue of Classic X-Men on the same day, and then spent the next several years obsessed with filling in the gaps between those stories. What happened to those characters? How/why had they changed in that gap of time? It made me a huge fan. Anyway, I'll always have a place in my heart for this book, plus it's a person_without_enough_empathyin' cover!

That's a great one! There was a time, I think it was the mid to late 90's, when there was a comic site called coverpricecomics, or something like that. They dealt in back issues, and everything was, as you'd expect, cover price. I picked up TONS of 70's DC horror books from that place ,so many great stories. Ghosts, Sinister House, House of Secrets/Mystery, etc. Terrific stuff. I think I have most of that in Showcase reprints now, and they're great reads.

Man, @comicwiz always bringing the heat with the crazy hard to find stuff. Love it, as always!

I've got all of my boxes except for the very first one I bought, which was the first edition of the Dave Stevens book. (That was also the first Artist Edition they did, wasn't it?) Back at the time it was the only one I owned, and I think I used the box to ship some original art out, as I didn't have anything better to use at the moment. Now that I have a few of these, I wish I'd held onto that box. If anyone has one they want to turn loose, hit me up!

No one in their right mind would claim that Romita wasn't talented. That's crazy talk. I will always love Ditko's Spidey, but to my mind, Romita's Spider-Man IS Spider-Man. That's what I see in my head when I think of the character. It's the definitive take. Happy belated B-day to Mr. Romita!

I need to bite the bullet and pick up another copy at some point, but the train has left the station on what I want to pay. I picked up a 9.8 back before the first big increase in value. I paid $350 or $400 for it, which I thought was a lot, but I felt it was the right time. A few months later I sold it for $1200 (or thereabouts) which I figured was SURELY the ceiling for the book. What do they run now? $2k or more? As stated, I'm not that bright. So I say enjoy your hoard! I don't think the book is going to tank anytime soon.

Re: McFarlane Spideys, sets still do well, at least for me, relative to cost. #1 and #13 are generally not in the dollar bins anymore. The rest are easy 50 cent to $1 finds. Get lucky and put a set together for $10-$15, sell them for $30-$40 depending on condition. Always worth a pick up, to me. I don't love the book personally, but if they sell, they sell. #13 newsstand can be a $15-$20 book as well. Re: Gen 13, now that's close to my heart. I was working at a comic shop back when that book blew up, and I remember #1 being a $50+ wall book. So, I am inclined to pick them up whenever I find them for a buck or less. I've got a pretty healthy stack. True, they may never be worth much more than a buck, and will almost certainly never reach the heights of the mid-90's, but I just can't let them go. More challenging are the newsstand copies. I've only found a couple of newsstand #1's, probably 1 for every 10 copies of the direct version I've found. I'd like to put together a newsstand set of the mini series, but only have 1 & I think 3 represented so far. They just don't pop up very often. I think the print runs were relatively high for that series, it was pretty amazingly popular at the time. So, none of them are hard to find, even with the sexy JSC art, but I still hoard #12's (sexy Fairchild cover) and #5 (Fairchild bikini cover on a white cover that often has issues with color rub). #2 is out there by the palette load, but it's tough to find them in really nice shape because they had trading cards or something inserted, so they tend to have gnarly spine dents. Again, we're talking about books to look for in the dollar bins in hopes of them some day maybe being worth $2-$5. I have no unrealistic expectations of their value. I just like the books, so I buy 'em. On the pricier side, The Gen-et Jackson and Lingerie variants of #1 are still good sellers, and the blank cover as well, as lots of folks like to get JSC sketches on them. For potential sleepers, I'd look at the latter-day Adam Warren issues. They are uncommon. Not valuable at all, and if you DO find them they're probably only a buck, but compared to the JSC issues, you just don't run into them very much.

HA At first I thought there was a big dent on the back and was going to say "Hey, get that big dent pressed out, maybe you can upgrade", and then I realized...it's a reflection of your hand. I never claimed to be that bright. Congrats on adding to the hoard!

My problem with Hard Travelin Heroes is that it's VERY HEAVY HANDED with its message. But then again, it was a different time, superhero comics weren't exactly known for their nuance, and the fact that comics were trying to broach these topics at all (racism, drugs, etc) was pretty heavy stuff. I don't think the books READ particularly well these days, but they're still important, and the art is still pretty. I can't imagine needing to sit down and actually read them again any time soon, though.

Even the friendliest of competitions give me anxiety, so I'm not playing, but I will be cheering you all from the sidelines!

I'd say Gold. PCH and GGA seem to be all the rage with the flippers I see on Instagram. Hard to find deals on GA at all these days.

The cool thing about The Toys that Made Us is that even the properties I don't care anything about (Wrestling, Star Trek, Barbie) still make for very entertaining and engrossing shows. That's the mark of good television. I wouldn't watch professional wrestling if you paid me, but the TTTMU ep was fantastic!

I bought one of the FOOM packets with that very poster, directly from Steranko himself, many many years ago. I think I paid $20 or $30 for it, and they were fresh as new. Wish I'd held onto it. I've gotten a few Steranko sigs since then, would be nice to have it on one of those.

As has been said, graded books are a niche within a niche. The vast majority of comic buyers don't care about them at all. And that's fine. There's no right or wrong way to collect. Also worth noting, while there are a few FB comic groups with sharp folks, most of them are populated by mouthbreathing cretins, flipping books back and forth to each other. Either way, it's not worth getting worked up about, or thinking about at all, really. Collect what you love, love what you collect. If other people don't like it, or "like" it, you still have what you love. I try to throw a "like" up when I see something here that I genuinely think is cool, but sometimes I don't think to do so. It's also worth noting that the "like" feature is a relatively new thing for the CGC Boards. I'm sure there are still a lot of boardies who don't even use the function here. So I wouldn't take a "like" to be a true measure of interest, or lack thereof, either here or on FB. Tl,dr: people are dumb, don't worry about it!

Eh, I'm married now. She had her chance!

I'll never forgive Seinfeld for allowing us to believe that fat bald guys actually had a shot with Marisa Tomei!

Haven't had much time so far. The only comics I've been reading are the Fantagraphics collections of Floyd Gottfredson Mickey Mouse strips. I like to unwind right before bed with some classic Carl Barks Duck books, but I'm all caught up on those, so I've moved back to the Gottfredson Mouse stuff. At any rate, I've finished a couple of collections, but they're strips, not comic books, and I don't know how to count them towards a total, so I guess they don't count at all! SO, to that end, the first and only comics I've read so far: The DCEased hardcover collection, which I believe collects 7 issues (a six issue mini and a one-shot/special). I knocked that out in about 45 minutes last night. My review?

By the time Power Rangers hit, I was in high school and not doing toys anymore. I picked up a couple to flip at the time (as was pointed out, they were a hot commodity at the time) but never really kept any. I was just too old for it to hook me. The last major toy fad that actually caught me was TMNT, and even that I bailed on after the very first wave.

I'm also not a fan of the neon era of Joes, but like you Alley Viper was a personal favorite and I just sorta overlooked the fact that he was BRIGHT ORANGE. It's just a cool figure. The flip up visor and that jagged shield, he was definitely one of my most played with as a kid. Need to get another one some day. beautiful set up!

Well, that's certainly fair, and I'd definitely trust your experience/opinion on the matter. I guess one of my pet peeves is folks who seem entitled to getting what they want, and I don't ever want to come across that way. I suppose a lot of the trick is in the way one asks.

Before I go to a show, if I'm looking for a specific book(s), I'll do a little research on GPA and eBay and get an idea of the general range that a book might sell for in a given condition. I think it's good to be informed. But I'd never, ever bring up other sales to a dealer as a means of haggling. Just seems rude. It's their book, they can charge whatever they want to charge, and I assume they have their reasons for asking what they're asking. If I like the book at their price, I'll buy it. If I don't, I won't. If I feel like what I want to pay is within a reasonable distance of what they're asking, I may ask if they'd consider meeting me halfway. But I certainly wouldn't make a scene of pointing out to them that they're overcharging, complete with GPA/eBay sales data. Seems tacky. I dunno, maybe it's not a big deal, but the very idea makes me wince.

I ate my words and went ahead and picked up the first "regular" wave of figures. I haven't seen the Build a Batmobile figures or Armor figures locally yet. All in all, they look much better in hand than they did in the pics. Looking forward to finding Batgirl and Nightwing at some point!

I think I'm all out of G1 parts right now. I picked up a large collection last year, and that included a bunch of parts that didn't have corresponding figures. Some I kept because the figures were easy to find and complete, but mostly I sold them off or used them for trades. Did the same thing with a large collection of GI Joe parts and weapons. I don't usually keep a lot on hand. I usually either complete the figures or sell/trade the extra stuff to pursue other pieces. Always moving forward! But I'm always on the hunt, so if you're looking for anything in particular, let me know!

I don't blame you! I've been looking for a while. I had one when I was a kid, I guess it came with one of those comic book collector kits you got through Sears or JC Penney, I used to get one of those every xmas. Wish I'd held onto it, you don't see them often!