F For Fake

I've read this press release several times, as well as this entire thread. I do not understand it, why it exists, what it does, where I am right now, what things are, what things look like, etc. I might be a very dumb guy.

I started reading comics as a kid in the 80's, but in the 90's I was a teen with my own money and that's when I was able to really start buying, which dovetailed with the gimmick era. Same reason I still buy every copy of X-Men #1 I find for 50 cents or less!

I have a comic rack filled with nothing but Ghost Rider 15, because it reminds me of my misspent youth, I can find them for under $1, and it has a FREAKING GLOW IN THE DARK FLAMING SKULL ON THE COVER. What's not cool about that? Plus there's a newsstand edition and a gold ink 2nd print, for those who enjoy variations on a theme.

The Gemini dividers/pads are 7 x 11 according to their website. I primarily do moderns, so they work for me. If I'm doing the occasional Gold, or Mags, GN's, etc then I have to bite the bullet and cut up boxes...which is one of the reasons I don't deal in much other than moderns!

Everyone in my family is fascinated with my eBay selling (not sure why, but they think it's novel) so I am always supplied with bubble wrap and boxes. I finally had to start turning down those air cushion things, they just take up too much space. I don't get packing peanuts much anymore, seems like most places have switched to air cushions or that injected foam stuff. But I'm done cutting up cardboard boxes. I buy pre-cut boards from Gemini. Sometimes i have to cut cardboard if I'm selling a magazine or GN or something, but otherwise it's just not worth the time. I'm sure I'm overpaying for pieces of cardboard, but the time saved cutting it up is well worth it. Cutting cardboard was the bane of my existence for many years. hate it!

Slab looks good, maybe SCS on the top edge, or that may be an allowable defect, I'm not sure. I don't think for the price of this book it would be worth the effort to pull a swap scam. It is not easy to get those suckers out at all, much less without causing a great deal of damage. I can't see the effort being worth the reward in this instance. Still a cool book regardless!

Please use a lot of bleach before you do so.

As to the original question: Boobs.

I did one of those stationary/cards sales things once, where you didn't get money but you could basically get credit to pick prizes out of a catalog. I think i got a microscope and a Mr. T poster. My greatest sales feat as a kid was in 4th grade, when as a school we were doing a fundraiser, selling popcorn tins, stationary, candy, all sorts of stuff. The kid who sold the most won a $50 Toys R Us gift certificate, and I was determined to win it. Sometimes with those fundraisers, the parents will buy a bunch of stuff so the kid can win, but while my parents were supportive, they didn't bail me out. I had to earn it. So I knocked on every door in my neighborhood and every neighborhood within a day's bike ride. I sold the everloving carp out of those popcorn tins and boxes of candy. I was a sales machine. It was Glengarry Glen Ross, and I had the leads! And at the end of the sale, I did it, I won the damn thing. In my mind's eye, I imagined I'd be filling up a cart with goodies from TRU. $50 seemed like a ton of cash to a 4th grader. I think I ended up getting a Nintendo game and a couple of GI Joes. I don't even remember what I actually bought with the money. . But that wasn't the point. The point was that I EARNED that prize. I've rarely been so driven in my adult life!

I know at one time you could actually download the file as a cbz or pdf, I believe. There may be a limit on how many times you can download the actual file, versus accessing the browser version whenever you want. I've got an archive of everything I bought through Comixology in case they ever go belly up or stuff goes OOP.

Thanks man, I'm just happy to finally have it cleaned up! It's been sitting in a laundry room gathering dust for nearly a year, silently mocking me every time I walk by. It had suffered long enough!

Yup, that's the plan! Hoping to pick some of each up at the Joe show in a couple of weeks, along with a Stun to gas up outside!

Whoa, that's cool! I know Fanta also has variant covers for the books, I need to pick those up at some point.

So did mine, but I bought it as a back issue so I wasn't sure if they originally came with them or not. I bought and sold a large lot of Cherry books earlier this year. There was a good thread here on the boards that helped with identifying the issues, as has been pointed out, mostly by the cover prices and ads. I'm having a hard time finding it now, I feel like it was a Copper forum thread, but may have been bronze. As for selling, early first prints sell strongly, later lower print issues sell well, mid-run issues were a little tougher to move, I ended up selling them in lots. Part of me wishes I'd kept them, I dig Welz' art.

For the most part, yes! The Blade Runner poster in the lightbox is an original from the Final Cut release, it's one of my favorite Struzan pieces of all time. The Aliens (all black) is an original rolled one sheet, which took me a while to find in nice shape because most one sheets were folded back then. I picked that up about 20 years or so ago, maybe more. The international Aliens poster (Ripley holding newt) is a reprint, but I used that for signatures. I've got several of the marines, Bishop and Newt. I don't like to get sigs on original posters, but reprints are great for it!

Thanks bud! I get a kick out of cleaning these things up.

Yeah, this is one a really wanted as a kid, but never got. I had a friend in 5th grade that had one and I thought it was the coolest. So last summer I was on a mission to find one complete. This one just needed some TLC.

Well, it took me just two weeks shy of a year to get it finished, but I'm happy to say that at long last I have finished cleaning and re-assembling my Terror Drome! The biggest surprise is that I was able to get it completely disassembled, cleaned with some Dawn dish detergent and a toothbrush, and reassembled, all without breaking anything. I was sweating putting the walls back in those tabs, but I got it done. There's a spot on the front that looks like it may have been burned, so I need to get that sanded and taken care of. Also I didn't get new decals, the old stickers still look pretty good, so in the interest of not driving myself crazy I just left them on. I'm satisfied with how it looks for now. This year's KYiana GI Joe fest is weekend after next, so I plan on picking up some troops to fill it out, and maybe a couple of Ferrets, a Stun, Claw, etc. I'll post better pics once I have it fully manned.

I could get used to having my inane comments enforced as law!

It certainly SEEMS viable. The vast majority of comics published every month aren't worth a hill of beans, and inevitably end up blown out in a dollar bin somewhere down the road. That being said, if I made this decision, my luck would be that every issue released in that year would be the first appearance of a hot new character that is set to appear in a new film, and suddenly I'd be paying through the nose. This is why I keep picking up Batman. You never know if an issue may pop. It's just as likely that I could find all of the same issues in a dollar bin at a show later in the year...but my paranoia keeps me in the game.

Objection: I don't actually want another man's testicles on my head, or on any part of me, ever, at all! Not that there's anything wrong with that!

I'm still getting Batman as my only monthly at my LCS. I also get Love & Rockets which is...quarterly, maybe? And Aliens series from DH, which come out, like, whenever they feel like it, I guess. I nearly made the break with Batman at the same time I dropped Tec (before 1000 hit) but I just couldn't pull the plug. I buy them, I bag and board them, I stick them in a box. A few months down the road I actually read the story when I buy the hardcover. I guess I will do this...forever? If I didn't have my LCS (and we have at least five here to choose from in case anything ever happened to my shop) I'd probably just jump ship at this point. Having the pull folder for those few titles keeps me coming into the shop and checking out back issues and toys, which is where most of my money goes locally.

Look, you know that, and I know that, and sure, all of the people that read this thread know it, and yes, there's a digital record of it being true. BUT...still. Just scribble up a note and make some copies.

As far as the absolute worst, I haven't even seen Green Lantern, Catwoman, Jonah Hex, or several other movies that might make these rankings. The Fantastic Four movies are uniformly awful, which is too bad. Man of Steel succeeded in making me HATE SUPERMAN, which is a pretty mean feat, so that may take the cake.

And if you get warning points or whatever, it didn't come from me. I'm always in for a good balls resting on foreheads joke!