F For Fake

I love Crossed. I've been able to assemble nearly the entire fun from 50 cent and $1 bins over the years, very slowly, but it's satisfying to almost be done. I think I only need about 7 issues of the Badlands series and a couple from the spin-offs. It hits the sweet spot for ridiculous gore horror. Love it.

I think the cheapest pieces started at about $250 or so for some small illustrations, and then it went up substantially from there for the larger and more polished stuff.I bought a couple of prints and got a couple of sigs, so I was happy to meet him. He's one of those guys that I feel should have a line around the block to meet him, but since it's a model kit convention, there's not much interest in the art guys. Same with Bill Stout, who is at Wonderfest pretty much every year. Super art, and a great time to meet them and talk to them because chances are there is no one else in line.

That's great. That book is tough to find at all, much less in 9.8. Congrats, that's a keeper for sure.

Sweet!

Was at my LCS last night, and they'd just gotten a copy of IMSM 1 in, had it up on the wall. I've always liked the cover. It was $78, not sure about the grade. I considered taking it down and looking at it, but anytime I have that impulse, I think about Cal's stash, and decide that there's no point. Seeing the world of Cal and the noob boardies collide has been pretty amusing this afternoon. For the record, I've always enjoyed the...color...that Cal's posts bring to the boards. I suspect we share very few life philosophies, but at least his posts are entertaining.

Also, as far as reading, not much value, but Grendel, Concrete, Nexus..there's tons of great stuff from DH.

These are some of the least common Stevens books, in my experience. I practically never run across them in the wild. Had to order my set online.

Thanks! Took me a long time to find a nice raw copy at a price I wanted to pay. Probably should slab it at some point, but I'm still not 100% sold on the newer slabs and quality control these days. So, until then, it's sitting in a mylar/fullback in a top loader.

Saw that on his FB page this morning, gorgeous. Mark used to come to a little sci-fi model kit convention here in Louisville, Wonderfest, quite a bit, and he always had such nice stuff for sale, but I could never afford more than a print. Hoping he'll come back again soon and I can get something nice. Probably not THIS nice, though. Beautiful stuff as always.

I had the magna heroes Batman as a kid, and have been looking ever since for a nice one at a price I want to pay. SOOO much nostalgia in that one for me. As always, love the collection!

You can never have too many!

Grendel rulez

Genuinely sorry to hear that the puppers aren't with you any more. Whenever I see your avatar I think "Those are some happy pups!" It's never easy to say goodbye, even 6, 10, or more years down the road.

Love the Wolf. I'm just one Ice Viper dagger away from having mine complete!

I like this guy.

Holy cats, I bet you did! Six Fireflies???? Nice job!

I see Dakota North poking out of there. That's my favorite worthless book to hoard. One day my ship will come in, and I'll be rich, RICH!

As always, it's worth remembering that a 9.8 is not "mint". It's "NM/Mint". 9.8's aren't perfect. 10's are "Gem Mint", 9.9's are "Mint", and they're both completely arbitrary and like hitting the lottery. Like, the grader had a really good cupcake at lunch or something and was in a good mood. But 9.8's don't have to be perfect, and by definition, aren't perfect. And as tight as grading has been the last, what, couple of years now, there are plenty of 9.8's floating around in 9.6 cases these days, and vice versa.

Oh, and I also picked this Deodato Young Avengers 11 Variant out if the $1 sale as well, which apparently was a good idea. Looking at eBay it seems like this should cover everything I spent, which is cool. I almost put it back!

$1 sale at the LCS on Saturday. Nothing of significant value, but I picked up some bronze and silver beaters to read, a few more Swampy books for my runs (I've been working for a few years to finish these ST runs for a dollar or less per book. Slow going but I'm nearly done!) and some Dejah Thoris books. I know everyone is all about the Parrillo these days (and I do like his stuff) but I think the Jusko and Anacleto covers are the books to beat. Jusko has been around so long, I think he's taken for granted. Anyway, like I said, nothing exciting, but still enough to make it worth heading up to the sale.

To anyone who truly believes that "The Last Jedi" was poorly made, much less the worst movie ever made, I kindly invite you to enjoy the libraries of Coleman Francis, Edward D Wood Jr, and Uwe Boll, among a host of others. I happened to like TLJ, but even if you didn't like it, you'd have to appreciate that at least on a technical level, it was coherent and competently produced. If it's the worst movie you've ever seen, you definitely need to see more movies. Come on over to the house. We'll roll "Robot Ninja" and "Red Zone Cuba". I'm not doing anything else.

Agreed, I love Punisher War Zone. It's gloriously stupid. There's a scene where he punches through someone's FACE. It's great.

I mean...that's how most of the market works these days. FB groups, spec sites, shills, colluding to push books up. A concerted effort. Some of it is genuine, but there's definitely a lot of shenanigans these days, and always, really.

I'll chime in here uninvited because it's a slow day at work. At this moment, no, I wouldn't call it a key. It's only been hot for, what, 3 weeks? It's a hot book right now, nothing more. However, if the book continues to sell at a premium above its contemporaries in a year, in two years, in five years, etc.; if it is a book that people continue to seek out individually; then yes, it has become a key, because it has maintained a significance above the other books in the run. Personally, I think that book, and Thor 390, etc will start deflating pretty soon, if they haven't already. But time will tell. And again, this is all my opinion. Which may be similar or different from yours (and I think we're on the same page with your given example). But it doesn't make either of us wrong or right because it is ALL opinion driven, which means there can never be a true, absolute wrong or right definition of "key". The best we can ever do is a general consensus in the hobby. Someone is always going to disagree.

Wow. That's a cake-taker, for sure.