F For Fake

One of my oldest friends asked me to go to this with him, so I agreed, and he ended up getting us tickets for Friday night at 9. I guess there are shows on Thursday too but they all sold out? Normally I wouldn't be anywhere near a theater on the first weekend but he really wanted me along, so I'm going. 3 hours. Jee-zus. And it doesn't start until 9. I'll be asleep halfway through this thing.

I'm in, though I'm not sure how well these cases of beer are going to hold up for 45 years.

This is what I'm saying to you: the VHS versions from the 80's had already been tampered with. The Japanese lasers hadn't.

So cool! I think the JP line is so neat, and I dabbled a little bit a long time ago, when they first launched, but didn't hold onto any of it. There have been times when I've considered going back to the line, because to my mind, JP was the last of the truly great old school summer blockbusters, and the toy line was great. But I've got enough on my collecting plate. So, it's up to you to keep posting pics!

You totally got me, I have to admit. I was already panicking about where I was going to find a space to put it...

Nice stuff! I love that Exciting cover, wish I hadn't sold my copy. Great haul!

It actually is true! The 2008 DVD is not the original, untampered theatrical version. It's the version that most people THINK of as the original, as it's a version of the one most of us grew up with. But Lucas started monkeying with things as soon as they hit theaters and then home video, and every successive iteration of the films had small changes made. Most of them aren't huge content changes, like you saw in the Special Editions. A lot of the changes are small, color timing, sound effects etc. The 2008 DVD version is just the same master used on the THX lasers from the mid-90's (which itself had already been tampered with numerous times) dumped onto a DVD. Thanks for nothin', George! If you want the truly as close to theatrical version as you can get release of Star Wars trilogy, you need the Japanese Special Collection lasers from 1986 (I think...maybe 1987).

Well this is cool.

Let's get back to the real issue at hand here: VHS tapes. There is a thriving market for hard to find VHS stuff, particularly among horror fans. The old oversized cardboard boxes, the nice big clamshells, there are still a lot of titles that sell in the $50-$200+ area. Mass market stuff like Disney is dead as can be, true, but there is still a dedicated fanbase for the format. Personally, I'm a laserdisc collector. It's true that most of the titles in the format were later reissued on DVD and Blu Ray, but there are still a handful that aren't, such as the original theatrical cuts of the Star Wars flicks. Plus the large artwork is great to display. I have my LD player running through a DVD recorder with a decent comb filter, and true, it still doesn't quite hit DVD quality in resolution. But for some movies, it gets the job done. There are collectors for every form of media ever created, and there is content in every format that sells well. True, 90% of it is worthless, but that 10% is what keeps the flea market and thrift store hunt alive!

My experience with the "secured" books are that they are often wildly overpriced mid-grade bronze, worthless funny animal Dells and Gold Keys, etc. Essentially "old" books that the HPB staff assume (like most people) are valuable because they're old. I've never found anything worth buying in there. But they routinely dump valuable moderns in the dollar bin because new stuff just isn't on their radar.

Yeah, this happens all the time at HPB. Yesterday I found a run of all of the Detective Countdown books, last few issues of Heroes in Crisis, etc. Happens all the time. I think there are definitely still pure "readers" out there who don't care about the value once they're done reading them. They sell them to HPB for 10 cents and buy another book.

Beautiful. That's prime Batman for me. Terrific books.

Nice little group courtesy of HPB yesterday. At a buck a pop, these Sonics should do very well for me, and I was surprised by what the Tec Countdown sets are selling for now.

I restored a Moray in the last year, and normally the tough piece is the searchlight lens. There are several repro options, but the real thing is pricey. My aforementioned buddy had three in his box of extras (he used to buy big collections and amassed a ton of bits and pieces to use as trade bait) so he gave me one. That was a lucky break. Otherwise, yes, I think the toughest/priciest pieces were the set of four rear machine guns. The easiest to break piece is the pop up missile rack. Those thin pieces break all of the time. But honestly, it's such a COOL vehicle, it's worth the hassle!

On one hand I always dug how GI Joe sort of absorbed a lot of the 80's zeitgeist. When Ninjas were everywhere, GI Joe added ninjas. Mad Max? Here are the Dreadnoks. Everyone loves wrestling? Well guess what, Sgt Slaughter is a Joe now. Everyone is swept up in Chicago Bears Super Bowl fever? Enjoy William "The Refrigerator" Perry, for some reason. They were even supposed to add Rocky Balboa to the line at some point, I believe, and that would have made sense in the context of everything else they were doing. And I could handle all of that. But I agree, after the movie, the introduction of "Cobra La" seemed to open the floodgates to an array of neon outfits and strangeness that went just a little too far. I think there's a sweet spot for Joes that is just this side of sci-fi military adventure, but they eventually tipped the scales in the wrong direction.

It really is great! It's a huge vehicle, but it's so large and has so many accessories it really doubles as a playset.

Awesome! Yeah, he's lucky, but between the two of us, he deserves it. I dabble in Joes, but his house is practically a Joe museum. He has pretty much every figure, including all of the foreign Tiger Force, Night Force, etc. I think the only one he's missing is the Gold Steel Brigade figure. If I still had the Flagg it would be in a box in my laundry room, but he has it out on display. I feel like I gave my baby up for adoption, but it was in its best interest!

These are actually die-cut variants. Jimmy cut them, now I want to die.

The thing I love about the bridge layer, and most of the early Joe vehicles, is that they were based on things that actually existed. Like, real military hardware, or at least prototypes. Before it all got dayglo and strange. At our state fair every year, the armed forces would have a big display at the front entrance, and they always had a bridge-layer up front, with the bridge section sitting high up into the sky. It seemed enormous as a kid, and because of the Joe connection, SO COOOOOOL.

That's awesome, I love resto projects! You've definitely put in the work there! I see lots of differences. Doyou have the bike and the depth charges too? I actually started restoring a Whale several years ago myself. I eventually got (through eBay and message board trades) everything except the vanes. Unbroken sets were selling for about $30-$40, and I just couldn't pull the trigger. Ended up selling what I'd put together up to that point, figuring I'd just buy a complete one eventually. Back then (this was mid-2000's, I guess?) you could still get a complete Whale for around $100 or so. Nowadays I think they run closer to $300? Should have bit the bullet and just bought the vanes. Oh well, live and learn. I know I've told this story on the boards before, but I bought a Flagg at the LCS I was working at back around 1996-97 for $30. It was missing a lot of the little stuff, but otherwise it was in nice shape and included a box that was beat to hell, but the front cover art was perfect. When I moved out of my folks' place I ended up selling it to one of my oldest friends for about $50, because I didn't have any place to keep it anymore. I could kick myself now, naturally, but honestly he deserves it. He cleaned that thing tip to tail with a toothbrush, printed new decals, and tracked down every single part for it. The only thing he's still missing to this day is a battery compartment cover for the microphone. Anyway, I'm all about Joe resto photos, bring 'em on!

For the most part I've enjoyed the 52/Rebirth Batman books, I just don't want to buy them anymore. Batman is published twice a month, (minimum) 2 covers per issue. So that's four Batman books at $3.99 per month. If you collect Detective as well, that doubles your cost. $32 a month to keep up with Batman isn't necessarily going to break my wallet, sure, but it's simply more than I want to pay. I'm just not into it anymore. When I started buying Batman there were two books per month, and they were 75 cents each, I believe. $1.50 per month to read two Batman books. These days I'd rather wait and buy the story in a hardcover for $15, and put that monthly $32 towards silver and bronze stuff. Marvel I've kept up with here and there with the Marvel Unlimited app. $10 a month to read as much as I want, I can get behind that, and would do the same with DC if they ever went that route. But as for stacking up more piles of $4 pamphlets? Meh. I'm close to done.

Yes, I'm aware of Robinson's original. Bruce Timm is still always a good choice!

I have pretty much stopped buying new comics, except for Batman (the main title), Love & Rockets and Aliens stuff from DH. I held onto Tec for a long time, but the 1000 deal looked like a good jumping off point, especially at the $10 cover price. No thanks. I'm done. Sold my Rebirth and 52 runs, and dropped the title from my holds a couple of weeks ago to be sure I wouldn't get stuck buying one of these. I'll probably track down the Bolland book at some point for my BB collection, but otherwise this was the breaking point with me and new books. No offense to those who enjoy them. I'm not an anti-variant snob. I just realize at this point in my life I'd much rather spend money on old books instead of piling up multiple cover variants for titles I don't even enjoy that much anymore.

Bruce Timm is always a good choice.

Battle beasts are great! I only had a handful as a kid, but the sculpts and paint are so nice for a little figure like that. Very cool!