F For Fake

I'm BrentisAngry. I mostly post pics of comics, cats, and records. https://www.instagram.com/brentisangry/?hl=en

Went to a sale at the LCS this AM, and was surprised to see this on the wall! I had to have it. Complete but both covers are detached, but still a winner for what I paid, I think. I've never had restoration done on a book before, but I'd kinda like to have the covers taped on (professionally) so I can read it without having it fall apart in my hands. Thoughts?

What's special about this? I don't collect Spider-Man, so I'm curious! NEVERMIND, I see, it's a newsstand. I guess a particularly tough one?

That's a good idea too. I have a giant roll of that packing wrap, which is essentially saran wrap, I use it when I'm bundling up trades and hardcovers. The long, heavy roll also doubles as a surprisingly effective cudgel.

Drafting your kiddo into cutting cardboard for ya may be a more cost effective solution, but otherwise I think the pre-cut pads are a winner. Since we have no children to draft into the home work force (only lazy, shiftless, no good cats) I started buying the pre-cut boards a year or two ago, and have never looked back. Cutting cardboard was always my least favorite part of shipping, so it's well worth the 30 cents per package for me to not have to worry about it. With the pre-cut boards and flash mailers, I can have a book packed up in seconds. It's great! And yeah, for the types of books I usually sell ($5-$25 range, generally) I bag and board the book, wrap THAT up in a magazine bag (in case the package should encounter rain or moisture during its travels) and then tape it into a sandwich with two of those boards. I have used three or four boards on pricier books just "to be sure", but honestly, two pads plus the mag bag and regular bag and board, wrapped up in the mailer, is a pretty secure package! And for priority shipping, it fits PERFECTLY into a legal flat rate mailer. It's great.

Adding my voice to the chorus, I have used the Gemini mailers for years (although I think they used to be called something else?) and have always had good results. I also get the pre-cut cardboard pads from them, because I am tired of cutting up cardboard. It's worth the extra to me to have it pre-cut. So, yeah, this mailer and two or three pieces of cardboard works great for cheap books. For nicer books, this mailer works great in a legal flat rate envelope. Of course, the REALLY nice stuff gets double boxed priority. But yeah, for your every day cheap books, these things are great. I've had zero complaints/returns on books I've shipped with them, and I've shipped thousands at this point. PS: i usually order straight from Gemini, but if eBay has a coupon going, that is often the best deal. So I usually order supplies when those coupons are in effect.

It's going to be difficult to see the damage through the bag (and, hey, it's possible that there isn't any). But many times, in the instance of a trading card insert, there are going to be non-colorbreaking indents on the cover around the edges of wherever the card came to rest, especially if it was bagged ,boarded, and packed into a tight box for 20+ years. There can also be indents and marks from the process of the book being bagged, roller marks, etc. There's just a lot of stuff that can go wrong, and most of it you can't see until the bag is opened and the book is looked at from various angles under a good light.

I'd wager that a large percentage of the boardies in this forum don't buy new books at all, so it's not an issue for a lot of folks. I'd say that if folks want to read the new books without accumulating more stuff, digital is the way to go. It's a cheap and wonderful way to read. A Marvel Universe sub is about $10 a month, and I think it runs 3 (maybe 6?) months behind release date, so if you're not obsessed with staying right on top of storylines, it's definitely the best approach for those that want to read without having more books to keep up with. As for me, my holds have dwindled to a pretty small pull list, and in order to accommodate my new "less is more" philosophy, I think I'm going to cut my list down even further to just the essentials: Batman and Love and Rockets, and probably Tec and Wonder Woman. If they ever launch another Swamp Thing monthly, i'd have to keep that run going as well.

Perhaps. But I can't get too upset with folks who are striking when the iron is hot (or cold, in this case, I suppose) when they themselves were subject to a mercenary practice in order to obtain those sigs in the first place. How much was a Stan Lee sig in the last few years, $100 or so? I didn't begrudge Stan (or his handlers) for charging insane money for his signature, and raking in tons of cash while doing so; so I can't really begrudge the people who are now turning around and doing the same. I mean, yeah, I get it: it's tacky. It really is. But the process of getting the signatures was tacky as well. It's all one big gross pile. (And again, I don't have any Stan Lee sigs, and I'm not selling any either. I have no use for signature series at all.)

I've been trying to whittle my collection down to just what I can comfortably fit on the shelves in my home office. I also keep eBay store items in my laundry room, but over the last couple of years my personal collection filled up the shelves (and shelf tops) in my office and spilled over into the sale stock. So, I finally got my personal books back into my office, and am now trying to get rid of maybe 10 or more shorts so it doesn't look like a fire sale in there. Since I don't have a set deadline to accomplish the task, I'm not GIVING the books away, and am instead trying to squeeze the most that I can out of them. So, it's taking some time. But, i don't really mind. It's fun. Ultimately, my final goal is to not own more than I can keep organized in a manner that I find aesthetically pleasing. I don't want overstuffed shelves or books stacked up around the basement. I'm getting there. Once I arrive, we'll see how long it lasts. I bought a collection last year, only about 3000 books but it took an emotional toll. I just got tired of having the stuff sit around. That's what kicked off my desire to curb the whole thing. I'm much happier as the boxes leave the house. There's a 50 cent sale at the LCS sale this weekend, and while I'd normally be the first in line, right now I'm not sure that I even want to go. I love cheap books, but I am really into clearing out space these days. I did try to whittle my movie collection down to only 100 essential titles, but that ultimately backfired, and now I have around 500 Blus and I also started buying laserdiscs again. I'm an insufficiently_thoughtful_person.

I don't get the pearl clutching about the sales thread. If anyone understood chasing a buck, it was Stan. And I don't mean that disrespectfully at all. Game respect game.

I'm curious to see how it shakes out. There are so many Stan SS's floating around out there, will be curious to see if there's a value bump due to his death, or if there's a glut that leads to diminished value (i.e. everyone finally figures out that there are hundreds of thousands of these things floating around out there). I don't have any Stan auto's or SS's, so I don't have a dog in the race, just curious to see how it goes.

My feelings about Stan and his contributions are...complicated, at best. That being said, he was always an ambassador for Marvel and superheroes, and genuinely brought cheer to millions around the world. Farewell, Funky Flashman. There will never be another like you.

This is my cue to once again remind myself that I had the first 9.8 in the census, which I sold for a couple hundred bucks, which I was very pleased with at the time.

Volume 5??? Jeezus, am I glad I punched out on the X-men back in the 90's.

In an odd bit of synchronicity, this past the Spider-Man newspaper strip has featured the "Mammon Theater" recently. Here's last Sunday's strip. (Credit to Josh and Comics Curmudgeon, one of my favorite blogs, for the reminder). Apparently the Mammon folks have several real estate holdings in the Marvel U.

And FWIW, I agree that Morrison can sometimes disappear up his own , but I think that Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and The Invisibles are terrific works, so imaginative.

Agree 100%. I can think of only a couple of Superman stories that I actually enjoyed, and All Star is right at the top of that list. To me, it's one of the best distillations of the character, and should be the example that Hollywood uses to pattern their films after, as they keep managing to screw that up.

Yeah, my concerns about how it might turn out are one of the factors for why I haven't done it yet. I had worked with an artist who had worked out a cool way to have the tail wrap around my arm. The main factor in why I haven't done it yet is called My Wife.

I don't own a copy but I HAVE seen it. Crazy stuff. Love it.

Right??? I've been considering having that done as a tattoo for many years now. Consulted with an artist but just never pulled the trigger.

Given that taste is subjective, and everyone likes what they like and that's ok, I'm not going to try to sway anyone on Sandman. I WILL say that i have friends who have, in the past, slagged off Sandman as being too artsy fartsy, or whatever. I think this is wrong, obviously. I DO think that it pushed the boundaries of comic book fantasy storytelling, and it was very intelligently written, naturally. However, it's also a HUGE love letter to DC comics characters and fandom. Look how Gaiman integrated elements as disparate as Kirby's Sandman, Cain and Abel (and their Houses of Secrets and Mysteries), Hector Hall, Element Girl, and sooooo much more. Sandman is an exploration of so many different kinds of mythology, and that includes the mythology of the DC Universe. It was also illustrated by some of the best to ever pick up a pen/pencil/brush. Oh well. And Love and Rockets? Geezus, where do I start with how great that is??? Oh well, again. Off the soapbox. Personally, my little bit of sacrilege is that I think that the majority of Golden Age superhero books (with a few notable exceptions like Cole's Plastic Man, Eisner's Spirit, and Beck's, Captain Marvel) are an unbearable snooze. I love the covers, i love the history, but trying to read them is an absolute chore.

I have a similar story. Born in the late 70's, grew up in the 80's with Art Adams and his progeny. Kirby looked so WEIRD to me, I just did not get it. When I was 19, I started working at a comic shop, and the comic buyer there mentored me, and flipped those switches in my brain. I've been a devoted Kirby fan ever since. These are a couple of the images that cracked the code for me:

Interesting that many of the books noted here are among my top all time favorites. Oh well, different strokes and all that.