F For Fake

As a huge fan of the Ostrander run, I'm super psyched to see Rick Flagg & Enchantress on board. I figured Deadshot, The Wall and Boomerbutt were a given, but those two make it feel much more Suicide Squad to me. If they'd just give us Bronze Tiger, I'd be 100% happy!

Thanks everyone, appreciate the welcome! Spyder, yes, once the holidays have ended and things calm down around here, I'll probably send it off for walk-thru grading. Based on the PGM thread, 1.0 to 1.5 seems possible. Crossing my fingers! The pieces missing from the cover are a bummer, but it's complete, pages are supple, no tape or CT that I can detect, so I'm hopeful!

Just picked this up last week. I wasn't looking for one, but it was at a price I couldn't turn down. Now that I have it, I'm in love with it. It's beat, but it's complete.

Coooooool. This is the sort of picture that satisfies both my nerdery AND my OCD. So many pretty books, and so...organized!

Actually it's a double fail because I didn't notice the edge crease on the WW book until right now.

Stopped by my LCS last night to pick this up Ended up coming home with this

What a great thread, and what a beautiful piece! I hope to one day own a published original, but in the meantime all I have is a quick Luba sketch from Beto that I got at SDCC in '98. It's the one and only time I made it out to California, but it was worth it to chat with Xaime, Beto, Chris Ware, Seth, Archer Prewitt, and so many great folks. Here's my Luba: Just a quick sketch but it means a lot to me. I also got some sigs on a few books (including my very well-worn "Music for Mechanics" tpb). Best comic series ever? Best comic series ever.

Nice! I wondered who got it, I was looking at some of the other pages. Great pick up!

That was such an awesome run, far and away my favorite DD run after Miller. So many post-Miller writers were intent on making DD an unrelentingly grim book, but Kesel's run was so much FUN. Terrific stuff. When I mentioned it to him at a con a couple of years ago, he told me that if I liked his run, I should check out the Waid series, which I did, and very much enjoyed. I'd love to see the Nord pages. Post 'em up!

I was an 80's kid, so I started reading around the Jr.Jr. era, continuing with Silvestri, then Jim Lee. I started buying back issues pretty quickly, and although I loved the Cockrum and Byrne eras, I developed a strong affinity for the Paul Smith run as well. At one point or another, I'd managed to assemble a complete collection from GSX #1 through around 281, missing only #94. At any rate, whether it was any good or not (in hindsight) I was totally hooked up until the Claremont/Lee title launched. I got about 4 issues into that one, and just couldn't make myself care anymore. I dropped UXM around the same time. Fast forward a few years, I was working in a comic shop, and the Joe Mad books were selling well. I picked them up, then went back and read Age of Apocalypse, which I loved. I was totally hooked again. For my second go-round, I stuck with the book through the Morrison run, but when Claremont came back to the title, I bailed again. It was just so boring. So, I was more or less done with X-Men, but a few years ago I picked up a large collection of trades and HC's, and decided to go ahead and finish out the collection. Then I decided to read the entire X-Men run, from X-Men #1 all the way through Schism and Avengers vs X-Men. It took me several months, but while a lot of the stories I loved as a kid turned out to be not so great (Fall of the Mutants, Inferno) I found that I really loved the runs by Brubaker and Fraction, and I'm still enjoying the Marvel now X titles today.

I don't have an answer, just chiming in to share your gripe with the lack of "couch co-op" in most games these days. Some of the best times I ever had playing shooters was with all four guys on one screen, sitting on a couch at a party. Goldeneye, Turok, Halo 2, we had a blast. It never occurred to me that in the rise of "social" gaming, the "social" element would be all but removed from modern games. If four of my buds want to go to our respective homes, plug in our headsets and play, there are a zillion options for us to play "together". But if we're actually sitting in the same room? Not many these days. It's sad.

Yeah, I was an underbidder on it. Been looking for a nice copy for a little while now. Congrats on the sale!

Not sure how well it would translate to screen, but I still have tons of love for the Legion. I'm usually the odd man out, in that the 5YL/TMK years are actually my favorite run in the entire series, followed closely by the Baxter series, and then the years with the Moys. That Post Zero Hour run doesn't get tons of love, but I thought it was an incredibly fun, colorful, light-hearted superhero series.

I had pretty much stopped collecting commissions, in favor of only collecting published pieces, but I couldn't pass up a chance to get a couple more pieces by Kelley Jones and Phil Noto, two of my favorites, at Cincy Comic Con this weekend. Apologies for the crappy cell phone pics. You can see nicer scans and pics in my comic art fans gallery, linked in my sig line. Kelley is a super nice guy and I never thought I'd own a single sketch by him, much less two. Since I got Batman a few years ago, Swamp Thing seemed like a good choice this time. I never thought Phil could top the Batgirl he did for me a few years ago, but I am in love with this Widow. I had a hard time deciding on who to have him draw, so it seemed like kind of a boring choice, but since that's what he's working on these days, it seemed like a safe bet. He knocked it out of the park. I lurv it.

Revat bought several books from me, paid very quickly, communicated regularly, and let me know when he received them. It was a completely hassle-free pleasure to deal with him, and I'd happily do so again any time. Thanks again!

I have had success a couple of times with WL conversions. Hasn't happened every time, but it does occasionally come through. I think it has a lot to do with how soon you get on the WL. The two (or three?) times I've converted were on items that I immediately signed up for the WL when I realized the item had just sold out. WL reservations I've submitted, say, several days or weeks later, have generally not come through. But it never hurts to try. It's definitely not unusual for an item to start converting (or even come back "In Stock") once they arrive and start charging folks, as a lot of collectors who have bigger eyes than their wallets can afford will find their cards decline, and their orders cancelled after a week. You have nothing to lose by trying. Good luck!

I feel fortunate in that I've had many, MANY more positive experiences than poor ones, and very few that I would describe as "jerks". Like most of the other folks here, I'd put Perez and Aragones in the All Time Class Act category. Jeff Smith has always been really nice as well. I'd also add Chris Ware and Archer Prewitt to the list of guys who were very nice, easy to talk to, and (seemingly) genuinely appreciative of their fans. Looks like YMMV with Steranko, but I've talked to him twice, and he couldn't have been cooler. Of course, there's a lot of showbiz put-on with the guy, but that's part of his charm. He's like the Robert Evans of the comic industry. Cool cat, lots of charm when I've met him. Neal Adams was fine by me, but I didn't say much. Bought a sketch from him, had him sign a statue, and he was fine doing both and polite enough. I also had very nice experiences with Mike Mignola (a few times), Dave Stevens, Evan Dorkin, Art Adams, Adam Hughes, Darwyn Cooke (I've heard he can be prickly but he has always been nice when I've talked to him), Tim Sale (quiet guy but nice), Phil Noto, Beto and Xaime Hernandez, Linsner (again, not sure what has happened with other folks, but he was very pleasant with me), Eric Powell (not much to say, but definitely polite), Cully Hamner, Brian Stelfreeze, Karl Story, Karl Kesel (SUPER nice guy!), Paul Pope, Don Rosa, Sienkiewicz (I've heard stories, but again, couldn't have been nicer the one time I met him). There are a lot more, but those are the ones that stand out in my mind as having lived up to, or exceeded, expectations. The slightly grumpy but not outright rude list would include Julie Schwartz, Carmine Infantino, Byrne, Claremont, Kurt Busiek, Peter David. None of them was a "jerk", but none of them was particularly pleasant, or engaging in any way. So, for me, the good has definitely outweighed the bad. Hope it stays that way, though the list of people I'd still want to meet is getting pretty small.

I've had the pleasure of talking with Mr. Aragnoes twice, and he couldn't have been nicer either time. Totally great guy.

Same here, couldn't find many copies at all at LCS, and the ones I found were all dinged.

Love those "floating" mattes (or whatever they are) and that is a sweet Mignola page. Really dig the white and red mattes! Keep the posts coming, guys. This is my favorite thread around here. Gives me a vicarious thrill when I don't have $$$ to spend on framing stuff (because I'm spending it on more art that I therefore won't be able to afford to frame!)

This stuff is crack. And if you think it's bad now, wait until you start getting them in-hand. Most statue collectors start out just wanting one or two. This is the truth. And once you get into PF's specifically, everything else pales in comparison. I used to be a HUGE Bowen collector. I was an early adopter of his statues, followed him when he got into mini-busts, joined the original Collector Club, etc. HUGE fan. And I still think he does beautiful work. But once I started getting Sideshow PF's, I had to sell the Bowen stuff off. It just didn't "fit" anymore. So far from what I've seen I'll just be adding Batgirl to my list, maybe Power Girl. I'm trying to stick to DC Bat Family gals, but some of the others are irresistible. I'm still super psyched about my Hellboy Exclusive coming in September.

Gorgeous stuff and terrific setup!

My wallet is still hurting from what they showed LAST YEAR at SDCC.

Thanks to Will Gabri-el, some fun stuff arrived today! MTU 150: X-Men & Spidey vs Juggernaut Very cool Kupperberg Invaders page And he even threw in this nice Vosburg splash Fun stuff! Will remains the most pleasant and responsive art dealer I've dealt with. Wish more would follow his lead!