F For Fake

Hopelessly behind on my reading, and no way I'm going to catch up, but I did read a few things. I finally read the two Nocturnals Omnibii that I recently picked up. I am pretty sure I have read all of these stories over the years. Nocturnals' history is an odd one. Started in the mid-90's, has wandered across several publishers (from Malibu to Oni to Dark Horse, etc) and a variety of formats. By my counting it comes out to about 19 issues, give or take. For starters, I still love Brereton's artwork, and it is perfectly suited for this Halloweeny mash-up of monsters and gangsters. It's a fun read, though it can get a little monotonous at time. The real joy is in the beautiful artwork and awesome creature/character designs. It's a very ORANGE series. Not necessarily the best writing, but a fun concept with fun characters, and well worth a look. I also read the latest issue of Alien (which is still terrible), the latest Hellboy one-shot (slight, but always fun to dip into this territory again), and Vampirella...uh, I mean, Vampiress Carmilla! All in all, i feel like I've gotten a head start on my Halloween reading! This brings me up to about 305 on the year. Ugh.

Yeah, nothing has been announced yet, so I'm holding out hope that there will be some sort of special arrangement made so IDW can finish up Phase 3. But if I'm honest with myself, that seems unlikely.

A few more hardcovers trickled in this week. It's kind of amazing to me that the Masterworks line is now safely beyond Bronze and into Copper with some of the long running titles. I got my first MMW when I was 12, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised! I'm holding onto my Miller DD omnis (Vol 1, Companion, and Elektra), but it is exciting to see that stuff pop up in the MMW line. And with the last couple of books, ASM has finally entered the era when I started reading as a kid, so that's a blast as well. I also ordered the Cap volume that came out a couple of weeks ago, but it hasn't shown up yet. Also, with this IDW TF book, I'm now just three volumes away from having the complete Phase 1, 2, 3 and reboot series in HC. Took me a few years of diligent bargain hunting, but we're almost there!

I know, right? If anything, this possibly non-existent kiddo needs TWO sharks, just to escape the pain of having such a dunce for a daddy!

I stopped collecting commissions in favor of published work several years ago, but I had a lot of good experiences, and no bad ones that I can recall. Many, many years ago, I did mail order commissions from Bret Blevins and Fred Hembeck. Both were fast, friendly, and did beautiful work. That's back when you could get a full color pin-up from Bret for $200! At shows I've commissioned pieces from Phil Noto, Dave Johnson, Joe Linsner, Kelley Jones, Tim Sale...and suddenly can't think of the many others. But all of those folks were easy to work with, did great stuff, and had them done by the end of the show. So, I think there are definitely a lot of good folks out there doing the right thing. When I was still doing commissions, I'd just show at up the table when the show opened, and get on their list, but I never had any request more time to take it home. I think that would be a deal breaker for me.

Bolland is one of the best cover artists of all time, IMO. His characters have such dimension, with a subtle, almost 3D effect. His WW run is one of my favorite cover runs, by any artist, of any character, period. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of Byrne in general, and thought his WW run was particularly bad, even for him. Then again, I really liked Deodato's run, which is cheesy as hell, so I clearly can't be trusted. Perez is still the WW cover king, and I'd rank Bolland, then Hughes, right behind him. As for @tth2's Jim Lee comment, I agree 100%, and it's a shame, because Lee was such a blast when he emerged. It's not his fault that so many people have drawn like him ever since, but it has made his stuff seem less exciting to me. A victim of his own tremendous influence.

Too cool. I have no talent for customs myself, but really love seeing creative stuff like this!

Agreed. I'm a simple man, I absolutely must have more information about this transaction.

Like you, for me, the joy of owning a book is, you know, actually HAVING the darn thing. I am aware of the value, and I do my best to protect these "investments", but more than anything, I'm just happy to have them. Which means i want to take them down, look at them, every once in a while flip through the pages (or turn the slab over in my hands). If I was just interested in investments, my money would be in stocks and more abstract things like that. I'm a collector, so I want my collection with ME.

That's true, but the average is better here, I'd say. The hazing process used to be pretty intense, so the real mouthbreathers didn't tend to hang around very long. But we have had some very tenacious insufficiently_thoughtful_persons who've refused to say die, and I must admire their spirit!

For sure. No offense to anyone who enjoys the FB groups (as I'm a member of a few myself), but those are some of the stupidest people I've ever seen in my life.

Yes, exactly! Which is a shame, because if I try searching for that stuff on the actual CGC boards search, who knows what I'll find? But nearly any comic question I have, google brings me back here, where some person a lot smarter than me explained it many years ago.

For sure. And when it comes to collecting overall, slabs are a niche unto themselves. So, a message board of a slabbing company is a niche within a niche. Pretty small potatoes. Which is a shame, because hidden within the search function of these boards is 20 years worth of valuable comic knowledge. , shared by some of the most knowledgeable comic collectors in the world. Tons of vital information has passed through these boards, but it's so ephemeral, and not easy to find. We need a permanent archive of the important stuff, in an easy-to-access format. It's a shame more people don't know about it, then again, more users tends to dilute the potency of the knowledge pool. That being said, I do think it's true that for many years, a lot of internet speculators were getting their tips from these forums. Those "heating up on eBay" threads were doing the heavy lifting for a lot of speculators.

Fine. First a poll to decide if we need a poll, THEN, if the poll is in the affirmative, a poll to decide what the poll should be about exactly. I DO like the price guide idea, though. If @WernerVonDoomor you, Shad, or anyone else, wants to work on it, I could start putting something together next week. Or if someone else wants to run the show, and get started faster than that, that's cool too, I'll be happy to assist in any way that I can.

13 years, never asked for a custom title, but if one were to show up one day, I'd smile and say "You like me! You really like me!"

Sorry Mike. If anyone needs me, I'll be over here sulking, and playing with my spoon pontoon.

Hmm, polls seem official, I was planning on half-assing this.

Sounds fun to me! This week is peak busy time at my job, but next week I could probably start hammering something together. Maybe I could put together a google sheet we could all share and edit? Do an average of closed eBay sales, something like that?

I'm getting caught up on my internetting, and just saw that Cory Sedlmeier (the restoration king over at Marvel's collected editions dept) did an interview with Marvelmasterworks a week or two ago. In that interview. he stressed that with these Back to Print Masterworks, it's important to PREORDER. He mentioned it several times. So, clearly, Marvel is going to be watching the numbers on these closely, nothing is guaranteed with this new line, and if you want to see it continue, you need to indicate it with orders upfront. What bugs me is that they're doing the line in numerical order, which means the most common volumes are going to get reprinted first. There are so many editions available of those first 27 books, they are common as dirt, and also dirt cheap. There are many early volumes you can get for under $20, if you're not worried about having the most recent restoration. So, as far as reprints go, even with new restoration, it might be a hard sell for some people, and that may be reflected in low initial orders, which could prove premature doom to the reprint line. I really wish they'd jump around a bit and reprint some of the later books which are selling for hundreds of bucks. If you want a copy of FF vol 1, or ASM 1, etc, you can get those for well below cover price. But if you want an UXM volume 12, well, that's gonna run you over $200+ on the market today. If you want to wait for the reprint, well, you're looking at many, many years before they get there. Oh well, it is what it is, and something is better than nothing. I'll be picking these up, as I sold my early books off when the omnis started hitting. I really enjoyed the "all in one" aspect of the omnis, but there's no question that the MMW's are a better reading experience, so that coupled with the newer restorations, means I'll be buying all of these that they print, i suppose.

This is cool news. I wish they'd been grading them back when the card market went totally berserk a couple of years ago, I was buying and selling cards like a madman! It was a fun few weeks.

Makes sense, I always thought y'all were a buncha "members". But I kid, I kid.

I'm sure you're right. The responses have all been very specifically worded.

A place where you can say dick and crap, indeed. It's the American dream!

I feel like the powers that be must have a weekly meeting to discuss this, realize people are still talking about it, and then brainstorm some new response. They are (very) slowly getting to the "right" response, but it's insane how long it's taken them to get there, and how much pressure had to be applied to even get this far. Like, just do the right thing, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out. Instead it's these baby steps, where they draft a statement, say "Here, see if this shuts them up," and then make Mike come out and catch all of the heat. Then he has to go back and say "Hey, uh, lots of people are still really mad." And then they think it over for a few more days. This is a step in the right direction, for sure, so I'm glad they finally got there. But there are still questions about Pay to Play and the fishy grades, that need to be addressed directly and transparently. Also, Mike, I hope you're getting hazard pay these days. No way you should have to be the mouthpiece for this stuff.

Indeed! The great Mr. Sprang has finally been freed!