F For Fake

Damn it, I had this meme all ready to go, was hoping no one made the joke yet. Oh well, I'm not going to let it go to waste, but you get the points for getting in first.

It's crazy to me what this sells for now. You used to be able to get these on clearance from Bud Plant, they had a set of Sally Forth books you could order for like $8. Maybe less? It was in their catalog forever. I bought a set for the AH cover, and there's also a Xaime cover in that run as well. Mine is long gone, should have kept it, naturally. There are some real gems in the 90's Eros stuff, and I can't believe print runs would be very high, considering many shops wouldn't even carry the line.

Same, but for me it's early 20's nostalgia. I was working at comic shop when Gen 13 hit and it blew up big time. I was a big fan, had the toys, statues, the whole thing. I remember issue #1 being a $50+ wall book, so I buy them when I see them, even though I know that's no longer the case. I used to find tons of them for $1, and I have a pretty good stack that I picked up for a dollar. I'll buy pretty much any Gen 13 book for a buck, but these days I'm mostly hunting for newsstands, and later issues to complete my runs. At this point the hardest issues for me to find are the mid/late issues of the 2006 series. I just never, ever see them. The last 15-20 issues or so (65-77) of the original ongoing are pretty uncommon as well, well worth picking up for a buck. I don't think they're really WORTH anything, but I just never see them out there, so on the rare occasion that I DO find one, I buy it. Over the last few years I've been able to assemble a nearly complete collection of Gen 13, spanning all of the volumes plus spinoffs, for about a buck each. Persistence pays off!

Following up more seriously about your earlier question, my personal wishes aside, I am curious about the future potential for the property. At this time, most rising comic values seem to be associated with related media tie-ins. Movies, television shows, etc. Alien has had a dedicated fan base ever since 1979, but that base has never been as large as the one for, say, Star Wars, Trek, etc. It's definitely a lower rung on the sci-fi fandom. To be sure, there's a following. We've had several feature films, hundreds of comics, novels, games, toys, etc. The fans are there. The comics stayed largely dormant until recent years. We saw some slow movement in price in the earlier issues, but nothing major until the entire comic market went bananas two years ago. Suddenly many people realized that while Alien had been an enduring franchise for decades, the first comic appearance was relatively rare compared to its sci-fi peeres, and prices went crazy balls. This dovetailed with the fact that Marvel had taken up the license, and was going to start printing new Alien comics. It was a perfect storm that brought renewed interest to the franchise. However, prices stabilized, and then declined (though not to the levels they were pre-hype), and now we have to wonder just how much of a ceiling the books will have. The test will be the Alien TV series, as that's the next big media tie-in. With no film on the horizon, the future of Alien rests on the success of the tv series. Response to that should tell us what to expect from these books down the road. As I said above, I hope they remain cheap enough that I can keep hoovering them up, but it's always nice to know your money didn't get flushed down the toilet.

I'm not a signature series guy, so I wouldn't be interested personally, but if I can do anything to support you guys in getting it done, let me know! Then again, if all of the cool kids are doing it, I can probably be persuaded. Peer pressure and all that. ;)

Yeah, I have no desire to see prices go any higher than they already have, I just wanna keep adding to my hoard!

Even still, it's a great book, the cover image is so strong, and it looks very solid. Like I said, killer book for the grade. Congrats!

wow, that's a super looking 2.0! Does it have some hidden defect or something? Looks like a real winner for the grade!

Those Dark Horse Thing books are certainly uncommon and in demand. Prices are kinda all over the place, either $1 bins or wall books, but they're great finds. I used to collect the Kolchak books as well, as a big fan of the show, but eventually lost track of them. Not something you see every day, for sure.

As for Stan Lee, he never met a buck he wouldn't chase, so this seems oddly appropriate in his case.

I loved Rogue One, but the Tarkin and Leia stuff was TERRIBLE. Particularly Tarkin, it was like a CGI recreation of a rubber Halloween fright mask. JUST RECAST THE PARTS. It would ultimately be more respectful than resurrecting the dead.

Looks like it's $20, kids are free. This seems to be more of a general pop culture con, with comic guests, former wrestlers, cosplayers, all of that stuff. I don't think $20 is bad for a show of that size, though I do love a free show! Speaking of free, there's a free show in Louisville this weekend and I know @Mike Braywill be there among others. I'm playing a festival this weekend so I'm not sure if I'll be able to get free, but I hope they have a good turnout.

I’m not sure if a person with zero connection or affinity for classic X-Men comics would get much out of it, but it’s classic Claremont zaniness matched with Alan Davis at his absolute best, so even without the layer of nostalgia, I’d think that would count for something. I can’t separate it from that context, so it’s impossible for me to say how it would read to someone without those connections. But to me, it’s a classic copper age superhero book.

Boy, I'm a lot better at buying comics than I am reading them! I am woefully far behind in reading. 2022 has been a super busy year, seems like every night and weekend something is going on. About the only time I get to just sit and read is if we head down to the lake, which I did last weekend. I managed to get through these. new books: Alien 9,10,11 - I think this title is improving, but I still wouldn't say it's "good". I am definitely enjoying this storyline more than the first ,but there's still not much here. The biggest knock is the artwork by Larroca, which is really terrible. Not sure how many more issues of this I can read if he's just going to pose NECA action figures and then photoshop them. It's really embarrassingly bad. Blue and Gold 6,7,8 - My two favorite DC characters, and yet, I am relieved that this has concluded. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever read, but our boys definitely deserve better than this uninspired stuff. Human Target 5, 6 -Wow. Really loving this. Smallwood's art really knocks me out. Early on I felt like it was a little too similar to Phil Noto's style, but he's clearly doing his own thing here. This pairs up well with Hard Case Crime novels, if you're a fan. The ending of #6 really took my breath away. Disturbing stuff. I hate that there's going to be a big pause in the middle of this storyline, but I'm fully invested. Elvira Meets Vincent Price - ok, look, this really is more about my love of the titular "characters" than anything else. These aren't great books, but if you love Vinnie P and the Mistress of the D, there are usually enough corny jokes to help the time pass. Otherwise, I can't imagine there'd be much here for a casual reader. old random books: The Last Avengers 1 & 2 - These were in a collection I picked up, and I realized that I'd never read them before. I generally enjoy these downbeat, the future is scary sort of what if/elseworlds tales, and for the most part, I found the story entertaining, if slight. But the art, ugh. I'm all for heavily stylized art, but this stuff was just ugly. Worth the approximate 22 cents I paid for the set. FCBD pickups: Grabbed these at the shop on Friday. I don't usually care about FCBD offerings, but hey, they were free, and they had tons of them, so why not? TMNT - I didn't know what was happening here, and I didn't care. Marvel's Judgment Thingie - I didn't know what was happening here, and I didn't care. Dark Crisis - I figured out what was happening here, but didn't really care. I am a guppy for DC event stuff, but they are so samey-feeling anymore, this doesn't really mean anything to me. Will probably read a collected edition at some point. Donald Duck - he wears no pants! Collections Baltimore Omnibus 1 & 2 NOW we're talking! I'm a total sucker for all of the Mignola Hellboy-verse and Outerverse stuff. I remember reading most of these as they came out, but they didn't make a huge impression at the time. However, in collected form, all in one go, it really made an impact. I really loved this series. The ending seems a little rushed, given the scale of the story, but all in all I still got a kick out of it. Mignola knows what makes me tick; occult, monsters, WW1, all of that great stuff. If you know you know. So that made for 56 comics, bringing my 2022 total to...213! eGad! That is NOT going to get it done!

Aw shucks, you’ll make me blush! :teehee:

Indeed, it’s a terrific book. Davis was at the peak of his powers, and it featured my two favorite X-Men, Kitty and Nightcrawler. I never get tired of this book. I keep nicer copies bagged and boarded in my collection, but if I find $1 copies, I throw them into my comic rack. I’ve got dozens of copies, and the $3.25 cover is by far the most represented, followed distantly by the $4.50. I only have a handful of the second print by comparison. My other big nostalgia hoard book is Meltdown. I never turn away a dollar copy! Newsstands are uncommon but not rare.

For sure, many of these are LONG overdue, and a great bargain even if the materials aren't the best. I guess for the true archivist, MMW are still the way to roll. Omnis are an all-in-one bargain shopping stop, not necessarily the best presentation of the material. I'm just happy to have them. With this week's release of X-Men Fall of the Mutants, I will be caught up on pretty much all of the OOP stuff I wanted, with the exception of The Avengers Omnis. I'm assuming/hoping we'll get another run of those in the near future, and then I can consider the collection close to complete as far as "old stuff" goes.

Times have changed when it comes to collected editions, and rarely have they changed for the better. We DO get more sewn bindings these days (from Marvel, at least. DC seems to be fond of the glue on some volumes), but paper quality has definitely diminished, leading to much thinner volumes. The paper quality varies from book to book, depending on where its printed. The books coming out of R R Donnelly seem to fare better than the ones coming from Turkey, for example. I'm sure much of it is related to supply chain issues, as there has been a paper shortage (along with an everything-else shortage). There must also be a cost-cutting factor as well. It adds up to us getting the same books as before, only the MSRP has gone up (sometimes $25!), and they're thinner books with thinner paper.. Not a great tradeoff! However, compared to secondary market prices on OOP books, it's a compromise I can live with. I can pay $60 for a brand new copy of a book I previously sold or missed out on, versus paying $200-$400 on eBay, OR just not getting at all. I'll take the slightly cruddier $60 option. It's unlikely that a better deal is going to come along. And considering how some of these reprints are lingering, this is very likely the last physical copy we're going to see of some of these books. Sure, ASM 1, UXM 1, DD by Miller, Thor by Simonson - those are evergreens, they'll keep them coming. But Dr. Strange Volume 2? I don't expect we're gonna see that bad boy again.

Posted a few of these in CG, but it seemed worth dropping them here as well. LCS got in a big run of Natlamps, and I seem to be the only one picking them. The Frazettas were the priority, but I also enjoy these other, uh, cheeky covers.

Let's get this thread going again with some Heavy Metal love! Picked these up from @Azkabanthis weekend, really happy to have the Sep 81 issue in particular!

Picked these up at a Walmart this weekend while heading home from the comic show. I missed the boat on Slug (aka Slag, the name his momma gave him. Don't front, Hasbro) as he came out around the time of so many other pieces, and I truly didn't think he'd be hard to find. Supplies dried up quickly at the usual suspects, and suddenly it's impossible to find one for less than $75-$80. I held out hope that they'd do another run, or I'd just stumble across one at some point, and patience finally paid off! $52 is a lot, but also much easier to swallow than current market prices. These Dinos are so chunky, they're really going to be something once they finish this line. I'd held off on Tigatron due to the widely reported issues with yellowing. Ran across this one for $10, and felt like that was a fair price. Some folks haven't had any yellowing issues, but others have Tigatrons that look like Banana-Formers. It's a gamble. It's really a shame that so many figures from those months have already began to yellow. I know that Hasbro has addressed the issue, but it doesn't help those of us stuck with yellowed plastic that's only a year or two old. Oh well.Again, $10 seemed fair, given what we know.

I am super grateful that Marvel has been reprinting so many OOP volumes lately. My only complaints are that they've been coming so fast, it's difficult to keep up, and I'm not fond of the thinner paper they're using. BUT, those are small nitpicks considering what a great value these volumes are.

Cool! We’ll be down at the lake that weekend. Wonder if I can talk the wife into a side trip…

Thanks! Yeah, that may be my favorite HM cover of all time as well, and this is now the nicest copy I’ve owned!

And then Saturday I went to @fastballspecial's Southern Indiana Comic Show. I've spent a lot at home lately, so I only had a couple of bucks to spare, but I found enough cheap goodness to make it worth the trip. Got this sweetheart Heavy Metal Sep '81 along with the LoSH tabloid and other mags from @Azkaban, and several cheaper books from FBS and Mike Bray and some other dealers I didn't know. I think I bought every $1 Alien book in the place. Good times!