F For Fake

Magneto is pretty close to the Colossus cover in "rarity", for me. The Storm and Cyclops covers I can find by the bucket full, but the other two are definitely less common. I do see the deluxe fairly often, I wonder if it's because folks took better care of it back in the day because it was the "best" of the five? Who knows. I DO know that I see folks trying to squeeze $20 out of it sometimes and I'm just like no, no way ha But like you, $1-$3, I'll still pick them up.

Yes, absolutely! That's the great thing about these, is that although some people are paying a higher price for them, you can definitely still fish them out of the cheap bins. Complete sets will sell, and those deluxes, in nice shape, are an easy sale. I know it's not worth it to a lot of folks, but if I can put together a set for $5-10, and sell them for $30-$40, it's worth it to me to pick them up. The problem can be getting complete sets. For whatever reason, I always seem to come up with fewer of the Colossus cover than any of the others. I would never in a million years say this book is "scarce" or "uncommon", but my anecdotal evidence is that for I find maybe one of those for every five of the other covers. We're still talking about hundreds of thousands/millions of copies out there, but I just thought it was interesting that I see that one less frequently. I wonder if that's just a local thing.

This is great! LW&C are some of the best comics ever put to paper, and I also love the flims. Criterion did a really nicely restored release of the six films a few years ago on Blu Ray, I'd highly recommend it to anyone with even a inkling of an interest in samurai pictures.

YES! I'm glad I'm not the only one who was caught off guard by that! I assume that they'll give us V2 at some point, but it's still a weird decision to put this image on the box.

It's now my turn to join the rapidly expanding Hasbro Pulse O-Ring Club, along with the other cool kids! My packages arrived yesterday. Not really sure what I'm going to do with these, probably leave them carded and in the box, and put them in storage until the rest of the new o-ring stuff starts coming out. I don't really like to mix modern and vintage stuff in my displays, so until they have some more friends to be displayed with, they're the odd man out. The Reformatted Galvatron with Unicron companions pack also arrived. This is another one I ordered at the time but have since cooled on. I mainly bought it for the little ships and minifigures, but the reviews haven't been great. They seem to be pretty chintzy. And I guess Galvatron looks kinda cool, but he never actually looked like this in the movie, so I don't think he's really essential to my collection. Looks much more "Tron" than Unicron to me. If they did a Megatron with the real "reformatted" pattern and translucent plastic, I'd be all over it. (Like the recent R.E.D. figure, but in the proper scale.) But this thing is just kind of a cool looking curiosity. So, he stays sealed until I decide if I'm keeping him or not.

That absolutely makes sense, and everyone should do what is right for them. There's no wrong way to collect! And I have definitely used eBay here and there to knock some hard to find stuff off of my lists. I'm not against it at all, I just enjoy the thrill of digging up what I can locally, it makes the hunt more fun. Then again, we have like 5-6 comic shops, several annual comic shows, and neighboring cities with shops, so I am very fortunate in that way. It also helps that I've been buying Dave books for most of my collecting life, at least 30 years, so even if I only add one or two books to the collection in the space of a year, but it accumulates over time.

The gut says .5, but I have to say, I had an FF #5 in practically identical condition to the DD1 shown here, cover split and detached, plenty of wear around the edges of the covers. I sold it, the buyer sent it off, it came back 1.0. And the cover wasn't even as nice as the DD 1! So, I'd say I'd personally call it a .5, but 1.0 could still be possible for the DD1, at least once upon a time. As for the Avengers 1, man, that's tough, but it seems like a .5 to me for sure. Just too much material missing.

Lots of nostalgia tied in with this book, for a lot of folks. Even with the millions printed, someone will always want them. I used to buy every copy I'd find for 50 cents or less, or I'd pay a buck if they were in particularly nice shape. A couple/few years later, now those same shops who were selling them for 50 cents are now asking $7-$10, even $15-$20. And someone is buying them! So, I will keep buying them if I find them for a buck or less, because it's apparently still worthwhile to do so.

Man, I love the Razorback as a kid, and all of the Iron Grenadiers stuff, really. I loved Wild Boar as well. I wasn't sure why he had a helmet attached to his hand with a tube, but in my canon, he was able to send mental powers to his fist that gave him a superhero punch! Yeah, I know, never claimed to be the brightest kid... My Pulse O-ring two pack should be here any minute. I think I'll leave them carded/boxed, but it has been fun to see people opening them up on FB. I've seen at least two posts now where the nunchucks have broken in half, so everyone should exercise caution if they're opening these! Great that your buddy got the glider. My best friend, the Joe collector, only needed the gliders to finish his collection. He got the Joe glider from the family of a friend of a friend, who were taking their son's Joe stuff out to be thrown away. And there was an intact glider in there with the junk! madness! Meanwhile, on the flipside, I helped him locate a complete Viper glider through a local contact, but he had to pay considerably more for that one ha They're so cool, but so fragile!

Looks great, Buzz! They do some swell stuff with those aftermarket kits. I thing Jazz was one of the nicer from the SS set for sure. Like you, I sold mine off, as there was a small window where he'd sold out at most spots and the price was popping a bit, but I knew restocks were on the way. I haven't picked up another yet, so I need to get on that!

I always get a big kick out of your posts, just the coolest stuff!

I had two copies back when I was an AH completist. Got both of them out of dollar bins. I also paid cover price for the Supergirl/LoSH variant, got it in my holds when it was released. It was smart being an early adopter/completist of Adam's work. Not so smart? Selling all of it looooong before the prices jumped. yeesh.

Myth of 8-Opus is a great book, but it's not Kirby. It's Tom Scioli's first work, done in the Kirby style. Basically "Kirby as a genre". I remember buying the issues directly from him at MidOhio Con back in the day. He's gone on to do some cool stuff. I wish I still had those books! Love the Dirty Pair's, particularly the Timm cover. You don't see that one very often. Not as pricy as the Hughes, but it should be.

It really is a mixed bag with these books lately. On one hand, it's great that Marvel is finally reprinting so many books that have been OOP for far too long. On the other hand, due to the shipping/supply logjam, it feels like every an avalanche of books have been hitting the market for the last month, with more to come in the next few weeks. It's a deluge. Meanwhile, with some books, there has been a new restoration done, so the artwork has never looked better. However ,they've printed the books on the thinnest, shoddiest paper imaginable, so the artwork bleeds right through if you're reading at the wrong angle. And don't even get me started on the decisions to completely alter trade dress/spine font/logos mid way through the runs for some of these books. It's all a bit much. That being said, like you, I'm still buying them, because I want to fill in those holes, and even these compromised volumes are better than none at all. Of course, the other issue is shipping. IST continues to have issues, the most recently being their move to another warehouse. They said it would only put them a week or so behind. Meanwhile, I've got an order I placed a month ago with a title still needing to be picked. In recent weeks, CGN has gotten most of my business. I like IST, and I like their discounts, but CGN has done a much better job of actually getting the books in my hands these days.

Wow, that's terrible. Thanks for sharing with the community. R.I.P.

Gerhard's arrival really raised the game for Cerebus. The stories can get a little dull and drawn out, but the book never looked anything short of fantastic.

I've not read these, but man, that is gorgeous looking stuff!

I'm not sure how scarce it is per se, but it's not something I've run across. With most of these things I collect, if I wanted to go the eBay route, or whatever, I could probably knock out the wish list a little faster. But I prefer to take my time and see what I run across naturally, at local shops, shows, etc. And fan mags like this, well, most folks just didn't hang onto them, or bother to put them in their backstock. So I just don't see this sort of thing very often. And you can never have too much Dave!

I’ve got the Venus Domina (and the other Verotik stuff) but that Amazing Heroes special has eluded me. Been on my checklist for a long time. Great pickup!

The monthly reports are cleaner for sure. Luckily my 1099k finally showed up and my numbers were pretty much spot on with what they're reporting, so it all came together.

It's all terrific stuff, but this Spidey sure is pretty, deserves an encore!

Yes, I'd absolutely echo the sentiment of @FlyingDonut that you should talk to your own tax folks, as everyone's situation is different. I only offer my experiences anecdotally. I have never considered myself a "business" and don't want to deal with business licenses, tax exempt status, or figuring up my "inventory", as I would have no idea where to start. I just track all of my expenses throughout the year, and cost of goods, and turn that information over to the professionals. I guess a lot of people are going to be doing that for the first time after this year. The thing is, it's not a huge chore as long as you stay on top of it. Annoying, sure, but not a huge big deal.

Since I am in exactly that boat (I am a collector who buys and sells a lot for the purposes of his collection, and don't really carry "inventory" the way a store does) our tax guy said to go with the $0 starting inventory. As I explained to him, I don't know something is "inventory" until I decide to sell it, you know? Until then, it's just part of the collection. He said it was "fine" to go with the zero on the starting inventory. My wife works for a financial planning company, so they do all of their employees' taxes for free. BTW, my 1099k DID magically appear last night, after eBay teased me with its non/availability last week. So now I'm going to go through my spreadsheet one more time and see if there's anything else I can squeeze out of it, then off to tax boy it goes.

I'm sorry I missed that burst of Jimmers activity back in the fall, looks like he left the boards again around the time I came back. Hope he's hanging in, always makes my day to hear from him. Take care, bud.

@The MetaI'm always happy to see it as well!