F For Fake

That's a nice selection! I haven't been pre-ordering recently, as it seems like supplies have steadied a bit since those instant sell-out days of the last couple of years. But I have the following on my calendar "to buy" Madman Library Vol 2 Wolverine & the X-Men Omnibus 1 Excalibur Omnibus Vol 2 Captain America Lives by Brubaker Omni FF by Hickman 1 New Mutants Omni Vol 2 What if Omni Vol 2 Captain Britain Omni Hulk Vol 1 Omni X-Men Onslaught Omni Lobster Johnson Omnibus Absolute Swamp Thing Vol 3 X-Men by Hickman Omni AND THAT ONLY GETS ME TO THE END OF MARCH! gaaaaaaaah! Seriously, it's a downpour. And of all of those books, 6 of the 13 are reprints. April should bring FF by Hickman Vol 2 Omni, Legion of Superheroes Five Years Later Vol 2 Omni, Dazzler MMW Vol 3, The Question Omnibus, and OHMU Update '89 update. After that there are just a few scattered throughout the summer. But man, spring is coming in like a lion and going out like an equally large and angry lion.

It is crazy what some of those volumes are hitting these days, but with DC's publishing program being so iffy these days, I guess folks are concerned that they may never see print again. Who knows? DC's collected editions publishing makes about as much sense to me as CGC's quality control...

Lots of great reprints coming out these days, it is a real avalanche. Thor 1, Dr. Strange 1 & 2 all came out this week, along with UXM 4. I have about 10 books in the mail right now, and every week there's more. February and March are also packed. The shipping/supply chain logjam is really doing a number on my wallet.

Lost Girls is basically fan-fiction erotica Consider it to be "the thinking person's pornography", featuring lovely artwork by Melinda Gebbie. It's an interesting and provocative exercise, but and nicely done, but not one of Moore's better stories, really. I had a really nice signed hardcover slipcased set from a few years ago. Sold it when prices went up, and don't really miss it. Halo Jones is terrific. The America's Best Comics stuff is all pretty fun, including Top 10 and Tom Strong. Nothing groundbreaking, more genre exercise work (superhero police stories, pulp hero adventure stories), but still a lot of fun that goes down easily. Of the ABC stuff, Promethea was definitely the real winner. For less-loved Moore, I've always recommended his run on WildCATS, which came during the lowest point of his career. I found it surprisingly enjoyable at the time, though I haven't read it for 20 years or so.

Same. I can't do it. The whole subculture makes my skin crawl. All of the videos begin with "Hey guys!" and at some point I'm instructed to "smash that like button!" I don't begrudge people for trying to make some money, as a full time or side hustle, but the entire Youtube way of life, I think it's destroying people's brains. I've heard so many kids these days that talk like Youtube presenters. It's eerie.

Ok, my reading for 2022 finally kicked off last weekend, we took a trip to our place at the lake, and this time of year there's really nothing to do except stay in, stay warm, read, eat, and play cards. Good times! Amazing Spider-Man by Michelinie and McFarlane Omnibus - this is pretty much a pure nostalgia exercise. Took me right back to middle school. McFarlane's artwork, which seemed so cutting edge to my pret-teen eyes, does not age well at all. There are some inspired bits, but overall it's...not great. That being said, I still had a lot of fun revisiting these long-forgotten stories, and may go ahead and pick up the Spider-Man by McFarlane omni at some point. Blubber HC by Gilbert Hernandez - a collection of Beto's aggressively adults-only 2015 mini-series. Dream like, hypnotic, epically pornographic, it plays like like a nature documentary from an alien world, directed by David Lynch. Not for the weak of stomach or easily offended, but as a long time Los Bros fan, I still got a kick out of it, and laughed several times. Plus it's a pretty attractive hardcover for only $20, which means it was only $15 my my LCS. Not one I'll likely revisit soon, but it certainly is a singular experience. Vampiress Carmilla Magazine 2,3,4,5,7 - So, I just found out about this magazine by "Warrant Publishing", which seeks to recreate the glory years of the Warren b&w horror mags, right down to borrowing the creators from those titles. There are also great covers, new and old, such as rare pieces by Frazetta, Corben's last work, and great stuff by Sanjulian. This is a blast if you're looking to get your bronze age magazine horror fix. EC style short stories with ironic twists, and lots of sexy gals. My shop tracked these down for me once I found out about this mag, so now I gotta track down the rest. Elvira Meets Vincent price 3 & 4 - I'm a huge Vincent Price fan, as well as an Elvira fan. I can't say that this is a necessarily GREAT series, but fans of these performers will find a few gags that will elicit a chuckle. I enjoyed them over all. Blue and Gold 4 & 5 - This series still isn't doing much for me, but as a devoted Beetle and Booster fan, I will soldier on. #4 gets a much needed lift by bringing Kevin Maguire in to draw the flashback sequences, and boy, that hits the old pleasure receptors. Wish he was drawing the whole book, and hell, writing it too. Human Target 2 & 3 - Another one that plays on my lifelong love of Justice League International, only this book is GREAT. A simple, intriguing murder mystery involving some of my all time favorite characters, and the art by Greg Smallwood really is gorgeous. I'm enjoying this a bunch, probably the best thing DC has published in years. Alien 8 - still not digging the Marvel reboot at all, but as a dedicated Alien collector, I still buy it. I'd say this storyline is marginally better than the first one, but still, that's pretty thin soup. Reign of X Volume 3 - still onboard with the HOX/POX stuff. I'm way behind on these, but still love this format for keeping up with the entire X-line. Night of the Living Dead 1,2 3 trade paperbacks from Avatar - I picked these up at a peddlers mall for $5 each. Yeesh. Onto ebay they go, and away from my home! Sir Edward Grey: Acheron - since I don't exactly have my finger on the pulse of the industry, it had completely slipped my notice that Mike Mignola had returned with his first fully scripted and penciled book in five years! By the time I found out about it, all of the local shops were sold out, as were most online vendors and eBay (for the Mignola cover. The alt cover is still available on eBay). Finally tracked down a copy at Black Cape comics, which I'd not ordered from before. This is, of course, great stuff, if you're a fan. When it comes to pure comix, nothing much can top Mignola working in his world. So, I think that comes out to about 77 books. I'm going to try to make it this year. Will it happen? Likely not!

Cerebus meant so much to me as a kid and young man. Dave's personality sorta soured me on the title over time, but I finished it off. Haven't touched it since then, so I'm probably overdue for a re-visitation. There were times when the book got pretty slow, but the high points are very, very high indeed. High Society and Church and State would represent the high points to me, for sure.

Tangentially related to this thread, has anyone received their 1099k from eBay for 2021? When I go into Payments it says my 1099 is ready, but when I go to the taxes tab, it's not in there. I have it set to online AND mail, so I guess I'll get it one way or another, but I'd kinda like to get all of this stuff turned in and taken care of.

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, and that's how I tend to do things. More often than not the instincts are correct, but every once in a while there's a flash in the pan book like this that burns me, and I get grumpy and kick myself. I've made a lot of money on a lot of books. I've also sold way too early on a lot of books. But as my wife likes to remind me, "you were happy with the money you made at the time". And like you, I can't have all of that clutter sitting around, waiting for the day. I try to keep my "spec" stuff to a couple of boxes, and the rest is my personal collection. When space gets too tight, something has to go. But never not my mountain of Dakota North and Strikeforce Morituri #1's. Oh no. Those stay, And one day I'll ride them into an early retirement! Ok, maybe not...

So, thanks to D+, we finally got to watch The Eternals this weekend. I thought it was fine, which is what I think about most superhero movies. It's fine. They're fine. Overall, I guess I'd probably rank it near the bottom of the middle of the MCU flicks. Not at bad as the worst (Dark World, Inc Hulk, Iron Man 2, etc) and not much worse than most of the middle of the pack offerings. What I DID like: I liked that it was visually unlike any of the other MCU films. The practical locations and cinematography were much improved over most Marvel offerings. It didn't look, feel, or move much like a Marvel movie. I consider that a bonus, as I like to be surprised, and nothing much surprises me anymore. As for the effects sequences, I enjoyed the trippier aspects, particularly the scenes involving Celestials. Pump up the surround sound, get a little herbed up, and that's a perfectly passable Saturday night, my friends. Buzz already alluded to Pink Floyd. Cut away some of the dull stretches, and this movie would have been right at home at the planetarium during my foggy younger years! What I didn't like: Like most movies these days, it's unnecessarily long, and a little dull. The humor didn't land for me at all, though I don't think it was as bad as Shang Chi in that respect. And I thought the costumes looked a little too Power Rangers. I realize full well that it's really difficult to translate those zany King Kirby designs to the big screen. It may be better to not try, I'm not sure. So, in conclusion, we enjoyed it well enough, but it's unlikely I'll need to revisit it again. You could certainly do worse. Could you do better? With this material? I'm not sure how. I love Kirby like I love air, but Eternals were always kinda weird and dull. It's baked into the property. As for the "diversity" comments, on the surface I guess the casting could seem a little forced, but on the other hand, who cares? What does it hurt to have a diverse cast? The world is diverse. I'm white. My neighbors on one side are black, the neighbors on the other side are from Iraq. I work with people from Africa, Asia, Europe. And it's not like I live in a big city, I'm in a suburb of Louisville, KY, ferchrissakes. It's a diverse world, open the door and go outside every once in a while. Geez Louise.

Cool, I'll PM ya. Louisville has several shops. The Great Escape is still my main place, but there's still Comic Book World (from way back), The Zone (relatively long standing shop), and newer places like Pops, Heroes, and The Destination.

Well luckily it's not a book I care anything about for my personal collection, so that helps. But it would have been a nice, profitable flip! Oh well. Win some, lose some. I really gotta stop selling early though!

That Moon Knight book absolutely kills me. I picked a copy up in a lot of stuff several months ago...maybe even last year. It was the only Moon Knight comic I had, and I thought to myself "You know, a Moon Knight show is coming out, and the early stuff is red hot. I can see the ongoing getting hot as well, with the Sienkiewicz covers and all. But what are the odds that anyone will ever want the 2nd issue of a miniseries from the 80's?" So it eventually ended up in a box of stuff I sold at the local shop. Because of course it did. Because I'm an insufficiently_thoughtful_person. I guess it's true, these days it's best not to sell anything until it pops, because in time, everything is going to.

I'll watch his vids sometimes when I want to see previews of a specific figure, but I always do so with the sound off. Which, honestly, is the best way to watch most toy bros on Youtube.

Yeah, they look great! And I think you're right, I'm not concerned about them being 100% accurate re: scale, as that is pretty much impossible. As long as they don't look out of place, that's all that would matter to me. Looks like they fit very well!

Just getting caught up on the thread, this is really great! @fastballspecialI had no idea you were so (relatively) close by. I'm in Louisville. Only a 2-2.5 hour drive, so I've put the show on my calendar and plan on making it down there. In fact, Evansville is not far from our lake house at Falls of Rough, only an hour+, so I'll probably head down there Friday night, then go to your show Saturday morning and come back and crash at our place. That's the plan at least. Lots of time between now and then, but I'm looking forward to supporting this boardie venture if I can! Looks like you've already covered the Louisville area as far as flyering and promo, but if I can do anything up here, let me know!

Thanks! I'm happy with it. As for slabbing or not, for the time being I'll be keeping it raw. Truthfully, for books I plan on hanging onto, it's best that I keep them raw, because once I slab something, it becomes too easy/tempting to sell! Also, with the current turnaround times and quality control issues, I don't think I'll be slabbing anything for a while. So, it'll be at home in a mylar, full back and top loader for the foreseeable future!

Great stuff. I've not gone down the Mafex rabbit hole as they're pretty pricey, but they certainly look cool. How do they scale with the Legends stuff?

Hey Dave! It’s quite a bit smaller than the toy, 1:24 scale I believe. You could cram an o-ring guy in there I think, but it wouldn’t look right. However, from pics I’ve looked at, it really looks like Revell took the toy molds, and just scaled them down. The sprues are very similar if not identical. However, this is a glue kit, not a snap together, so I guess the sprues can’t be exactly the same, as these parts don’t just snap into place. I kinda hate to open it up since the contents are sealed, but it would be fun to try building one some day. My modeling skills are remedial at best, so I don’t want to ruin a nice kit.

Not certain, but @nearmintis a resident statue guru, perhaps he'd have some leads?

Threadsurrection! Been wanting to post in this one for a long time. Finally landed an Avengers 1 at a nice price at my LCS last week. The #4 I got at an estate sale four or five years ago. They're beat, but they're mine!

Raw copy I picked up at my LCS last week, they got a new collection in. So happy to have a decent mid-grade of this book at last. Even with that crunch corner, it's still such a pretty cover.

My humble, raw submission. Picked up at my LCS last week. Boy, I had to pay a lot more for it last week than I did when I bought a copy about 13-14 years. Eye-opening, for sure!

I have nothing to add except that I think this is cool, and I support further research. Vintage knock-off fire-starters strapped to flammable materials are exactly the kind of toys I enjoy most!

Thanks! If you still need a shell, let me know this summer (I'm sure we'll both forget by then, ha) as there are a couple of dealers that have tons of parts for sale, and one guy has individual bins dedicated to each of these battle stations/battlefield accessory sets. Just tons and tons of parts, but it's group by set, so it's much easier to dig through. Missiles, shells, that sort of stuff is usually easy to find there. Happy to grab one for you if you still need it by then. I think my Storm Shadow is still showing "July 2022" at BBTS, so who knows when they'll show up. I'm not really in a hurry, as long as I get all of the stuff eventually. I had sworn off of Classified as I'd missed out on all of the Target exclusives, which put me off of it. Then this summer they got them back in stock, and I also like the newer sculpts much better, so I am back onboard. It took some time, but I managed to find everything at retail price, or less, except for the Amazon Storm Shadow. That's the only one I haven't tracked down, and I don't feel like paying $$$ for it, as it's not a design I really care for.