stormflora

Yeah, it definitely looks like it's not so much a compiled book but just a fancy makeshift binder. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they were just ordinary issues that the animator in question was provided copies of for their reference, and then they just hole-punched it and put into a binder for tidiness.

For someone who is an amateur to the comic scene, what exactly is the Comics Code and how did it influence the entire scene? What are the Comic Book Ages? | The Nerd Hoard I personally feel that the Modern Age should really be broken up. There has just been so much that's happened over the last 40 years compared to the last 100 that it cannot simply be condensed into a single period of time. Comics post-2000 and possibly even post-2010 are nothing like post-1985. Comics nowadays are designed with higher artistic quality bars to be met, and there are a lot more indie/independent series introduced to the scene instead of solely superheroes.

Sounds exactly like what NFTs went through after the crypto crash and AI art boom. I think people are starting to realize that they are being too careless with overspeculation, and are biting their nails at the losses they're taking from them.

The holes punched through each issue bothers me... It's cool to see the book binding though. Definitely something I've never seen before.

Hijacking the thread a bit, but how exactly does selling on Heritage Auctions work? I've never used it before since I don't believe I have anything valuable to sell. Do you just ask for a free appraisal, see whether they'll accept your item(s), and then charge you a commission off of the final sale price? Can you set a reserve price? Or do they give you an offer to buy off your items for them to sell themselves?

I wager it would be stuck somewhere in the Fine range, since the Mint/Near Mint range doesn't tolerate any imperfections at all, and Very Good usually involves at least some visible wear or tear.

So... The white W variants are cheaper direct variants and the typical yellow W variants are newsstand/comic store? I wonder why the white variants seem rarer than the yellow ones. Could it be because not many people bothered to order them directly?

Is this Whitman list of any use to anyone? Also, what's the real difference between the yellow and white W logos? Which one is rarer? I see yellow ones on eBay a lot, but rarely the white ones, so I would imagine that the latter is rarer. Personally, I'm more of a Gold Key fan, although I pick up Whitman if there's no Gold Key "variant". But I do entire series, not just individual issues of various characters. On a side note, I had to buy a large Chip 'n' Dale lot to fill some gaps for the series, so I'll end up with a handful of Whitman copies to have to resell, which I plan to do so at cost + shipping (I'm not looking to profit off of it). If anyone is interested in any of these issues, let me know and I'll hold onto them for you: Chip 'n' Dale #71, 74, 76, 77, 78, 82. (Grades for each of them are not yet available as I have to wait for the package to arrive in the mail first, but they are likely to be at least VG.)

Surprised that this thread isn't getting as much activity as I would expect. Maybe it's been buried too deep within the forums. I just wanted to post and share that I've successfully completed my Chip 'n' Dale collection in just five weeks of hardcore searching and haggling. 140 issues total across a handful of imprints. Spent a month's worth of disposable income on it (around $900 USD), a significant amount of which was shipping costs. Probably half of it. Now started up a Tom & Jerry collection, which is almost 2.5x the issue count and has far more rarer and expensive issues to have to collect, primarily from the Golden Age.

It's easier (and more budget friendly) to focus on series that do not have more than a few hundred issues at most. And it's best to focus on series that you have a deep emotional attachment to, not just something that seems interesting at the immediate moment because of a nice cover but you have never really delved into before. Going with lower grade comics helps reduce financial strain as well, and makes it psychologically easier to read a comic without being too careful about maintaining its value. Some of the older superhero comic series have run for hundreds to thousands of issues, many of which are expensive key issues most people would never be able to afford if they aren't filthy rich. So the sooner you realize that you're guaranteed to have gaps, the sooner you'll know to be more realistic with your expectations. Of course, low grade or reprints will help fill those gaps. I recently started up a Chip 'n' Dale collection (on Oct. 13, although I had two issues to start with beforehand) and finally finished it today. Every issue from every imprint (excluding foreign variants). It wasn't easy and involved a lot of haggling and bundling comics to maintain a healthy average cost per issue. I knew right from the get-go how many issues it would be in total. I initially started with the Gold Key imprint, but realized later on that the other imprints had original content that the GK one did not, so I expanded to those as well. A grand total of 140 issues. Some of them are still coming in the mail, but I plan to take photos and showcase the collection once they are all in my hand. And then I plan to press each and every one of them and perform some restorations. In the meanwhile, due to having to average down the cost, I also started collecting Tom & Jerry issues as well. But that's going to be far more daunting, due to the greater issue count as well as the first imprints being insanely rare. It's going to be a longer journey and will involve a heavier investment. But my wife and I both love T&J, so it's not going to be collecting dust on a shelf. Our daughter will eventually read these comics as well. I would say that if you have outgrown some series, sell it as a collection lot.

The approach I'm looking to take right now (like any other online auction such as eBay) is to just throw my maximum bid at the listing during the very last minute. It's always worked out well, as most bidders do not spend the time to watch over an auction like a hawk. I'm thinking of offering $1 for every two comics, but I'm not sure if that's over- or underpriced.

Yeah, that's what I'm planning to do as well, considering that I'd have to pay for the shipping too, which would likely double the cost. There is a strong possibility that at least half of the comics in a box are junk, although you might be able to get some value back out of those by actually reading them and perhaps even heat pressing them at home to raise their grade a little. Of course, that's probably not something anyone would actually do unless they are a genuine reader and not a mass reseller. What would be the biggest pieces of advice you could provide? Am I on the right track with my considerations as a rookie at this time?

Apologies for the necro, but I was here looking for this sort of reply as well, for my own collection of old comics. Your advice and answer to OP's plight led me to finding this. There are numerous other YouTube video guides you can find by simply searching for "How to repair with Japanese paper", such as this simplified one. It seems to use the exact same technique that a professional comic repair service like this one uses. I figured I'd leave this tidbit here in case anyone else is searching for a solution to this problem without needing to resort to paying lots of money to enlist third-party services. Do note, the Japanese paper necessary for the repairs can be expensive. They are large sheets, and you'd only need a tiny bit of each, but it does imply that the investment would only be worthwhile if you have many repairs to make, not just one or two. However, I did find a solution for this (and it addresses another issue as well): Japanese paper samplers (1) (2). Not only can you acquire a small sheet this way, you can also compare the different kinds of paper with your comic to see which texture finish would fit it best. And you would have a much more versatile selection for more than one kind of comic as opposed to buying one or two kinds of paper and choosing wrong or encountering some foreign paper you are not used to from a different publisher. Note that tengu (and its various weights) are excellent for interior paper rips/tears because of how invisible it is, but definitely not staple holes as they would be too light and cannot handle any pressure. The only other thing you'd need would be the wheat starch paste, which is made of wheat starch (some supermarkets will have this for cheap) and distilled water (which you'd probably have if you do heat pressing; it's cheap at Walmart). Instructions to prepare the paste are here. Tools, at the minimum, would be small paintbrushes ranging from fine to thin (dollar store) and tweezers (also dollar store). Any sort of paper repair should probably be done after heat pressing, as moisturization and/or heat may loosen the bond with the Japanese paper. For people who just want an easy solution and don't mind using tape, this is probably the best (and most economical) solution available. It's the most transparent tape that I could find and is more readily available as well as newbie friendly. Here is a demonstration of how it looks on actual paper. It is probably made with Japanese paper as well, or something similar. Obviously, both this and actual Japanese paper are not solutions for tears on artwork. They are strictly for blank parts of the comic, like the spine or edges. If you must attach tears of artwork together, maybe a controlled drop of transparent Elmer's glue could do the trick.

I've been browsing through auctions of comic lots, and are intrigued by them. There's always the chance of winning the lottery with some estate liquidation box that turns out to contain some expensive comics. And as long as you don't throw too much at the auction, you still have a decent chance of breaking even via resale if it really turns out to be a box of trash. Naturally, it's a competitive market and people are obviously going to bid heavily on them (especially near the end), but I'm considering throwing a bid in at around half the price of the comic quantity stated (e.g. $50 for a 100 lot) and rolling the dice with that. I'm mostly going to focus on auctioneers that are not comic experts/collectors or look like comic liquidators, as those are likely to sell cherry picked boxes already. Have you tried some lots out, and if so, what was your experience like?

All very good points, everyone. It was insightful reading through all of your comments. I suppose I overlooked the fact that cartoon characters in comics were secondary mediums meant to piggyback off of their original animations on TV, most of which eventually died off except for a handful of legendary ones everyone knows. I guess that comes with business: corporations will only keep pushing and publishing works of a character if it makes them money. It certainly does not help that comic collectors are typically older people (at least in their teens) who have the money to afford doing so. And since they are an older audience, they would naturally be more biased towards comic series that appeal to their demographic as opposed to young children. So the demand is just not there and thus the cost is overall lower. Moreover, since comics are a niche hobby in general now (people would likely rather watch TV or play video games, etc.), the point I made in the second paragraph continues to stand: Marvel/DC Comics is only concerned with their biggest cash cows and nothing more. We have had some non-superhero imprints (like Disney) making comics of their top IPs as well, but with mixed success (mostly gravitating towards failure that results in series not lasting long). Indie imprints seem to be the new competing spectrum to superhero comics right now, as there are some interesting gems that come out, such as Something is Killing the Children. I guess I'm just having a nostalgia trip.

One thing I noticed from the indicia of the comics I purchased was that the Canadian versions were (obviously) printed in Canada, not the USA. This implies that a local corporation was sold the IP to produce their own copy of the original American version. Hence, in regards to printing and material quality, it would likely be more of a Canadian-specific issue, not necessarily an American one, as they were never imported to begin with. Perhaps Canadian corporations had no choice at the time but to offset the expenses of licensing by cutting corners wherever possible, knowing that Canadians would likely never be able to find out back in the day.

Everywhere I go, it seems that most people only talk about superhero comics, not cartoon comics. Personally, I'm a fan of old cartoons like Tom & Jerry, Road Runner, etc., although it may have been because I grew up watching those on TV. Superhero comics until this day feel like a dime a dozen, although some key issues can go for ridiculous amounts of money. But given the choice, I'd rather pick up new indie series instead to see what they have to offer, over new spinoffs of past superheroes. Am I the only one sailing on this boat? Some of these old cartoon comics can cost quite a lot of money to collect as well and sometimes are just as difficult to find as certain superhero comics. But they're still not seen as highly valuable. The cost of a couple of superhero key issues could cover the cost of gathering the entire collection of a particular cartoon character.

Apologies for the necrobump, but this thread was the only one pertinent to what I was looking to discuss about, and it was not locked from discussion. I purchased a few copies of old Tom & Jerry Comics issues released by Dell from a seller, who had a mixture of American and Canadian versions. Some were explicitly specified as Canadian, some not. I thought there wouldn't be any difference either way, but it turns out I was wrong. In hindsight, the Canadian issues, although they had the same covers, only had half the page count. So obviously, much less content. I assume that these Canadian versions were cut down by Dell to save on the costs of sending/licensing out comics to another country back in the day. Since Canadians would not have had easy and/or affordable access to the American versions, they would have believed that their local variants were complete and unadulterated, when in fact they were not. (I do not have any copies of the original American issues at this time to compare and see what the differences are within.) Fortunately, the Canadian variants explicitly state "Canadian Edition" on their front covers, so there is no need to worry too much about getting the wrong version. However, I only noticed this pattern on the older Tom & Jerry Comics, not the newer ones. But that might be because ever since issue #88 in 1951, all Tom & Jerry Comics were shortened from 52 pages to 36 instead. It is possible that Dell had crunched the numbers and found this to be the ideal page count to produce without having to screw over specific markets. Now, I'm going to have to purchase the American copies to replace these ones (which will serve as fillers for now), and then resell the Canadian copies once I do. Hopefully this information is helpful to some people.

I can definitely sympathize with the conundrum of handling higher grade comics. You have to be extremely gentle with them, which can reduce or even frustrate the reading experience. You may never know if 50+ years down the line it ends up being worth millions, and your mishandling of it now makes it only worth a fraction of that for your kids. So you refrain from touching it. At least with a low grade comic, it is not going to significantly change in quality as long as you don't utterly destroy it. But you can use it as a reading copy, however many times you wish. I don't necessarily choose to buy low grade comics, but I do try to stay under a budget for each issue, as I do not value comics as highly as my other hobbies. So I grab whatever is the best available grade of an issue within my budget at the time. And this ranges anywhere from Good to Near Mint, but on average, the Very Good spectrum. I try to avoid Good whenever possible as the damage on them can turn out to be unexpected, unless there are explicit photos available to show its appearance. Most issues I encounter tend to be Very Good or Fine, but there are some misgradings here and there (both in a good and a bad way). I toobid you good day

I actually purchase quite a lot of comics from Lone Star (MyComicShop), so I know all about how their store works . But a lot of the issues I need in the series do not pop up that often, so this is just a compromise. However, judging from what I've done with the restoration so far, I may actually end up sticking with this issue, since the rest of the comic is actually in good condition (it's just the front cover that's messed up). Yeah, that's what I was trying to get at as well. If a comic is already a low grade (Good or lower), it's not that easy to make it worse. And as long as you aren't planning to resell it, why not feel better about the issue that you own? If it would please you to fix it up the way you personally prefer, then go for it. You paid for the issue and you're the one who owns it, after all. Hell, some rich person could buy a $1M comic and throw it into a grinder for all they care, as long as it would make them happy. To grading authorities like CGC/CBCS, they probably only start to care about restorations if a comic reaches Fine or higher, as they would start to be concerned about tampering and are no longer briefly grading a low quality comic with a 1-2 minute visual inspection. There are so many possible reasons why a comic may be ruined, and if a kid genuinely painted or used correction fluid on top of a comic, does it automatically make it "restoration" grade? Not necessarily. But it does keep its grade low. As mentioned, with the restoration that I made, I genuinely feel that it was a net positive, even if it started off as a Good and still ended up as a Good. At least I don't hate looking at it anymore. But I still need to spend a bit more time with it to fix it further. Hypothetically speaking, if I bought a new copy that was also graded Good, there's always the chance it may actually be worse than the copy I have. And even at Very Good, there's always the chance of a misgrading or certain imperfections being considered acceptable that might not actually be in my eyes. A bit of a gamble and increased investment required. At least this way, any restorations I make are controlled and within expectation.

Well, it is not a particularly expensive comic and is for my own personal collection (I only paid $3.65 USD for it), so I should be personally satisfied with how it looks, not somebody else I'd never actually sell to. If it was actually meant for resale, then yeah, not only would I not touch it, but I would also not even bother wasting time trying to fix it. In any case, I have managed to touch up and fix the pen marks to a palatable state with some white acrylic gouache paint and amateur marker tinting. I got rid of the egregious drawings on the faces, even though I still need to do a bit of work with the coloured clothes, which still have the drawings on them. With time and patience, I'll be able to build up enough experience to tackle these harder fixes with better painting skills. But for now, I like what I've achieved and I'm fine with it for now. At a distance, it is not noticeable. In my most honest opinion, I would say that the comic itself hasn't actually changed in grade. It started off as a Good and stayed as a Good. But at least now it doesn't have ugly pen drawings blatantly scribbled on top of it anymore. So optimistically it might even be a slight net positive. But it is still a Good nonetheless. I've attached some photos of the before and after. I didn't actually take a photo of the before, but I sketched back on what it used to look like before I did any touching up on it (to the best of my memory), without any deceit. You can tell that I've fixed a lot of it up, even though there's definitely still room for improvement.

Hi, thank you for your reply. I am not trying to fix the comic for resale. It's just for my own collection and visual appeal. (This might sound strange considering we are on the CGC forum, haha.) The pen marks really bug me, and although I could spend the time and money to buy a replacement copy, I'd like to see whether there are alternatives I could try to just get rid of them or hide them and make the cover less ugly. I do believe that it is old ink, so it has most likely seeped into the paper already.

I'm not a seller, just a rookie collecting some comics for myself. Is the only possible means of improving the quality of the comics for free to just realign the book neatly and then squash it between two textbooks and leave it sitting for weeks? I've been doing some searches regarding ironing, and there are mixed results regarding to whether or not it is safe. Naturally, it is better to err on the side of caution and just not do that. Also, does anyone have any advice on how to cover up pen marks on the front cover without resorting to white-out? I noticed that a black ballpoint pen works incredibly well for black outlines, but that's about it. I don't have anything for the white or coloured areas, and markers don't seem to work. Thanks a bunch.