Flex Mentallo

Same here - Elmer is extremely reliable and makes everything very simple. Heartily recommended!

My buddy kelholt had a great idea for a topic in the Planet thread which I thought deserved a wider audience. So drawing on his words: Post your favorite 3 book-mini run you own that are in numerical order from a given title. These may not be your highest graded or one favorite book but a snapshot of the series at the printed time that you like best. Let’s keep it to 3 and this will give some a hard decision to narrow down as well as letting many play along. Remember, 3 in numerical order that you own that are your favorite grouping of 3. I'll kick us of with a mini run of Planets.

take it as per pm

Verily, I didst piddle about in the shallow end.

I say thee nay!

Verily, it passeth all understanding.

http://www.comiclink.com/auctions/item.asp?back=%2FAUCTIONS%2FSEARCH.ASP%3FFocusedOnly%3D1%26where%3Dauctions%26title%3Dadventure%2Bcomics%26ItemType%3DCB%23Item_1254558&id=1254558&itemType=0

Some very pretty Spideys in this thread - that #16 is a beaut!

The scholarships were handed out by Roshni earlier this week.

How with so few words do you manage to make that sound like Hannibal Lecter thinking of fava beans?

You should know better than to believe in all the hype!

Not me buddy!

Irrevocably hooked with no available cure!

It looks like you are right about Okajimas. Probably true of other titles/pedigrees/genres as well. Considering your previous question, which I had not seriously thought about until just now (too busy trolling) , I suppose the difference between, say, a classic Baker cover selling for multiples of guide versus a lesser Okajima (so to speak), is that the Baker or a.n.other in that wheelhouse, is being sought for its intrinsic value, while the Okajima is being sought more for the back story. But regardless of which Okajima it is, the back story is always the same. Does that make a difference, or should it? I suppose the point is moot, since market forces will out regardless. I thought the tulip comparison was worth making because of its excess, and 10x guide for a lesser Okajima seems excessive to me (but clearly not to the buyer). I do wonder if we are on the cusp of a bubble with panelology, fuelled by those with deeper pockets or those who benefit in some way from the hype - presumably higher profits. The problem I have with my own thought there is that bubbles seem to have burst suddenly and unpredictably, for reasons easier to see in hindsight. I found your diagram helpful. Mania phase perhaps? If so I do find that concerning.

I totally agree.

Thanks Sha - I'd never made the connection before!

It was real, but writers exaggerated the impact. many of the more colorful stories were just hype.

When tulips came to the Netherlands, all the world went mad. A sailor who mistook a rare tulip bulb for an onion and ate it with his herring sandwich was charged with a felony and thrown in prison. A bulb named Semper Augustus, notable for its flame-like white and red petals, sold for more than the cost of a mansion in a fashionable Amsterdam neighborhood, complete with coach and garden. As the tulip market grew, speculation exploded, with traders offering exorbitant prices for bulbs that had yet to flower. Known for their passionate love of flowers, the Dutch highly prized the tulip upon its introduction to Western Europe in the mid-16th century. Dutch collectors devised a hierarchy of tulip varieties based upon their species and coloring, assigning values to the various flowers. Because it was impossible to determine which variegation would bloom from a particular bulb, the tulip became an object of speculation. During their earliest years in Europe, the bulbs were primarily of interest to the wealthy, but by the mid-1630s the craze caught on with middle-class and poorer families. The increased demand caused the price of the bulbs to soar. The market reached its height in late 1636 and early 1637, after the bulbs had been planted to bloom the following spring. People mortgaged their homes and industries in order to buy the bulbs for resale at higher prices. Charles Mackay, in his definitive history of early financial bubbles, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), published a list of objects (and their prices) which were exchanged for "one single root of the rare species called the Viceroy": Two lasts of wheat (448 florins) Four lasts of rye (558 florins) Four fat oxen (480 florins) Eight fat swine (240 florins) Twelve fat sheep (120 florins) Two Hogsheads of wine (70 florins) Four tuns of beer (32 florins) Two tuns of butter (192 florins) One thousands lbs. of cheese (120 florins) A complete bed (100 florins) A suit of clothes (80 florins) A silver drinking-cup (60 florins)2 In February 1637, as spring drew near and the bulbs were close to flowering, consumer confidence evaporated and the market suddenly crashed.

You're going to turn them back into trees?

Okajimania? Rings a bell!