Flex Mentallo

Nice. Very nice! All-Picture All-True Love Story 1 Rebounds are always interesting. You never know what you're going to get - could be a Canteen Kate story. True Love Pictorial 4 is a great book. Four Baker stories for a big 41 pages of original art. And I think the cover is the bomb - the composition, framing, perspective, coloring - all of it is first rate. One of my top 20 favorite covers from St John romance. And the only cover with just two women talking to each other and they're friends. The 25 cent Giants from True Love Pictorial (3-5) and Pictorial Romances (17-20) are awesome. Squarebounds - a challenge. Thanks for the compliment. I love squarebounds, just their heft and volume, but they've got to be square, not flattened by time. That TPL #4 was an early ebay purchase from Alanna before either of us found the boards. I thought it looked familiar!

While the rest of us scrabble around for single copies (in my case about 1 per year), you buy Centaurs in bulk! Get bored quickly!

Read the description of the book carefully. He discloses tear seals and other repairs but doesn't always label a book as "restored" that most other dealers (and collectors) would call restored. An important issue because he sells mostly raw books. He doesn't like to bargain but will always accept returns with no hassle.

Tough issue! +1 Very tough. It's only the second copy I have ever seen. Hence, it is an insane grade for that issue!

Tough issue!

Great catch Kelly!

Professor Higgins certainly ended up thinking so ... though he had to teach her proper pronunciation. He didn't have to - he just enjoyed it!

Thanks, Pat. My runs would look a lot better if someone (ahem) hadn't touted these books so much in the Comic Book Marketplace days. It would not surprise me if fully half the readers of this thread discovered the joys of Atlas horror through your "Adventures Into Weird Worlds" feature. For the record, there's nothing sexier than a man with full mastery of the English language! Because it will appear sexist I will get slaughtered for saying this, but I speak from personal experience - there is nothing sexier than a woman without full mastery of the English language!

Jay, you run out of titles the way I run out of books!

Wow. Super cool book!! Attack of Brain Jar Man! The scans really don't show the beauty of this cover. I'm a sucker for weird color patterns. The two-tone greens on the back wall are so very cool to see. It's really amazing how inventive the colorists were on some of these golden age books given that they were working with dots composed of a limited number of colors. Wonderful book! I've held this copy in my hands and as Richard says, the scan doesn't do it justice. It's truly a phenomenal book.

..as they apply the paddles and shout, "Clear!", my response will be "You can always reboot!"

I'd like to think the world is big enough for all of us!

ARRRRGGG! I want this book so bad. Sorry Mike! (There is one on Ebay right now, and Metro has the Larson.)

They might arguably include This Mag is Haunted #3 Worlds of Fear #2 Beware #10 Dark Mysteries #10 Venus #19 Men's Adventures #25 The only ones I would be confident of are the two Fawcetts. There are between 1000 and 1200 precode horror books so picking 10 toughest, absent a much more complete census, is extremely difficult. What are most likely to be included are popular books that many want to own but can't find a copy of because existing owners are very happy and unwilling to sell. This results in the appearance, but not the actuality, of scarcity. I agree.

Not very - though personally I think it is rather overvalued.

They might arguably include This Mag is Haunted #3 Worlds of Fear #2 Beware #10 Dark Mysteries #10 Venus #19 Men's Adventures #25

That's the same problem as the This Mag is Haunted # 3. A lot of them have horrible spine split. Both printed in the same month so somehow the printer used lousy cover stock when they printed the books. Same problem with this one.

Speaking of rare horror books, here is another recent pick up. Unfortunately the spine is completely split owing to inferior cover stock - otherwise this would be quite nice. Arguably in the top five scarcest PCH books.

Nice, Michael! A truly tough issue to come across in any condition. Thanks Jeff!

Thanks Adam - yes, both were part of an OO collection sold by Jim Payette years ago. I happened to phone him one day and asked if he had a Dark Mysteries #19 and he said, "Yes, I'm looking at one right now." I said, "What grade is it?" And he replied, "looks about near mint." I asked how much he wanted for it, but out of consideration for you and others I wont say how cheaply I got it. I then proceeded to ask, "Venus #19? Chilling Tales #16? Tormented #1? Menace #4?" Plus a couple of others I had at the top of my wants list at the time. He had them all. I was very poor at the time, or I'd have asked about other books. The Chilling Tales and the Tormented are still with me, the others long gone, and the pair are currently being graded. I don't think they will do quite as well, but we will see!

If memory serves, out of #17-#19, the top census is a lone #19 9.0 and the other two have 8.5 as highest grade. I've not delved deeper, but it would indicate that anyone who comes across or owns a true near mint copy of any of these three...well, I leave it to your imagination! Strange in a way, that it is the #19 which has the highest graded copy as it is surely the toughest of the three to find in any grade, whereas the other two are only truly scarce in higher grades I'd say!

I'd take the css 22 every damn day. Many damn would.