wizardseye311

Yeah, I found the listing. Sent a message asking if it is a stock image or the actual comic. The #1 Art Adams cover was the 1:25 (or 1:65 depending which website you're looking at) retailer incentive, but the #2 Adams cover was just one of the 4 regular covers. There were actually 10 if you can believe it. I have the Adams and the Brunner ones for #2 just because I like them, but the one to have is the Adam Hughes RRP cover for #2. Very hard to find, and not cheap either when you do. The other cool one is the Esteban Maroto cover for #2. Also hard to find. A great cover by the legend himself. Basically the only Dynamite Red Sonja covers worth collecting value wise are the RRP covers. The ones that actually say RRP too, not the ones people call RRP's. They have to have the RRP printed on the cover. I have the #'s 4, 5, 8, and 12. #12 being the last cover to have RRP printed on the cover. The others are incentive covers for dealers who bought a certain number of books. Try to find a #0 RRP. It was the 1:1000 cover. If you can find one they go for about $300.00, and are snatched up right away. I know where one is, but I'm not paying that much for it. .

Where did you find that with the gold dragon? The one I posted is my actual copy, and all the ones I've seen have the purplish dragon. Wonder where that pic came from. Maybe a promo image or something else? Pretty cool, man!

Love the cover Art Adams did for #1 as well.

Not unless you count this Art Adams cover swipe.

The first is the same cover as Marvel Super Special #9 John Buscema cover art. The second one I've never seen before, but maybe they're French reprints of earlier stories like the English, "Avengers Feat. Conan" weeklies we saw earlier in the thread.

I am in awe, Sir! The Vallejo is incredible. The others are amazing as well, but to have a Boris original is just over the top.

CGC might not recognize the mis-cut. but there are so many other issues with that #1 it wouldn't be worth the cost of shipping and grading just to get a 5.5. Look for a perfect one that will get a 9.6 or 9.8 to justify the cost. Or buy one already graded to lessen the risk. Mark Jeweler copies have an ad insert for jewelry that was added to comics sold around military bases. The insert was made of heavier stock paper, and "supposedly" the comics hold up better due to the stiffness of the card stock. She's on the cover of Savage Sword #1 and #23 and appears in several issues up to #233. I think the first De Zuniga artwork for Savage Sword was #45. You can Wiki Red Sonja for a list of all her appearances except for issue #33 of Conan. Which Gyro insists counts because there's a picture of her and part of a sentence referring to her in it ().

Yeah, most copper age and older comics were done on a web-fed offset press. Learn more here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_printing#Web-fed_offset

This happens during the bindery process. After all the pages and cover are printed (they're in big sheets) they have to be cut to their individual size, folded, and stapled. There's a thread on here somewhere about factory defects, and any number of things can go wrong during the printing and bindery process as that thread can attest to. Basically, if something is not lined up correctly you run into problems. Some are actually pretty cool like double covers, centerfold as page one, uncut pages, etc. Quality control is supposed to weed these out, but sometimes they slip through. The Red Sonja #1 is yours if you pay for shipping. Message me if you want, but I'm sure shipping will be quite high, and may not be worth the trouble.

Oh that's some tough bindery work on that one. That white line down the left side is actually the back cover bent around to the front, and that same amount has been cut off of the right side of the cover. Almost the whole left front leg of the unicorn is missing. This is pretty common, but I've never seen a mis-cut this much on a #1. The #13's and #7's are famous for this, as are the Conan #24's. CGC doesn't take points off for it, but I prefer not to see it. With the stresses, and rounded corners I would say it's about a mid-grade copy. Maybe Fine - (5.5) to Very Good/Fine (5.0). It's tough trying to find mint raw copies from this era. Even my reader copies which are pretty nice are a far cry from my graded 9.8 white pages books. They're not even close when you compare them hand in hand. Hope you didn't pay too much for it. I have an extra #1 that's not perfect, but it's in a little better shape. I'd just give it to you, but shipping from Florida to the Philippines would probably be more than the book is worth. It's yours if you want it though.

I asked Stan Lee himself, and got no answer. Good luck!

It's a long way from Canada. You gonna grab it?

No problem. It's all yours.

Yep.

Yeah, those are nice! You gonna grab one or both? On the 9.8 thing. It really is a tough grade for Bronze Age books, no matter what the title is. It's just that Red Sonja was not a big seller compared to X-Men, FF, or ASM, etc. The print run was no where near what it was for those books. That's why you'll have X number of 9.8's for those books in much higher numbers, but very few for Red Sonja of the same period. Just for the sake of argument say you have 1 million copies of ASM #170 and 1% of those were a 9.8. That would mean you would have 10,000 9.8's, hypothetically, but you only have 100,000 printed copies of Red Sonja #4, and 1% of those were a 9.8 leaving you with only 1,000 making the grade. A difference of 10%, but keep in mind that there were 10% fewer copies available. So statistically they're about the same. It's the actual availability which makes it tough. Add to that how many copies that were an actual 9.8, and have been submitted. Then you see the numbers drop hard. Incidentally, there are 71 9.8's for ASM #170. Not bad for a non-key issue, but there are 28 9.8 Red Sonja #4's. That's a little less than half, and they came out the same month and year. The really odd part is that a 9.8 ASM #170 goes for more than twice what a 9.8 Red Sonja #4 goes for, and there's more than twice as many available. ASM #170 is not rare, it's not a key issue, but it's Spider-Man, and it's always going to command more $'s. Alas, no one was buying poor Red Sonja then, and if you look at how many CGC #4 Red Sonjas are for sale now, it would seem no one wants to buy her now either even though it's a rarer book in grade.

If you look closely at those two copies there's no way they are NM+. I doubt they would even get a 9.4 from CGC. Corners are too banged up with color breaks, and the price they're asking is kinda high. Sure young people always picking on us haft blind old people !!!! You wait till you keep walking into the door every night on the 8th trip to the toilet !!! When I was younger walking 5 miles to school over 6 big hills I could see 12 miles in the moonlight on a cold winter night at - 40 ! I was just pointing out possible reasons why they may not have sold. There's no shortage of copies in that shape. It's the pristine ones were after, and those two just don't cut it. Look at what the 9.6's sold for on Comic Link. Only about $7.00 more, and already slabbed.

If you look closely at those two copies there's no way they are NM+. I doubt they would even get a 9.4 from CGC. Corners are too banged up with color breaks, and the price they're asking is kinda high.

Yours is the original. Red Sonja: The Movie #'s 1 and 2 are the reprint. Go back and read my post again. I added some stuff.

Oh, and Gyro, your earlier question about the two covers for Red Sonja: The Movie. Like I said, there were two issues, #1 and #2, but they were just reprints from Marvel Super Special #38. According to this website anyway. So it's just the Marvel Feature Vol. 2 issues, and the Marvel Super Special #38 that are the only Red Sonja to have been reprinted. Of course the Conan Red Sonja appearances have been reprinted many times. I'll do some digging, and find them too. Okay, the story, "Red Sonja", from Marvel Feature Vol. 2 #1 was reprinted from Savage Sword of Conan #1 in color, and has been reprinted so many times I couldn't begin to list them all here. Looks like over 100 times in everything from Conan (every title) Savage Tales, Kull, Savage Sword, Solomon Kane, and anywhere else you can think of. They got their mileage out of that one. And now for the communists. In the "Of Swords and She-Devils" section of Marvel Feature Vol. 2 #1 there's this passage: "In 1972 or thereabouts, a splendid little out of print volume titled "The Conan Swordbook" published by Mirage Press, featuring articles on Conan, and related subjects which had originally appeared in Amra, an award winning fanzine from George Schithers (of which and whom more in future issues of Savage Sword). The Swordbook spotlighted an article called, "Conan On Crusade", written by a fan named Allan Howard (presumably no relation to REH), and dealing with the Conan-like heroes of several swashbuckling, sorcery-less tales by the master. One of these was "Shadow of the Vulture". Allan Howard opined as how Red Sonya of Rogatine, "Would have made a fit companion for Conan". He went even further to suggest that, "In fact, she may have been a bit too much for him". So there you have it, no commies, and the true inspiration for Roy Thomas' Red Sonja. One Mr. Allan Howard.

#1 only had one print run for the U.S., and #9 is the only one to have two print runs. Then you have the two 35 cent price variants for #'s 4 and 5. Which are hard to find, and you'll know them because of the price. I just found a cool website that lists all the reprints though, and come to find that issues 2-7 of Marvel Feature Vol. 2 were all reprinted in Conan Saga #'s 78, 79, 82, 83, 85, and 86. You're just going to love the cover for #86.

That's pretty funny. Well, she is called "Red" Sonja. Pinko Commies!

Quote again: The character was loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's short story "The Shadow of the Vulture" (The Magic Carpet, January 1934), in which the character, Red Sonya, was a sword-and-pistol-wielding supporting character of the late Renaissance, which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for Marvel Comics Conan the Barbarian #23 (1973) I do not believe for one minute you are just now finding this out. All of this was hashed out in the letters pages in both Marvel Feature Vol. 2 and Red Sonja. As was the influence of the Irish Myth of Scathach and Aoife. A major influence on the story line as it is Scathach who gives Red Sonja her power. The Red Sonja of comics is purely the result of Roy Thomas borrowing from several sources. The Red Sonya of R.E. Howard's books was basically a pirate in the 16th century, and has very little to do with the comics version other than a similar name, and red hair. She didn't exist in Conan's Hyboria. So all of this had to be invented. Roy Thomas and B.W. Smith are to blame for Red Sonja (with a J), and Esteban Maroto designed the metal bikini for the character Red Sonja, in Savage Tales #3, Comixscene #5, and in the first issue of The Savage Sword of Conan and penciled her first solo story, which was inked by Neal Adams and Ernie Chan. From those humble beginnings we have the Red Sonja we know and love today.

From the Red Sonja Wiki page: Red Sonja, the She-Devil with a Sword, is a fictional character, a high fantasy sword and sorcery heroine created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith, and loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's 1934 short story "The Shadow of the Vulture". She first appeared in the Marvel Comics book Conan the Barbarian #23 (February 1973). There's not much more to tell other than this: The character was loosely based on Red Sonya of Rogatino in Robert E. Howard's short story "The Shadow of the Vulture" (The Magic Carpet, January 1934), in which the character, Red Sonya, was a sword-and-pistol-wielding supporting character of the late Renaissance, which Roy Thomas rewrote as a Conan story for Marvel Comics Conan the Barbarian #23 (1973). Thomas also somewhat based Red Sonja on another Howard character, Dark Agnes de Chastillon, a sword woman in 16th-century France

Quote: The following year, when Lee became Marvel's publisher, Thomas succeeded him as editor-in-chief. Thomas by this time had already launched Conan the Barbarian, based on Robert E. Howard's 1930s pulp-fiction sword-and-sorcery character. Thomas, who stepped down from his editorship in August 1974, wrote hundreds of Conan stories in a host of Marvel comics and black-and-white magazines. During that time, he and Smith also brought to comics Howard's little-known, sword-wielding woman-warrior Red Sonja, initially as a Conan supporting character.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Thomas