Whizzer

Back when I owned a share of an LCS we had a customer who was obsessed with ratio variants virtually to the point of addiction. He spent hundreds of £ every week on these books, so much in fact that we tried to get him to change his focus to vintage books and were brutally honest with him that realistically the modern variants he was buying would likely not hold their value long term compared to the silver and bronze books he could be buying instead. He wasn't interested and just kept right on buying the ratio variants. Several years on, I shudder to think how badly that investment has done for him. Some people you just can't help I guess.

Although it's in London, 30th Century Comics has a great selection of British esoteric comics. I'm sure they'd have no problem doing mail order to the U.S.

Ha! My boardname is a joint homage to Marvel's speedster and that venerable British comic.

Wow. Thanks for bumping this as I hadn't seen the original posts. The pics in the OP sent a shiver down my spine. I can remember seeing a Comic Showcase ad in a Marvel UK book in the early 80's and not quite believing that such a thing as a shop selling only comics could possibly exist. I begged my mum to take me into London so I could go there. Eventually she relented and come the school holidays she took myself and my best friend into town. I had managed to scrape together the princely sum of £20 (a fortune to me then). Mum dropped us at the door, said she was going for a coffee over the road and would be back in half an hour or so. I can still remember the sensory overload as I walked in; the smell of old paper, the thousands of brightly coloured covers staring out at me - I was literally in heaven. But what to buy? my fortune now seemed woefully inadequate as I wanted, no needed everything in the shop. Unfortunately, I was seduced by the racks of recent imports as I had only ever obtained new comics from poorly stocked newsagent spinner racks or once or twice by mail order from companies such as Dangerous Visions, (great fun trying to get my dad to write a cheque made out in that name as I handed by pocket money over to him!). From memory I bought a huge stack of newly released Marvels. I did buy a Fantasy Masterpieces because it looked so ancient! Of course the half hour was over all too soon and we were off. I do remember there being an old man with a market traders cart around the corner from the shop which was half covered by old comics and half covered by soft porn mags (my pubescent mind literally exploded!) from whom I bought a Hulk Treasury edition for a few pence. A wonderful memory and I still have the Comic Showcase carrier bag with the Joker on it somewhere. Happy days...

I saw a suggestion online a while back that said the name James Bond is a codename in the same way that 007 is a code number and is an alias for whichever agent has that number. This opens the role up to any male actor and I therfore suggest perhaps the coolest British actor of his generation; Idris Elba.

Ok thanks. I'll pick a couple up and take it from there.

Ha, I'm not particularly interested how 'much weight it carries'. If you look at my posting history, I very rarely post here and do not have a history of hyperbole or controversy. I'm merely contributing to the conversation. You can believe what I have said or take it with a pinch of salt, that is a matter for you. I don't feel comfortable naming names or giving away commercially sensitive information on a public forum. I am merely trying to add weight to the argument originally made by RMA that to discuss print runs on here is a waste of time because so many things go on within the industry and tend to stay in the industry that guessing print runs becomes futile.

I've seen it happen with my own eyes on two occassions, both during the Marvel now era. Oh, and store variants also qualify for ratio variants which can make them a much more profitable venture.

This is 100% correct. Furthermore, when it comes to Marvel store variants they have been known to double the print run for free. Sometimes a store will advertise the print run at say 3,000 in good faith and then Marvel will let them know just before release that they will actually receive 6,000 for the same price. I'm guessing stores don't always make this known to their customers. As RMA says, only the publisher and the printer know the true figures. Also, neither of these parties has any interest in the secondary market and driving up post publication prices so none of this is likely to change any time soon.

Hi guys, looking for your input if you don't mind. I'm a big Hughes fan and have been considering picking up some of his sketch books. However, i've found in the past that artist's self-published sketch books can vary greatly in content and quality. Anybody here have any of the Hughes sb's? Are they good value or should I pass? Thanks in advance.

This x 1,000,000

The Batman 44 'Cat' cover is heating up, here in the UK at least. Last copy on ebay UK just sold for £9.99

For pleasure of ownership and capital growth i'd go for 2 or 3 high end pieces of O/A. And I say that as someone who doesn't currently own any. Just go with an artist you love on a popular character.

This is interesting. In my 45 years of collecting comics in the UK, I never saw an Archie for sale in a newsagents or anywhere else during the 1970's, 80's & 90's, let alone with a pre-printed pence price. Maybe it was a regional thing?

This is my favourite thread. Kudos on such a varied and diverse collection and thanks for sharing it here.

Personally, I organise books alpha-numerically by publisher. It has ocurred to me before that it may be better to just go alpha-numerically with no distinction between publisher. Is there a consensus here on that subject?

This is what I did late last year. The only difference being that my Phase 2 was - All 'vintage' books (1940's to 1999) together and then 'modern' books (2000 up). I re-bagged, boarded,boxed and catalogued as I went. It's daunting, time consuming, tiring and frustrating as hell but very satisfying when done. I just need to stay on top of it now

You are forgetting the most important one of the lot... 130 First Dazzler!!!!!!

I actually said in my post that we also sometimes don't receive items we should.

Not unlikely for Diamond to make that mistake at all. We have received numerous variants we didn't qualify for/order and oftentimes didn't receive those that we did. Diamond make mistakes with, I would say 9/10 deliveries of some kind. This also shows that there are plenty of these variants printed and give no accurate information regarding print runs. Diamond will also, from time to time offer ratio variants at a large discount after the event.

Probably doesn't count as an authorized use of the character but I'd love to see a photo. Sadly, my copy is in deep storage. From memory, the cover and interior art were done by Paul Green who has done work for Zenescope and also did Overrun. I now recall that the publisher was AP comics, (which I think shared some personnel with Ardden, and possibly morphed into that company, although i'm not certain).

There has already been a Harry Potter comic book. The company that eventually became Ardden Entertainment put together an original HP 1st issue to present to JKR and her lawyers. JKR was, at the time very anti HP being a comic book and the project went no further. I have it from a very reliable source that the print run was in the region of 50 copies. I own a copy and at least a couple of the other surviving copies have been graded by a rival of CGC.

Not a creator as such, but I met Adam West (a real childhood hero) at a con a few years ago and he couldn't have been nicer. He had long lines but took time to chat with everybody. A real class act IMHO.

Most artists will open a commission list prior to the show via their websites or fb pages which will normally fill up pretty quickly for the bigger artists. They will also be selling OA from portfolios as well as sketch books and prints.