Gambold Vintage

>Folks sure like any excuse to insult around here< Mocking the accomplished is how the unaccomplished abide themselves.

>but I don't see a Marvel Age without Jack and Steve either. < The sum is always greater than the parts, in a collaborative art form. Same can be said about movies. Brando and Pacino made The Godfather a classic - but no Coppolla and it's hard to see it hitting the same level. What isn't arguable is that Kirby, Ditko et al were artists, paid by Marvel to produce work. Stan Lee was an Editor who was paid by Marvel to supervise the artists, the writers, and the product. There are no demons here - there are people doing their jobs. Sure, everyone who ever has collected a paycheck in any place of work has complained about it not being enough, AND how their superiors are getting unfair credit for their labor or ideas. That's how business works. I'm sure Stan Lee felt he was underpaid and under-appreciated at times too. For me, the Kirby vs Lee or Ditko vs Lee arguments are about the most boring topic in comics. Who really cares. All three of these men have been praised to the high heavens for doing something not THAT notable or earth-shattering - producing funny books. They all got paid, they all got "immortality," such as it is...and again, I don't see any white hats or black ones here.

>EC was socially conscious at a time when Will Eisner had characters like Ebony White.< Indeed. Racism in comics - it's not often discussed but it was pervasive well into the 1960s. EC was an exception to the rule - I can't remember any black or Latino characters that were stereotyped or lampooned for laughs in the horror and science fiction books. If anyone can think of an example, let us know. And the war books were generally pretty even-handed when dealing with the Japanese in the Pacific-theater WWII stories. MAD may have slipped a bit but everyone in those stories was being satirized so its hard to draw the line. Were the Ookabalaponga in "Ping Pong" a racist portrayal? Or were they a satire of native representations in Hollywood films?

I too am partial to Weird Fantasy over Weird Science, for the only reason one can be for two comics whose content is identical* - the cover art. Feldstein drew almost all the WF covers throughout its run, while Wally Wood drew all the WS covers after its first year. The three horrors are identical in content too, and are notable for their primary cover artists. Crypt had Jack Davis and Haunt had Graham Ingels after the series' first years, and Vault had Johnny Craig for its entire run. Craig also wrote almost all of his own stories in Vault, so that title is a *little* different in tone than Crypt and Haunt. *Some aficionados can find differences in content between Weird Science and Weird Fantasy - I haven't fully read either series to comment on that.

>I always felt that Weird Science was the stronger of the two titles.....Some of the early stories and art were quite weak, the comics comparatively patchy, < The two science fiction books are not at the level of the three horror books, in terms of consistency or stories. But they are beautifully drawn, mostly by Wood and Williamson, and the covers by Feldstein are also wonderful and truly capture that age. For those of us who grew up on science fiction before Star Wars, discovering these comics and their art was a revelation. Here are two of my favorite covers:

> Which of those are considered the three titles in the "big six"?< EC published three horror titles, all of which are considered definitive and of equal value, by content or as collectibles. Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear. Crypt started out as "Crypt of Terror" but the name was soon changed. The other three "big six" are Weird Science and Weird Fantasy (later merged to Weird Science-Fantasy, which was renamed Incredible Science Fiction after the Code), and of course MAD. I call these the "big six" because they are the titles that are most popular with collectors and have some of the biggest values. ALL of the pre-code ECs are collectible of course, but ShockSuspense, CrimeSuspense, Panic, Two-Fisted Tales, and Frontline Combat are "second tier" in terms of overall collector value. One could go further and put Shock and Crime alone at second, and Panic and the war books at third. As others have pointed out, there are a few issues in Shock and Crime that are quite expensive now. Probably the number one EC series is Tales from the Crypt. This is the most known title outside of the collector community because of the TV shows, and is usually the one cited in articles that want to name one pre-code horror comic. As far as the highest-valued individual EC comic, I think it's the first issue of Vault of Horror, although the the first issue of MAD is up there too. My personal favorite series is Haunt of Fear, although my gateway EC was Weird Science.

EC has been praised beyond the skies - and much of it is deserved. The comics do all start to slip a bit in the final year or two - the text narration starts to overwhelm the panels, and the stories become increasingly repetitive. When I read them now I just read the dialogue, and skip all the exposition which just gets in the way of the art. Gaines liked his horror a certain way, and that way could get routine. There were no ghosts or demons, no satanism or slashers...but lots of vampires, zombies, werewolves and the like - and plenty of vengeful spouses. The science fiction issues, while beautifully drawn (perhaps even better than the horror), have not aged well, but then science fiction of any era never does. The crime and war books - they are well-regarded but no-one is reading them and they sell for less than the "big six" (the three horrors, two sci-fis, and MAD). The artwork was all top-notch - the writing not so much, as it was mostly from Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines ripping off classic stories from other writers and sources, and like I said, repeating themselves quite a bit. The Bradbury stories are always a refreshing highlight in any issue. Harvey Kurtzman has to be mentioned for his tremendous war stories and for launching MAD, almost all of which he wrote during its comics period. Some of the artists were better in some areas than others - I never bought Jack Davis as a horror illustrator, although his comic stylings in MAD, Superfan and the like are peerless. Graham Ingels is the king of creepy, although I do like Johnny Craig's twisted presentation, and I think he wrote a few too. Wally Wood is the master of science fiction. Bill Elder made MAD - his riff on King Kong in Mad #6 is probably the pinnacle of the Mad comic series. The rest of the artists are all fine, but these five are the leaders and produced the most collectible covers. The new issues? We will see. This has been tried before, bringing back something long gone yet still beloved. It's a tough challenge to make it work.

>I also like how easy the search filters are.< I had the opposite reaction - I find their filter system cumbersome and quite limited, and hope they can improve it. To wit: --You can only search by one option per search category. For example, you can't search for Silver and Bronze age - only one at a time. --Some of the search category options are arbitrary. The "grades" filter especially. This should be a dual selection, lowest to highest grade desired. Not three catch-alls. --The "category" filter is pretty useless. --The "artist" filter is ambitious but there is no way to list all of the artists one might be interested in. There's no Lou Fine. Or Basil Wolverton. Or Graham Ingels. Etc. --More often than not, after you've entered filters *and* run a sort, you get just one screen of options. This is a programming glitch - refreshing or re-doing sometimes helps, but not often. indeed, the Sort feature is separate from Filter and tends to cause problems.

They are good people, and they are a little over their skis right now, given the success of the business plan. My guess is they have just a few people handling a huge amount of work and customer service requests. I've purchased numerous times from Shortboxed, and most of the transactions have gone well. I say most, because there have been a couple of issues which did get resolved, although Shortboxed's customer support methodology is based on emails to catch-all inboxes, which is inefficient and doesn't provide tracking or status of a service ticket. Because of this lack of a formal "ticket system," the biggest leap of faith you will take when using Shortboxed is trusting anonymous sellers who have no identifying seller names, no ratings and cannot be directly contacted. There are other downsides to total seller anonymity. If you really like a seller and want to do business with them again, you are out of luck, because you have no idea who they are. If you want to avoid a seller because they take forever to ship or pack items too loosely, the same applies. It's not a consignment model: the seller holds, promotes and ships the items. There are some seller badges now which are supposed to boost confidence but they easily earned. Shortboxed has proven to be a timely and effective middleman when there are problems, but again...it's all done through generic emails and if you've got thousands of $$ sitting out there and the seller hasn't shipped or you received a damaged product, that's a little nervous.

>because they care more about bonus checks, paid vacations, stock options, pleasing executives and Board members (not this Board) than they care about a graded comic book.< I'm curious how you know this. I mean, do you know anyone who works there? Or who is on the Board or the leadership team? The CGC site has zero information about any of that - no names, no titles, nothing. They do have the graders, and one of them apparently is the President of the company. https://www.cgccomics.com/grading/cgc-graders/ I'm just spitballing here, but I doubt that crowd of graders is getting "stock options." I don't think CGC is a public company.

>NOW slabbed comics are all about greed. < For some, sure. But blanket condemnations tend to be faulty, and I'd argue that for others, slabbed comics are not about greed. Maybe they want to preserve their comics better than bags and boards. Maybe they see them as investments, like rare coins, and thus need to be graded, certified, and registered. I know there is a whole aspect to slabbing that involves modern comics and chasing 9.8s or better. That's not something I do or even understand very well. I personally collect GA and BA horror. Most of my GA horror is slabbed, and not by me. It's just the way most desirable or mid to high grade issues are available. I have slabbed some of my raw copies, particularly the EC lines, because I want to preserve them better and yes, enhance their eventual sales value. But I'm hardly rubbing my hands together and dreaming of bags of gold here. I'm not going to quit my day job or buy a boat because my 1950s horror comics are going to bring in the big bucks. Slabbing will help them sell, when I finally (sob) have to sell them.

Is it a weird question to ask why are you posting on a CGC forum if you hate slabbing comics?

Yeah, I'm not trying to minimize this controversy, but it has got me thinking. I personally buy pre-code horror, only in slabs. Almost all of these are mid-grade so I'm not that concerned that I have a scammed slab. But what does it matter, really? I have a Haunt of Fear #14 that's graded a 6.5...if the seller had slipped a 5.5 or even a 5.0 in there could I tell the difference? Not really, and I doubt anyone who bought it from me could either. It says 6.5. Who is going to argue it? This lead to my own sullen realization that I'm not really buying a comic...I'm buying a grade certificate. The comic itself could be in just about any condition, short of an obvious mess or a pristine treasure. It made me think that maybe the good old days had it right: five conditions, G, VG, F, VF and NM. It is pretty easy to tell the difference between those...then we got crazy in the hobby and now we have 25 or whatever grades and microscopic levels in the NM category.

I mean, think about it. Some scam artist gets a 9.8 IH181. They then crack the case and put a 9.4 in there, and sell it as a 9.8. That means until the case is cracked again and the comic regraded, it's a 9.8 as far as anyone knows. So does it matter? What do we buy, when we buy a slabbed comic? We buy the grade, and the belief that the comic in the slab is accurately graded. What do we sell, when we sell a slabbed comic? The same thing. And grading is not exactly a hard science. I'm sure many of us have been happily surprised or bitterly disappointed at grades we've received from our CGC submissions. I know I have. Yet we still use the service and we still buy and sell slabs based on grades. So if I get a 9.8 comic, I'm not going to worry if the comic inside REALLY IS a 9.8, whatever that means. I bought the grade. And when the time comes, I'll sell the grade. If someone else wants to crack open a 9.8 and have it re-graded or verified that it really is a 9.8...go for it. The comparison would be purchasing an art forgery. You bought a Picasso only to find out years later that it's a clever fake...if you or anyone else bothered finding out. But the comparison only goes so far. A Picasso IS a Picasso. A 9.8 comic could well be a 9.6 in someone else's eyes.

There is a lot of screaming and breast-beating going on about this all over YouTube and various forums. Obviously this is an issue for super-high grade comics that are traded like commodities on the market. The impact on collectors and dealers who invest in such cannot be denied. It should be noted, however, that the vast majority of collectors who own slabbed comics will be unaffected...because they own slabs that are not super high grades of "commodity comics" like IH181. So before you go running to your CGC box and start scanning for tampering, ask yourself if anyone would bother swapping out your sub 9.4 grade GA or SA or BA issues. The short answer is no, they wouldn't. The payback simply isn't there. This is limited to the ability to scam, for example, a 9.8 grade off a 9.2 comic that already has a very high market value. To engage in this practice you've got to have a lot of $$ upfront, the ability to tamper with CGC holders successfully, and the willingness to risk getting nailed by CGC and likely the Feds for wire fraud (for which the penalties are very unpleasant). I won't call it a mountain out of molehill, because I know some collectors and dealers are going to be hurt by this. I sincerely hope they will be able to get satisfaction from CGC. I will also point out that they comprise a very small percentage of CGC-slabbed comic owners. The rest of us should be sympathetic, but not worry about it. Happy Collecting, Gambold

As far as market value goes, you never know what will happen, even with long-term trends. I've been collecting for almost 30 years, since the mid 1990s. So I entered at a very weird time for comics, right during a market collapse, but I was always focused on pre-code and bronze horror. Both of these have been consistent in value growth over the decades - nothing too exciting like the Silver Age Marvel boom prompted by the MCU movies, but steady and dependable. Then the values for PCH flattened out awhile back and I thought well, there it is. The inevitable plateau has arrived, as the original readers of MAD and Tales from the Crypt have all died off. But then sales shot up again during Covid and now everything is expensive and hard to find! The last two Chicago cons I've been to - C2E2 and FanExpo - it's like EC horror doesn't exist anymore. Dealers were telling me they can't keep it on the shelves - and they sure didn't have any at the shows.

Huh. I've seen the ads for MHC in Overstreet, and I know the story about the Church collection (although we will ever know the REAL story?) But I wasn't aware the store was a DESTINATION. Like something you go out of your way just to see, like the Corn Palace in South Dakota, or the enormo-Starbucks in downtown Chicago. I took a look online at some of the store photos, inside and the exterior. It's a big warehouse..and hardly inviting from the street, here's the Google photo. Even the old TV Batman villains lived in better digs:

> >fans who were willing to pay a premium for the privilege of accessing the largest comic book inventory in the world.< This comment struck me as bizarre. First, it's not a "privilege" for your customers to be able to view your stock. It's an essential event that you dearly hope happens every day you are open for business. Next, while he may indeed have the largest personal inventory of comic books for sale, the very nature of the Internet means we all can access all online comic book inventories at any time. Sure, we need to search for a few more minutes, but any comic book for sale online is accessible to everyone. Finally, referring to customers as "fans" suggests he sees his business as entertainment, like Bruce Springsteen, and not as a commercial enterprise, like...a comic shop.

>Technically and likely legally, as long as the issues are legitimate and not counterfeit, the person wouldn't even need to worry.<. The person wouldn't need to worry, but it would be difficult to "eliminate suspicions of oversupply" when they are submitting one every 2-3 months. Collectors will want to know where they were from, is there a larger collection behind them, can they be pedigreed - etc. You can't lay low and slab/sell one every season without bringing a major amount of attention to yourself. Attention that will eventually reveal your sources and your issue count and yes...tank the value of further sales.

Oddly enough, for all the claims of their huge stock, I did three searches on the three EC pre-code horror comic lines and they had nothing but reprints. I then tried the four Harvey pre-code horror titles. Also nothing. I tried a couple of other horror titles like Mister Mystery and This Magazine is Haunted and...zilch. I know the old horrors are always in demand but I figured there would be SOMETHING for sale.

Two thoughts: Mile High made their bones and big money a long time ago. The owners could have sold it all out and retired - I'm pretty sure they are still in this because of a genuine love for the hobby, and like they said, they wanted to get out of the endless inventory chase. Comic book stores, like any other business, work in a free market. Some people buy their broccoli at Whole Foods - others shop at ALDI. Both chains are thriving, and neither is "ripping people off." You want to find the lowest price? Comparison shop - there are a lot of good dealers out there ready to work with you. I don't see what the problem is. Too expensive? Don't shop there.

Pretty brazen! And in Las Vegas, theft of over $1200 is a felony - you do time for that, it's not a fine and supervision, even for a first offense. Hope they catch this creep fast.

Nah, you wouldn't be able to do that for long before people started asking - who is selling a new 9.8 IH181 every few months, with a brand new CGC ID number? My guess is after the third one the Internet would take an interest, your background and contacts would be scoured, and you would become a popular topic of conversation and investigation. You could create a new seller profile each time but CGC is gonna know who you are, because you are paying to get them graded. Unslabbed 9.8s of the same, super high profile key rolling into their office every 2-3 months, from the same billing address? The first thing they will consider is that you are making them somehow. So they'll get to work on verifying these aren't counterfeits, and after that, they will start asking questions. You can stonewall of course, but then another three months goes by and you send another one in...

Ok, so sketch out a plan for this attic-find fantasy that will never happen: --You find one 9.8 copy of IH181. Whee! You sell it at auction for 70K and spend a happy summer in the Caribbean. --You find two 9.8 copies. Even better! You sell one and keep the other one quietly in your collection, to spring upon the world later. --You find three 9.8 copies. Sell one, keep two - double your investment, double your future fun! --You find four or more 9.8 copies - Sell one, keep two, and quietly burn the rest in the dead of night, fully aware of the secret and awful act and the karma you will pay later.

>And, frankly, it is pretty much unreadable< Hah, that's never been a criterion for value. I collect pre-code horror, and outside of EC and some Harvey, almost all the writing and interior art is pretty bad. It's all about the covers!