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Amazing! I think the answer is the Alamar is rarer... This bookstore had as far as I understand.... less bookstores, less places of business.... and it makes sense to conclude the print runs were smaller. This book is amazing sir!

I love love the cardboard freebies on the UK books....

Most things you find for me are the bomb Tony! Sweeeet.... thanks dude!

no problem I am trying to get HOS88 from every country it is proving a little difficult but in time it will become a nice international horror set I'm genuinely interested in how one goes about buying all these international versions of a comic. How do you do it? Obviously not E-Bay alone, correct? I have a couple of comics I would like to track down international copies of, but outside of E-Bay, I have no clue how to find sellers who might have these comics. i began summer 2012 by finding foreign ebay type sites. like other rare domestic books, they were not all listed so i started emailing people on those sites and luckily meeting very helpful and informative sellers that would help me. There are still many foreign keys like a Norwegian Superman #199 that I want but it is just so rare that it just doesnt come up for sale. Then I started joining foreign boards just like this and meting people that also would source so I would post gallery pics of what i was seeking and slowly but surely i started getting emails and invoices for all my little treasures. show me pics of what you are seeking if it exists then i can tell you the difficulty of finding it How do you even know what foreign copies exist? Do you just assume that every comic printed in the USA was eventually printed in some other country/countries or is there something similar to Overstreet that lists all of the foreign comics? That is the other rub.... no comprehensive database exists for just foreign versions of American books. Grand Comics Data base is probably the largest english source you can use to hunt for foreign versions of specific books. But, the books are not cross-refrenced for the most part, and its full of holes. For many countries books you must find the associated database for that countries comic output. If it exists hopefully.... And if it does exist at least you know what you are lookign for..... Remember in order to search for a specific foreign book you have to know what language that books title is in and what numbering. So without knowing what the darn thing is named you cannot even do a google search. Generic searches like "German spiderman" will only get you so far..... you have to know the name... and that specific titles foreign numbering...... German spidey is "Die Spinne" so lets say your looking for Spiderman #1 German foreign? That would be Die Spinne #3.... http://www.ebay.de/itm/DIE-SPINNE-3-Williams-Verlag-1974-1979-Zustand-2-2-3-very-good-/200989304588?pt=Comics&hash=item2ecbe5670c In foreign "hunting" knowing really is half the battle like Joe said...... One of the features we are looking into is creating a database where we cross reference all major American books with their foreign variants/reprints etc. Access to this data will come with signing up to FCC magazine. We are hoping to add more features to membership as we have time. Lots of exciting stuff happening if your into foreign books.

Ahhhh, thanks for spreading awareness Tony! The niche of foreigns is very different in that basically in order to acquire books one must "hunt" outside of the traditional channels we as Americans are used to. Many many dealers do not have foreign stock much less even know how to acquire it.... you must build contacts, join foreign collecting forums, and figure out ways to source books on foreign auction sites. All of us foreign hunters have groupings of contacts that we share and help each other because we are a small bunch of collectors. Issue 2 of FCC is dropping in a couple days and in issue 2 is a section I call "Sourcers Corner" where I write about some good foreign EBay advice and hints that I have learned over time. Sourcing foreigns is all about persistence, patience, social skills, and a good heaping of luck! And you can also use a little help from your friends..... We actually have a couple of group PM threads here with some of the most hard core guys that combined has hit somewhere north of 5 thousand replies and up..... a kinda private foreign thread/forum. If you are looking for somthing in particular you can always hit me up or mostly any of the guys that post regualry in the foreign thread in general. PM me or solarcadet for help no problem sir! (thumbs u

Gotta admit, that was cool! (thumbs u

My mind was blown on this dolphin making love to a headless fish.... it really seems to be in ecstasy.... im not sure why I cant embed? link here.... http://youtu.be/MyYtrZFJmAs

holy !! entered I thought you might like that. That fridge would look good in any guy's man cave too. Agreed...... Awesome fridge!

Nice haul Mijael! (thumbs u I must say that is the nicest Prensa 1st Black Panther I have seen. You dont seem to see this book as much for whatever reason. maybe with the movie news more will pop out of the woodwork.

Interesting issues you have in your Arabic Supes ... I do notice how the Arabic publishers cover all female superheroes with pin-ups of male characters. I guess it's in accord of their muslin views. Still, it is cool to see different looks of comics! yea art was altered for sure for the Arabics.... And that is even considering the fact that these were printed in Lebanon. A known liberal bastion of the Arab world... lots of universities and places of higher learning. For me though nothing beats the reading style of the Arabic and Hebrew books! Spines on the right are just freakin cool man......

Considering how old and tough the early Mexican issues can be these are in pretty darn nice condition! Great books man.... Thanks for sharing!

It's either my collection or Peter's over at Sanctum Sanctorum Comix that's the largest Dr. Strange collection in the world. He has a few things I don't, and I have a few things he's missing. I do have more foreign editions, original art, and trading cards than him, but together we pretty much have everything. Awesome! Amazing feat...... I bet you are getting stoked about the possibility of a Strange movie or tv show.....

Thats pretty cool... (thumbs u im curious.... How many Strange books total do you have in your collection? Largest in the world maybe?

Finally shot all my Arabic Supes... pretty neat books....

I'm wet... me likey!!!!!

I like this pic!!! i got these little fools in line with liking some comic books (thumbs u teach when they are young! Good work!!!!

Wow that is awesome!!!!!! I freakin love the Mexican key MACCs! They almost seem harder to find then prensa's sometimes!

What do you mean by "pre-pressed"? They use a different cover paper stock, but not much thicker than the US one. In the U.S., U.K. and Canada panini refers to pressed and toasted sandwiches. It was a weak joke. Im American and that even went over my head!

Congrats Tim! I know you have been working on this for a long while! Very cool. I always thought it was interesting that these Alan Cass books were coming out at the same time Marvel was selling pence copies in the U.K., and also that Cass seemed to reprint everything except DC; from Atlas/Marvel to Archie Adventure/Mighty Comics to Charlton to ACG. Throw in the L. Miller & Sons books, Mystic and Spellbound from the same era and the history of Marvel in the U.K. gets confusing. About when would these have been on the stands, 1965? I'm not really sure, for whatever reason Alan Class didn't have a publication date printed anywhere that I could find. If I had to guess I'd put them in the range anywhere from 1962-1965 though. I do know that I worked on this run for about three years, in that time I saw at least two Pence copies of every FF from 1-6 for sale but not other copies of these. I have no idea what the print runs were like but they don't seem to be very plentiful. I'm not surprised, I think they stay locked up in collections. I used to see the non-hero Cass and Miller squarebound books all the time in the 90s ( Koch Comics used to throw them in as freebies), but never the superhero covers. I didn't even know they existed for the longest time. I love the juxtaposition of early Marvel covers with horror comic sounding titles. For me the coolest La Prensa Marvels are the Thor books under the Cuentos de Brujas title. My understanding was that the Alan Class stuff was unauthorized material? Marvel might have even sent a cease and desist letter? Tim, were you the one telling me this? You have to remember that in an age of no Internet…. intellectual property theft was easy…. For the life of me I cant remember where I heard that, I could be full of mess but I think the rarity of these books even over the UK pence copies is pretty much set in stone. And, I agree they have a kind of novelty that makes them sooo much more unique then the pence/or marvel UK issues.

Russians are often very good at lettering design. After all, the Cyrillic alphabet was invented by St. Cyril and St. Methodius. Isn’t 42 the publisher of those russian "super-hero" like books? As far as I know no... They are currently publishing Hellboy, Kirkman's Invincible, and Miller's Hard boiled. I think they are collecting into trades Walking Dead for the Russian Market as well....

Quick question about the foreign language variants but do the variants contain mostly the same content as the original books or are they just cover variants with different interiors? @ Eerie... Yea dude, your the expert on this set.... come March ya better have your ducks in a row cuz we publish your vampi quick fact right or wrong! No Pressure..... @ 50AE_DE... The short answer is sometimes... sometimes not... and sometimes its complicated.... For the more comprehensive answer I am going to quote from the article I wrote about foreigns.....

I'm not a fan of SS, but Gotta expect quality from one of the founders of the "foreign key issue set type"! Congrats Hector! Another long term goal finished......

Congrats Tim! I know you have been working on this for a long while!

Wow Matt, that is beautiful – love how they carefully adapted the Hellboy logo design (original is by Kevin Nowlan). When did they publish it? I know... I was impressed the way the handled the Hellboy logo as well... I did a little research and apparently this is relatively new. Publisher 42 published this this year in 2013. So my guess is more will show up on the American Market. Sure would look cool in a yellow slab with a Mignola sig on it for any yellow label collectors.... but alas that isnt my style man!

My newest book! The Russian Hellboy Seeds of destruction #1! Im a little bummed out cuz this 9.8 dropped almost a full grade in the mail from Russia! It would be lucky now to get a 9.0 because of a few color breaking creases and a huge color breaking crease on the back cover…. All black really hurts ya when you have to travel thousands of miles..... In the sellers defense he did put it between 2 pieces of card board but this would have needed bubble wrap and more stiffening protection if it was gonna survive the trip unscathed in its virgin 9.8 condition… oh well… thats the nature of the foreign game!