xcomic

Even if he was on the boards this moment I would still be asking you to mediate -- I do not want to communicate further directly with this person for the reasons I already outlined surrounding their behavior towards me, and that has not changed as a result of the offer I made (I can't recall if my "18 word summary attempt" conveyed to you how I found out at a later date that RMA had been "simulcasting" a conversation they were having with me in my comments forum, over here on these boards behind my back, and how it made me feel to find those conversations here at a later date when someone shared the URL with me. This is how I matched up their board handle here to the two handles from my blog's comment forum, to know that the RMA handle was one and the same person as the two handles used to comment on my blog. Additionally, for prior context, I had recognized the RMA handle from memory as one which had in very similar fashion simulcasted a private eBay-messages discussion between them and customer, without the customer's prior knowledge and consent, and that those simulcasted messages had revealed personal private information about the eBay customer. So given this background, I am not going to be communicating directly with this person any further, whether they are here or not, and was already counting on a neutral mediator: you. Therefore, won't you please email my offer to them as a copy/paste by email, and report back? Thanks in advance for your help, - Ben

That's good thinking, that maybe when suspended they also temporarily block access by IP Address too, but, I'd be pretty surprised if they went that far (everybody's got a smartphone these days that they could fall back on so it would seem futile to block one specific address). Since you appear to have doubt over whether he has read the offer, and since you are in communication with him by email, can I count on you as official mediator, to copy/paste it to him? So that you don't have to go digging I'll summarize/repeat: (1) I offer a 500 word spotlight quote as a named source in the main body of the article he most recently commented on (2) I demand identity verification so that I know the named source is indeed the real person behind the quote For #2, I had proposed that CGC can resolve ID-verification fairly easily since they have all of our credit cards on file. I know they have mine. If it makes him feel more comfortable that it isn't one-sided I will gladly grant my authorization to CGC to confirm my identity in this manner. - Ben

Try this test for yourself and see: (1) Copy the URL in your browser, (2) Paste it into an alternate browser where you are not logged in. Can you still read the thread? Performing this "test" you will find that yes, anybody in the world can see these words. Additionally, a Bot can ingest these words as well. From a Linux box using the program "curl" I was able to query the entire thread and find my words: see attached. This entire board is all public record, but posted by private anonymous handles. Perhaps you did not understand this dynamic and thought my behavior here to be overreaction? - Ben

Every word we are typing is public and visible to the entire world, logged in, or logged out, so I hope you will link him to the offer and communicate his reaction back -- thank you for mediating. He should still be able to read it, because anybody on the planet with a web browser can access every word written here, and as can any Bot ingest it and database it. This is why publicly accusing someone of being a liar and a fraud, from behind an anonymous handle, on a public board, is serious enough a matter to draw me here in the first place to try and defend myself: this thread is now a part of the public online record and my name is now permanently associated with the accusations. I hope you can try to empathize, think about how you yourself might approach a situation like this if you were a young writer in my shoes, who now has to intrude into your message boards as a visitor and navigate a resolution. My goal arriving here was to defend myself; the offer I gave was in the spirit of turning a negative situation into a positive: by showcasing a knowledgeable person as a named source and inviting their knowledge to be a resource open to writers like me. - Ben

This is news to me; thanks for sharing it. I trust since you are in communication with RMA privately, that you will keep me posted as to whether they would like to take me up on my offer in the future. - Ben

Thank you to everyone for your extreme patience with this thread's off-topic diversion. I follow up only to say that both publicly and privately I have received opinions from members here that that RMA wishes to ReMainAnonymous instead of contributing their knowledge to the hobby in a way where writers like me can quote them in articles as a named source. Should the situation change and they can find the future bravery to come out of the shadows and into the light where I operate, I nominate @comix4fun to act in the role of a neutral party to mediate and I'd welcome the opportunity to quote them as a future named source in future articles I may write. As a further show of good faith I have decided to Approve their comment you all saw earlier in this thread. Special apology to @Philflound for the disruption to this thread; I read the newsstand intro you wrote up (as posted by Marwood & I) and think you did a fantastic job on it. Happy collecting to all! - Ben

Thank you, I appreciate this invitation! :-) There are some wonderful people here and under different circumstances I could definitely see myself becoming a regular visitor/contributor here (the phenomenal pence threads from @Marwood & I are particularly inspiring to me). But for now I'm here just on a "short-term mission" to defend myself. All of the members of my price guide team anticipated there would be reactions both positive and negative as soon as people discovered our project, so in that sense this brouhaha wasn't entirely unexpected. In the other thread, I publicly posted an offer to feature the person behind the RMA handle with a 500 word spotlight quote -- as a named source -- in the main body of one of my most highly-trafficked newsstand articles, and I said the offer was good for one week; I'm hanging out until then to see what transpires, but after that concludes in one direction or the other, I was planning to end my visit here. Sincerely, - Ben p.s. If CGC was ever to make changes around here to take identity verification more seriously on these boards (all customers have credit cards on record so in theory CGC has the means to enforce a one-handle-per-customer policy), then I hope you will reach out to me with a private message and let me know of such changes. Because if I was comfortable that I would be conversing with unique people, the environment here for longer-term participation on the boards would be acceptable to me; today, it is not, because the only requirement for a completely-anonymous handle is a working email address.

Thank you for the cordial reply. I think your quote above reflects how we may have two very different approaches to how we each individually choose to collect comics -- I by contrast care quite a bit about relative rarity between types as one of the cornerstones of my approach to comics today. I think for modern age comics especially, the more-rare newsstand type gives me two ways to win instead of one, when collecting a given issue (one way to win: I make a good choice about which issue to collect; second way to win: the rolling snowball of growing newsstand awareness in the hobby causes the newsstand type to garner an ever-growing premium over direct editions, with the passage of time). For collectors like me who do care about relative rarity, it is only natural to want to hear what people throughout the hobby think, understanding all the while that pinpoint accuracy is impossible and that estimates are just a guide. From my perspective, if an anonymous message board handle tells me I should not be receptive to estimates by someone like Chuck Rozanski whose website proclaims to be America's Largest Comics Dealer with over 10 million comics, and who has described the herculean effort their team undertook to "break out" newsstand inventory (just think of the marvelous internal data he would have gathered in the process!), can you see how from my perspective it feels like someone telling me to "shut out" his voice from the newsstand rarity conversation is unreasonable? My ears are always open to sources I deem trustworthy, and my openness is reflected in the outstanding invitation that I posted publicly for the person known here as "RMA" to step forward as a named source to be quoted in articles, with my offer to give RMA a full 500 word spotlight quote in the main body of one of my most highly trafficked newsstand articles (I felt that offer was very generous; it is five times the length of the comment that RMA cited in the other thread). I'm sure other writers like me would be interested in having this person in their rolodex of experts to quote in articles; they could be a huge benefit to the hobby in such a capacity. I haven't seen a response yet but it is still within the one week that I had indicated the offer was good for (can I count on you or @comix4fun to act as a mediator in the event my offer is accepted or countered?). Best, - Ben p.s. For me, the idea of "I'm smart enough to realize this and won't even try" is defeatist; I instead choose to study relative rarity, to collect estimates from sources I deem knowledgeable and reputable, to study census data even while knowing it isn't going to be perfect, and also to apply logic and assumptions that I deem reasonable (such as, for example, population disparity as a guidepost to understanding relative rarity between the types Marvel/DC published for US vs. Canadian newsstands in the 1980's). This is a slideshow I put together on the topic of newsstand rarity discussions and estimates: https://rarecomics.wordpress.com/newsstand-rarity-discussion-estimates/

It is awesome that they deemed the differing cover price attribute as worthy of being "broken out" on census, isn't it?! :-) I am so grateful they reached this ultimate decision, and applaud them for doing so! Way to go CGC! Another highly interesting Marvel example is Venom/Deadpool: What If #1 from all the way out in 2011 with $3.99 cover price. I'm even aware of a broken-out Marvel example all the way out in 2013, the year they pulled the plug on the newsstand channel. I applaud this as one great step forward by CGC in recognizing an important "class" of newsstand comics. But it is a small "class" in relation to the whole universe; so I hope over time they will widen their field of view even further, such that the entirety of issues where multiple types were published are broken out with unique census counts for each type. Best, - Ben p.s. Maybe we can ask them to consider "breaking out" newsstand comics that have a partially different cover price as another baby step in the right direction. As a random example, look at the cover of New Avengers #26 and notice the direct editions are $2.99 US / $3.75 CAN... but the newsstand copies are priced $2.99 US / $4.25 CAN, marking a partial difference in cover price between the types.

What I find very interesting about this pair is that with identical interior (which I only wish I could confirm "first hand" as an owner of the pair but alas I've only seen pictures), is how the indicia month is 9/62 across both. - Ben

Thank you for sharing this info! I had been hoping the opposite was true and CGC had decided to re-organize the book under 2/91. - Ben

Thank you for your thoughtful response. I want to further clarify that my mention of the expert and their statement about avoiding a particular "urban myth" (one specifically surrounding the year 1976 and Direct Market comics) was not something I mentioned to you to corroborate my article as a whole, but rather to give context for the specific matter that the person you know as "RMA" appears to be focused on and desired to comment on. In other words, I believe this very specific "urban myth related portion" of the larger newsstand discussion is the topic where RMA wanted their voice to be heard. I wanted you to know the further context about what I had learned from the expert -- i.e. that there is an "urban myth" out there surrounding this precise subject. I was hoping this would help you in understanding my perspective, being just one more thing I was aware of and had in my mind among all the various other things relating to my communications with this person that I had already conveyed to you. Best, - Ben

Yes: you found the initial census entry for the precise book I was referring to. Each of the copies listed on that census page carry the same New Mutants bar code box as the North American newsstand copies, but instead with "05" at the top right of the code (denoting the month of May), and May also appears on the front cover of the book below the #98. CGC's initial decision on how to catalog the book was to create a 5/91-issue-date entry in the census. However, the indicia (and interior pages as well) are 100% identical to the rest of the print run; the rest of the print run has an indicia date of 2/91. Because of this, it was suggested to CGC that they mention this critical indicia information in the Key Comments note of labels, and they accepted that suggestion, which you will see reflected in that census entry link where it reads as follows (note the very end): 1st appearance of Deadpool (Wade Wilson), Gideon & Copycat (Vanessa Carlysle) as, Domino. Indicia reads 2/91 So to now explain further what I had mentioned to Marwood&I, is how sometime in between the addition of that last part of the note about the 2/91 indicia, and today, CGC has since created a second "Australian Edition" census entry (by the way we could talk further about naming convention as a separate topic if you wish, but for now just know that when CGC says "Australian Edition" for this issue, they are referring to the book we are discussing), in the main 2/91 issue date for New Mutants #98. One copy now appears at the bottom beneath the "regular" copies (separate topic again but CGC should really be "breaking out" newsstand copies from direct edition broadly): https://www.cgccomics.com/census/grades_standard.asp?title=New+Mutants&issue=98&publisher=Marvel+Comics&year=1991&issuedate=2%2F91 Interesting, right? :-) Either there is another variation I've not yet seen out there with a 2/91 cover month, or, more likely in my opinion, someone convinced CGC the proper issue date for categorization on their census is the indicia date. I haven't asked them to be certain, but only because I was already going to submit my newly acquired copy anyway (so I was going to learn the answer one way or the other). Best, - Ben

Hi comix4fun, in a separate thread I made a detailed response to all the points raised by another, different, poster here (Lazyboy); it was the "books you can't find in the wild thread" and hopefully this link works for you to find my responses: https://www.cgccomics.com/boards/topic/392663-books-you-just-cant-find-in-the-wild/?page=87 The statement I found in this thread made by the person you know here as RMA, where he took issue with a newsstand article of mine, appears to me to be specifically in regard to disagreement with statements made by sources I quoted. For example, the following statement was mentioned as being wrong: "Ed Shukin, as the Vice President of Marketing at Marvel Comics, created different printings of monthly comics in the summer of 1979." Chuck Rozanski is the source of the above quote, from an article he wrote and published publicly (and attached his name to). If this is wrong and was later corrected by Rozanski, I haven't seen a correction and would welcome you or anyone else to please point me in the right direction. If there is no later correction available, yet RMA believes the inclusion of this and other statements in my article is not just wrong, but so wrong that I am to be publicly dubbed a liar and a fraud by continuing to include them uncorrected by him, then in the effort to clear my name (which is why I am here), I am fully open to quoting the real person behind the RMA handle as an alternate named source in the article -- the offer I made in an earlier reply is on the table until one week from today. - Ben p.s. Last year I showed this same article to a person in the hobby I consider an expert, and this person in their email reply specifically thanked me for avoiding what he dubbed an "urban myth" out there, and the myth he seemed to be referring to sounds a lot like it has to do with whatever point RMA considered important enough to post what he did about me on these boards -- I tell you this for context to better see things from my perspective about what sources I should include as reputable.

The New Mutants #98 that was being discussed (amidst the other stuff) was a newsstand-exclusive phenomenon. It is one absolutely fascinating situation, a true US-published (by Marvel, in the USA) variant -- it carries a bar code on the cover with the same New Mutants code along the bottom, but "05" for the month along the top right of the code, May cover month, $1.50 cover price, but 100% identical indicia and interior pages to the rest of the print run. Jon McClure coined the phrase "Type 1A Price Variant" as a thoughtful way to categorize and understand such variants. Within Type 1A, I find the newsstand-exclusive price variants to be exceptionally interesting. - Ben p.s. Marvel newsstand comics of 2006-2013 era can also be found out there with cover prices above the norm in certain cases; for example did you know that over on newsstands, copies of Amazing Spider-Man #607 were distributed with a $3.99 cover price instead of the regular $2.99, and what's more, they were distributed under the "Sensational Spider-Man" code (instead of "Amazing")? CGC "breaks them out" now on census.

First: Other readers, please know that this post will be on topic for Newsstand discussion. Next: to comix4fun, this situation has zero to do with the critique itself and everything to do with the behavior of the person making it. [Also please know that I have approved every single comment, across both handles (which had identical IPs by the way), that they have ever left on my blog starting in 2016; I have responded to them continually, until this week.] Here is my offer: Which will be on topic for newsstand discussion. I like to quote sources with names, like I did in my newsstand article. And, I put my name on my work. The only thing I have seen this person put with their statements is a series of different handles. If this person has a difference of opinion with John Jackson Miller or with Jim Shooter or with Chuck Rozanski, in a he-said-she-said manner, and wants their alternate view heard, then I offer as follows: This person will state, as a reply in this thread, how they would like to be quoted by me in the article, they will provide their real full name, and CGC will be asked to verify their full name by checking against their credit card. If CGC confirms that the name they stated matches, I will quote what they write here verbatim up to 500 words, in the main body of my newsstand article, with their name as the source of the quote. But I reserve the right to edit for tone or any personal remarks. Best, - Ben

Thank you Marwood&I for making this point. How you treat people is just as important as what you know. You and I share an interest in Type 1A Marvel AUS Price Variants! :-) I just landed my second copy of the New Mutants #98 variant and plan to send it to CGC soon; did you happen to notice the census for the issue now has a 2/91 "Australian Edition" entry!? That wasn't my doing, but perhaps after the key comments note to show the indicia date was added to the original 5/91 entry, someone else later convinced them to instead classify the variant a 2/91 issue... - Ben p.s. Yes I risked calling it a "Variant" ... when the indicia and interior pages are identical to the rest of the print run, my opinion is that "Variant" is the correct term.

Thank you. This was a situation where the other side (mine) needed to be heard, so that I could defend myself. I did not come here to sling mud or fight further with this person. - Ben

I'm still new at these boards but you can find the post from Thursday 5:36 PM on page 5 of this thread. For the crime of choosing to end communications with this individual, I was publicly called a liar and fraud on these boards as you will see below; I'll copy/paste: "That moves you from a being legitimate scholar and researcher to a liar and a fraud" ... and ... ""Rare Comics" is just another fraudulent blog, attempting to deceive people, no doubt to manipulate the market in his favor. Such a shame, all that effort for fraud." A false impression was given as to why I ended communications with the person. I felt the need to share my side of the story. For a further idea of why I no longer wanted this individual as a guest in my home (my blog is like my online home), consider the same poster's comments from Thursday 5:59 PM dragging Jon McClure's name through the mud. Jon McClure and I (plus four others) collaborated on a recent project together. If a guest in your house behaved this way would you let them stay? Here is a copy/paste out of what they wrote about Jon -- calling him a liar too [at least I'm in good company]. "Why does the serious scholarship, research, and quest for the facts get shoved aside in favor of hype, nonsense, and lies? Answer: $$$." - Ben p.s. please note the "joined" timestamp on TLDR's posting handle. As I mentioned, CGC confirmed to me that a working email address is the only hurdle to establishing a new and completely anonymous handle here.

Another statement I made in my initial post was about how it takes only a working email address to establish a new account with a new posting handle at most public message boards. To confirm if that is the case here as well, I spoke with Christian at CGC on Friday and he confirmed to me that it is indeed the case that no additional identity verification takes place. So if one wanted to sign up for a hotmail, yahoo, gmail, etc. account and use it to establish a new free CGC account, such a person could do so for the express purpose of, say, name-calling. I also noticed someone the other day did this for the express purpose of flash-posting an image that showed the real name of a poster here. Best, - Ben p.s. CGC charges my credit card annually and knows my name; they'd know all of yours too in this way (if you were above the free tier)... thus, CGC has the power to solve the identity verification problem with a new paid tier for message boards.

I chose to end communications with a person for reasons of personality clash; I was then publicly called a liar and a fraud for doing so, by this person, on these boards. Having been unfairly defamed publicly, my previous message posted here was to explain my reasons for having ending communications with the person. My statements about aliases were that I connected two different Handles that commented on my blog, to this person's handle here (a handle that matched neither of the two Handles that commented on my blog). Best, - Ben p.s. I tried to be concise but couldn't quite manage 18 words.

Hello everyone, repeating here my below post from over at the "please introduce yourselves" area: Hello Everybody! My name is Benjamin Nobel. I don't use my CGC account in the message board area that I'd be someone you'd recognize, so this appears to be the appropriate thread for you to meet "xcomic" as the dormant handle I randomly chose back when I signed up. Hence the reason I'm posting in this particular spot. But the reason I am posting at all is because things have recently been posted on the CGC boards about me that I felt needed a response (any open minded individual will hopefully realize there are two sides to every story, and it is not always is it necessary to chime in with your side, but in this particular case I felt I must). One of the ways I participate in our great hobby is by maintaining a blog. My blog is the one recently mentioned in the "Newsstand Edition" thread. Some might not approach comics the same way I do or have my same interests or agree with my opinions and collecting conclusions, but the response to my blog in the aggregate has been overwhelmingly positive and has introduced me to some of the great minds in the niche areas that attracted my focus. I even got the chance to collaborate with some of these incredible people that I've met, on a recent project we feel will be a great benefit to the hobby. Unlike a book or a printed article, or a static website, each of my blog posts on Wordpress by contrast is open for public comments at the bottom (I give you this background in the context of why I'm here, so bear with me). That's a little daunting when the whole world wants their link included to their site, and you wouldn't believe the sheer volume of comments that fall under that link-spreading category with boilerplate remarks. But fortunately, the way Wordpress works, that firehose of comments (including those from "bots" and those under bogus email addresses) is filtered first: Wordpress automatically attempts detect the ones they think are "real" and emails those to me for my moderation/approval, but does not give me an email notification about the ones their algorithms decide are not real. Only once I approve an initial comment does it then appear online. Depending on how busy I am with work and family, typically at least once a week I have a chance to review and react to the comments that come through. I rarely if ever check the ones that Wordpress auto-filters out, but occasionally when someone has given me a heads-up that their comment never appeared, I'll find it somehow got there into that filtered-out folder. When one of those Wordpress emails comes through alerting me to a new comment they judge to be "real," I always approach all such comments left on my blog with the baseline of assuming positive intent on the part of the person leaving the comment. Sometimes, however, I ascertain that the person on the other side of the conversation actually has negative intent or has a personality I would clash with or otherwise want to avoid. Let me give an example of behavior reflective of a personality I might want to avoid, using the following real life scenario: Have you ever purchased a comic on eBay? Have you ever messaged a seller across eBay's message platform? How would you feel if you were having what you thought was a private conversation with a seller across eBay, and revealed something personal to them such as how you were just laid off from your job, and the area where you live, and then later learned that the eBay seller had been posting your private eBay messages to the CGC boards verbatim complete with your eBay handle and your name, the whole time, without your initial knowledge, and then told you later that those posts were happening? An acquaintance told me of this precise type of occurrence, sharing a link into these very CGC boards, and I learned from reading that link what the CGC handle was for the person (the eBay seller). Note: I'm not taking sides on their dispute, just observing the posting behavior of the seller. Keep this story in your mind for context, knowing that I myself had heard it and had it for my context, as I tell you what comes next... I came to learn that two of the different "handles" that had left comments on my blog -- giving the outward appearance of being two separate people instead of one -- were actually really one person; and what's more, they were yet a third/different handle over here on the CGC boards, i.e. their handle here matches neither of the handles they used when commenting on my blog... I only learned they matched up to this board handle when someone later shared a link with me into the boards, showing that back then as I had been conversing with this person in my comment section, they had meanwhile been posting our conversation to the CGC boards the whole time and talking negatively about me here behind my back. Guess what? That person's handle is the same one as the eBay story you kept in your mind for context. This is a perfect example of a person who might be extremely knowledgeable about comics -- might post on average 11 times per day for 12 years running and have a ton of experience -- but where I will choose to discontinue conversing with the person across my blog comment section, not to close my mind to alternate views, but rather to shut out a personality I find toxic to interact with. I did in fact sent a Wordpress reply to this person telling them I would not be allowing further comments (and why) but I have no way of knowing if they received that reply. I have reviewed some of the recent posts by this person and noticed they opted to drag Jon McClure's name through the mud and belittle his contributions to the hobby and his discoveries about 35 cent variants. Seeing this happen, I hope any reasonable observer here will now understand why I did not want to welcome this kind of behavior "in my own home" and converse with this person further -- my blog is a little like my online home and when you comment there you are my visitor; there is no reason I should allow you to overstay your visit if you start bad-mouthing my friends and people I respect or start "getting up in my face"... would you allow that behavior in your home? Sometimes you have to say goodbye to an unruly guest and shut the door. Excepting this one person from these boards who I wish to discontinue conversing with, please know that everybody else is welcome to reach out to me and leave your own comments (ones that you have composed yourself and are respectful), on my blog, should you wish to do so (understanding please that given this recent situation plus the increased blog traffic in connection with the recent project I mentioned, that I might naturally be suspicious that any new commenter might be this same person under yet another handle or through a courier -- I noticed over the course of their communications with me that not only had they commented on my blog under two different handles while using a different third handle here, they also maintain at least two unique email addresses as shown by Wordpress; I will not violate their privacy by revealing the addresses but I can confirm to you that they used at least the two I saw; I believe that it only takes a working email address to establish an alias on most public message boards which is one of the reasons I have avoided public message boards -- you never know how many actual individuals is behind a chorus of voices, and over on a public Yahoo board many years ago I once had the unpleasant surprise of discovering through observing a posting error by a multi-aliased-individual that such behavior is unfortunately quite commonplace on public boards). My next post here after this one, is going to be a reply to a critique of a post I made on the topic of Amazing Spider-Man #400 (understanding the true newsstand edition). This particular book isn't one I collected myself, but among topics I talk about on the blog, later newsstand comics are a definite focus, and the situation with #400 is both interesting and frequently-asked, so I posted about it. In general, I particularly like newsstand comics with cover prices that differ from the corresponding direct editions, where various "classes" of such newsstand comics were being overlooked by other collectors, to the point where I could routinely find the demonstrably-more-rare cover price variant out there for sale in the marketplace for "regular price" -- in other words, cases where the seller knew only that they owned a particular issue number of a particular title and nothing further about the newsstand vs. direct edition difference (and therefore they "mis-listed" their more-rare newsstand type for sale with an ask at the going rate for the regular direct edition type, without any indication in the title or description that the pictured comic was actually the rare cover price variant, when the picture clearly showed that it was). My posts advocate this "relative value approach" to collecting, with special emphasis on later newsstand comics as a broad category, one that I feel is still being under-advocated, not-typically-broken-out-by-CGC (although progress is being made), and under-appreciated as a niche -- think about how many thousands of comic retailers out there are educating their customers all about "retailer incentive variants" and charging through the nose for them while giving a strong "pitch" about why they are so desirable, but by contrast, very few out there in the hobby are advocating newsstand comics and articulating why they like them; that's what I've tried to do as someone who now counts myself in the newsstand-preference-camp: to study and "make the case" -- from one collector to another -- for different groups/types, such as the Type 1A 75 cent cover price (and other price) newsstand comics of the 1980's. [Before closing this post I'll answer an anticipated question: comics are a hobby for me only; I do not earn my living in the field of comics; when I buy and sell it is to advance my own collection; my goal is to collect comics that make me happy and share with other collectors what it was that drew me to be interested in the comics I like to collect]. Sincerely, - Ben

Hello Lazyboy, thanks for your critique of my post! Someone gave me a link to your critique. Having introduced myself separately in another post, I thought I'd next reply to yours since it is a direct critique of what I wrote about Amazing Spider-Man #400. I'm new to this board so forgive me if I do not follow the right formatting convention but hopefully anyone reading this can figure out which are your comments and which are my responses. I hadn't read your sentences to compare, but: Yep, I'm usually pretty verbose, I have to admit! :-) I agree that this was likely a factor too -- you'll recognize that "why" people are making this mistake is an opinion question, and there doesn't have to be just one single reason. You are welcome to disagree with me about which reasons are valid. Forgive my ignorance in assuming it would be a logical "first guess" to predict that the "regular" one would be 40011 (as it indeed is in this case and so many others), and the "enhanced" one would be 40021 (as it indeed is in this case and so many others). Think about the context of what I was trying to describe and ask: what's the worse that happens if you were to make such a first guess and find it is wrong? You'd see that it was different, yes... but either way you get to two direct editions which was the larger point. I changed the post to give a range of the 2001-2008 numbers instead of just the one year, for a larger context, although I hadn't originally thought that necessary since adjacent to that sentence I gave a link to a full table of the numbers from 1978 to 2008. I think you may be pointing out that the 1999 BPA audit citing 14% newsstand sales at Marvel is different from Rozanski's 1990 estimate of 15% and 1995 estimate of 10%. But since these are three different nearby years and I do not know how the numbers may have bumped around in between, and because I wanted to give more than one number for broader context instead, rather than mention only any one of them as a nearby year estimate, I mentioned all of them for better 1990's context. If you do not agree with Rozanski's estimates I would be curious if you have your own year-by-year thoughts on newsstand rarity? If you believe it is not possible for anyone to make accurate estimates and therefore nobody should even make the attempt, nor by extension should anyone (like me) be talking about the attempts of others including others who are indisputably "knowledgeable heavyweights" in comics, then in the alternative, would you support me in organizing an effort to ask CGC to begin "breaking out" all newsstand comics on census, so that in the fullness of time we can study the census data as a valuable resource to measure the newsstand:direct-edition disparity of future graded copies starting at their decision-point to break them out? Then the truth will self-express in the census data and we'll be armed with information we don't have today. I notice your picture is an orange cat -- I mention because one of the interesting things I learned about orange cats is that the underlying genetics cause an interesting phenomenon whereby 80% of all orange cats are expected to be male, while just 20% are expected to be female. And with this 80:20 split among orange cats the way it is, a commonly asked question out there is: "are all orange cats male?" I heard an expert answering this as a frequently asked question on a radio podcast about animals, and it made me think about comics... If orange cats were collectibles, wouldn't you want to collect the female ones after learning about the genetics driving the relative rarity? So that I think with newsstand comics, especially when we start talking about sales (not printed copies before potential paper recycling and not dollars of sales but number of copies sold), and survivorship numbers from there, and the top grades among newsstand survivors from there, we're so far past "female orange cat level rarity" at the intersection of all those Venn diagram circles that the collecting decision as far as which type to prefer for any given issue I'm looking to collect anyway from the modern age is already a home run: even without a precise consensus percentage about a given year's newsstand:direct split (and even having that, nobody would even know such a precise percentage for certain for a given issue within a given title within a given year even if we do have estimates for that year), give me the 9.8 newsstand copy over the 9.8 direct edition any day of the week, hands down. (Alas, I really wish CGC would have tracked the types separately on census and then much like how TV ratings and election polling both use a small sample of the population to show relative popularity breakdown, we similarly could have observed the relative rarity between newsstand and direct editions in the census data... such a shame no such data exists due to CGC's individual decisions about classifying/organizing comics). Bottom line point I always try to make: even with the imperfect information we do have, for me, the collecting decision is a "you had me at hello" on the basis of "newsstand is clearly some amount more rare, yet, often available to me at the same market price as the prevalent well-preserved direct edition."

Hello Everybody! My name is Benjamin Nobel. I don't use my CGC account in the message board area that I'd be someone you'd recognize, so this appears to be the appropriate thread for you to meet "xcomic" as the dormant handle I randomly chose back when I signed up. Hence the reason I'm posting in this particular spot. But the reason I am posting at all is because things have recently been posted on the CGC boards about me that I felt needed a response (any open minded individual will hopefully realize there are two sides to every story, and it is not always is it necessary to chime in with your side, but in this particular case I felt I must). One of the ways I participate in our great hobby is by maintaining a blog. My blog is the one recently mentioned in the "Newsstand Edition" thread. Some might not approach comics the same way I do or have my same interests or agree with my opinions and collecting conclusions, but the response to my blog in the aggregate has been overwhelmingly positive and has introduced me to some of the great minds in the niche areas that attracted my focus. I even got the chance to collaborate with some of these incredible people that I've met, on a recent project we feel will be a great benefit to the hobby. Unlike a book or a printed article, or a static website, each of my blog posts on Wordpress by contrast is open for public comments at the bottom (I give you this background in the context of why I'm here, so bear with me). That's a little daunting when the whole world wants their link included to their site, and you wouldn't believe the sheer volume of comments that fall under that link-spreading category with boilerplate remarks. But fortunately, the way Wordpress works, that firehose of comments (including those from "bots" and those under bogus email addresses) is filtered first: Wordpress automatically attempts detect the ones they think are "real" and emails those to me for my moderation/approval, but does not give me an email notification about the ones their algorithms decide are not real. Only once I approve an initial comment does it then appear online. Depending on how busy I am with work and family, typically at least once a week I have a chance to review and react to the comments that come through. I rarely if ever check the ones that Wordpress auto-filters out, but occasionally when someone has given me a heads-up that their comment never appeared, I'll find it somehow got there into that filtered-out folder. When one of those Wordpress emails comes through alerting me to a new comment they judge to be "real," I always approach all such comments left on my blog with the baseline of assuming positive intent on the part of the person leaving the comment. Sometimes, however, I ascertain that the person on the other side of the conversation actually has negative intent or has a personality I would clash with or otherwise want to avoid. Let me give an example of behavior reflective of a personality I might want to avoid, using the following real life scenario: Have you ever purchased a comic on eBay? Have you ever messaged a seller across eBay's message platform? How would you feel if you were having what you thought was a private conversation with a seller across eBay, and revealed something personal to them such as how you were just laid off from your job, and the area where you live, and then later learned that the eBay seller had been posting your private eBay messages to the CGC boards verbatim complete with your eBay handle and your name, the whole time, without your initial knowledge, and then told you later that those posts were happening? An acquaintance told me of this precise type of occurrence, sharing a link into these very CGC boards, and I learned from reading that link what the CGC handle was for the person (the eBay seller). Note: I'm not taking sides on their dispute, just observing the posting behavior of the seller. Keep this story in your mind for context, knowing that I myself had heard it and had it for my context, as I tell you what comes next... I came to learn that two of the different "handles" that had left comments on my blog -- giving the outward appearance of being two separate people instead of one -- were actually really one person; and what's more, they were yet a third/different handle over here on the CGC boards, i.e. their handle here matches neither of the handles they used when commenting on my blog... I only learned they matched up to this board handle when someone later shared a link with me into the boards, showing that back then as I had been conversing with this person in my comment section, they had meanwhile been posting our conversation to the CGC boards the whole time and talking negatively about me here behind my back. Guess what? That person's handle is the same one as the eBay story you kept in your mind for context. This is a perfect example of a person who might be extremely knowledgeable about comics -- might post on average 11 times per day for 12 years running and have a ton of experience -- but where I will choose to discontinue conversing with the person across my blog comment section, not to close my mind to alternate views, but rather to shut out a personality I find toxic to interact with. I did in fact sent a Wordpress reply to this person telling them I would not be allowing further comments (and why) but I have no way of knowing if they received that reply. I have reviewed some of the recent posts by this person and noticed they opted to drag Jon McClure's name through the mud and belittle his contributions to the hobby and his discoveries about 35 cent variants. Seeing this happen, I hope any reasonable observer here will now understand why I did not want to welcome this kind of behavior "in my own home" and converse with this person further -- my blog is a little like my online home and when you comment there you are my visitor; there is no reason I should allow you to overstay your visit if you start bad-mouthing my friends and people I respect or start "getting up in my face"... would you allow that behavior in your home? Sometimes you have to say goodbye to an unruly guest and shut the door. Excepting this one person from these boards who I wish to discontinue conversing with, please know that everybody else is welcome to reach out to me and leave your own comments (ones that you have composed yourself and are respectful), on my blog, should you wish to do so (understanding please that given this recent situation plus the increased blog traffic in connection with the recent project I mentioned, that I might naturally be suspicious that any new commenter might be this same person under yet another handle or through a courier -- I noticed over the course of their communications with me that not only had they commented on my blog under two different handles while using a different third handle here, they also maintain at least two unique email addresses as shown by Wordpress; I will not violate their privacy by revealing the addresses but I can confirm to you that they used at least the two I saw; I believe that it only takes a working email address to establish an alias on most public message boards which is one of the reasons I have avoided public message boards -- you never know how many actual individuals is behind a chorus of voices, and over on a public Yahoo board many years ago I once had the unpleasant surprise of discovering through observing a posting error by a multi-aliased-individual that such behavior is unfortunately quite commonplace on public boards). My next post here after this one, is going to be a reply to a critique of a post I made on the topic of Amazing Spider-Man #400 (understanding the true newsstand edition). This particular book isn't one I collected myself, but among topics I talk about on the blog, later newsstand comics are a definite focus, and the situation with #400 is both interesting and frequently-asked, so I posted about it. In general, I particularly like newsstand comics with cover prices that differ from the corresponding direct editions, where various "classes" of such newsstand comics were being overlooked by other collectors, to the point where I could routinely find the demonstrably-more-rare cover price variant out there for sale in the marketplace for "regular price" -- in other words, cases where the seller knew only that they owned a particular issue number of a particular title and nothing further about the newsstand vs. direct edition difference (and therefore they "mis-listed" their more-rare newsstand type for sale with an ask at the going rate for the regular direct edition type, without any indication in the title or description that the pictured comic was actually the rare cover price variant, when the picture clearly showed that it was). My posts advocate this "relative value approach" to collecting, with special emphasis on later newsstand comics as a broad category, one that I feel is still being under-advocated, not-typically-broken-out-by-CGC (although progress is being made), and under-appreciated as a niche -- think about how many thousands of comic retailers out there are educating their customers all about "retailer incentive variants" and charging through the nose for them while giving a strong "pitch" about why they are so desirable, but by contrast, very few out there in the hobby are advocating newsstand comics and articulating why they like them; that's what I've tried to do as someone who now counts myself in the newsstand-preference-camp: to study and "make the case" -- from one collector to another -- for different groups/types, such as the Type 1A 75 cent cover price (and other price) newsstand comics of the 1980's. [Before closing this post I'll answer an anticipated question: comics are a hobby for me only; I do not earn my living in the field of comics; when I buy and sell it is to advance my own collection; my goal is to collect comics that make me happy and share with other collectors what it was that drew me to be interested in the comics I like to collect]. Sincerely, - Ben