OtherEric

A couple digests from the local store today. Anybody recognize the cover artist on The Girl From UNCLE?

I’m not aware of anything Goodwin & Simonson worked on together that was anything short of excellent.

Bookery's guide. Unfortunately, it's currently out of print.

Just in general, 50's DC is far scarcer than people generally credit it, I think. But yeah, I suspect in many cases there just aren't than many getting slabbed. 50 and 79 are probably the best ones as a guide for numbers, since they're both higher demand issues.

And some more:

A few more of the lot:

Had a first rate transaction with Brian over a sizeable collection of lower grade MAD Magazines. Not sure why the post office routed them through Chattanooga, Tennessee, when that was 1500 miles the wrong direction from either of us, but even that seems appropriate for a box of MADs. Thank you!

What I also want to know is why the 79 doesn’t get the “”classic cover “ designation on the slab.

Given how they routed the shipment, I can’t argue…

Not something we often cover here… but still, they’re 50’s EC’s, so why not?

Might as well get the one post-66 issue out of the way, as well. I've got a copy in storage somewhere, but no idea where:

Just got a huge stack- over two dozen- of MAD's from @Tri-ColorBrian, all but one from 1966 or earlier. Reader copies, but average cost was a little over $5, so I'm super happy. Here's the first few:

In today, courtesy of @LDarkseid1. Apparently the original high bidder ghosted him after the auction, and we came to agreeable terms. The book presents great for a 2.0, although I’ll probably go ahead and crack it anyway. I want to read the darn thing!

Now that you say it, neither have I, Foggy. It's a weird one!

They were published by Western, the same company behind Gold Key/ Whitman. They were sold in multipacks, which is why the individual issues don't have prices. I found some of them at a Toys R Us sometime around 1990 (sorry I can't narrow it down further) and to my regret, only bought one of the bags, which I opened. But the bag was decades old at the point I found it, even if it was being sold as new... they must have had copies sitting in a warehouse forever.

I won’t disagree in general. But in specific, my favorite feature is Mary Jane & Sniffles, and my favorite art on the feature is Al Hubbard’s work on the later part of the run.

Fair enough. I know the Gerber ratings can be variable at best, but I didn't realize they became that generic for later books

Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.

Does anyone have a Photo Journal handy? I’m wondering what it rates the rarity of the first 120 or so issues at.

The only reason I can think of (other than laziness) is to make it clear at a glance which is which so they get sent the right place. But if that was the case I would have expected something similar to continue, and it really didn't.

Creepy 19 thoughts: Cover: A great cover by Prezio. We've already discussed how vulnerable the cover is to color loss; @Axe Elf has one of the better ones I've seen but it's still got some visible wear on the bottom and right sides. My copy, meanwhile, is one of the worst, to the point where it looks like water damage or mold. It's just ink loss, and feels like a normal book in hand. Loathsome Lore: Most if not all the reprinted inside front covers have been Krenkel. Not that I'm complaining, but it does seem oddly consistent. The Mark of the Beast: The -script seems to be assuming the reader is familiar with the original version of the story, which I am not. As shown here there are simply gaps that make it borderline incoherent. Nice Craig artwork, though. Carmilla: This does a much better job of making the adaptation work for somebody who hasn't read the original. Although that might be helped by the fact that, while I haven't read it, I'm at least aware of the original, unlike the Kipling story. Interrupting the story and continuing on a later page is something that's all too common in older magazines, but I think this is the only time Warren ever did it. I wonder if they were originally planning to split this story over two issues but realized they didn't have anything better to fill out this one. The reprints are both quite good, although I slightly question having two Johnny Craig stories. Although, given that they didn't change the "Jay Taycee" credit, I wonder if whoever put this together didn't realize they actually had two. Overall, a surprisingly good issue given that, other than the cover, there was no new material actually intended for the magazine. I'm starting to think the whole "Dark Age" rep is a bit overrated, but we'll see how it goes when we've been dealing with it for a while longer.

Maybe a 3.0 at best.

Pat's copy looked interesting so I couldn't resist when I saw it at my local store today:

I have no answer for you, but this thread may be where to ask: