OtherEric

Vampirella #11 thoughts: Cover: A legendary Frazetta piece, I really have nothing to add on this one. Feary Tales: A nice opener to the issue by Sutton, cramming quite a bit of storytelling into one page. Letters: Have we seen the Frazetta illo of Vampi used here before? Carnival of the Damned: It's hard to see what caused the delay on the story, but it's a solid one with a particularly spectacular splash page by Sutton. We meet Pendragon, who winds up being a major supporting cast member during the Warren era. For all that, I don't have much to say about the story, other than noting Goodwin is good about setting up pieces for the series and at the same time telling an enjoyable story that stands on its own. The catch being it's fairly slight, given how many moving parts are involved with a relatively small page count. The Escape: Luis Roca is not somebody I'm familiar with. They have about 250 credits at the GCD, but most of them are not from the US, or are reprints of material that wasn't originally from the US. They've got three credits with Warren. The artwork looks pretty impressive, actually. The story is competent enough as a framework for the artwork but is too cliche heavy to praise as anything else. Prisoner in the Pool: Not one I have much to say on; great Cockrum art, decent Saunders script that could have possibly used another page or two to breathe, and Sinis/ Sinus/ Pine Bender had way too many names for someone killed in the third panel they appear in. She'll Never Learn: Skeates and Barr give a look into the mind of an all too realistic madman. Absolutely excellent work, but genuinely terrifying in a way I can't say I enjoy even as I admire the craft. The Green Plague: What might have been a neat story with another artist, but they gave it to Grandenetti... and I don't think it's well suited to his style. Onward. Vampi's Flames: I call your attention to the small sketch by Dave Manak, it's his only contribution to the Warren books that I'm aware of. I'm surprised the index didn't mention it, however, given that he has over 2700 credits at the GCD, mostly on humor books. Dragon Woman: One of three stories Sanho Kim does for the Warren books, he's best known for his work at Charlton, although he has a few stories in the Marvel B&W mags as well. The issue goes out on an extremely high note with this story, as the index states, it's particularly impressive. This was a very good issue... if my only major gripe is the Grandenetti story, well, we expect me to gripe about that. I think I'm ranking the book as not as impressive as the sum of its parts, but I'm honestly not sure why.

Today's addition. On another topic, can anybody verify that during the key 1966-1967 run, King only had 7 titles: Flash Gordon, Mandrake, Phantom, Beetle Bailey, Blondie, Popeye, and the weird stray Jungle Jim 1-shot?

Looks pretty nice for a 1.8. You planning to crack it?

I wasn't aware Startling went to digest size at the end of its run. Beautiful copy!

Keep us posted, if you can't find a publisher a crowdfunded updated guide would probably get a respectable amount of support from those of us here.

Unfortunately, the market is too volatile at the moment for an accurate general purpose resource. If you can track down a copy of the guide @Bookery did a few years ago, it's a great starting point... but his joke errata, "multiply everything by 10", is way too general to help while too close to the truth to ignore. eBay and Heritage recent sales are probably your best starting point, I might also suggest checking ABEbooks for copies currently on sale to make sure you're not missing a cheap book through another route. Lots more magazines than comics there in my experience. Finally, feel free to ask here on specific books. We're a friendly group that loves to show off our knowledge.

I'm pretty sure that the Beatles Super Special was not licensed, just based on nonfiction information.

Astounding, for instance, started coming factory trimmed with this issue. Which is a high demand book for other reasons:

Actually a case of not having a scan handy rather than not having the book. I may try to dig it out later this weekend. Jaxon was really an amazing artist.

The real answer is "It depends". I haven't seen much indication that Clarke drives up prices very much, honestly. But other authors definitely can. Actually, most of the value on SF pulps was largely story-driven until recently, now I would say with the exception of a few writers prices are more likely to be cover-driven. Just in general, Two Complete Science-Adventure Books hasn't been a particularly high demand title, it's fairly common as pulps go.

Wizard of Oz the book was public domain, but the Marvel/ DC comic version used elements from the 1939 movie, which wasn't... and still isn't. I think the only reprint in Haunt of Horror was Leiber's Conjure Wife, and due to an error in issue 1 Harlan Ellison's story "Neon" was reprinted corrected in issue 2.

Weird Tales was factory trimmed on the right edge but not the top and bottom for a lot of the run, but I don't know of any where just the top was trimmed. Doesn't mean there wasn't, just that it's not coming to mind.

I don't think we ever had a subscription, but we picked it up pretty regularly during the 80's. It was really a good magazine for a while.

A trio of PKD items in today:

Here's the one I got in today. It has my vote as the hardest PKD book published in his lifetime to locate, given that the only US release was a Gregg Press hardcover. This is the first paperback edition, unless you count a German translation that omits half the stories, which I really don't:

In today, not particularly expensive as MMM's go but one of the harder ones to find. I suspect a lot of people saw the reused cover and thought the already had it. Throwing in my scan of the earlier Saint volume that used the cover as well for comparison:

And two more I think we haven't seen in the thread yet.

Interiors as well, I believe. Got my copy in yesterday as well, same order as the Jungle Jim. Just need 7 and 11 now, plus a complementary copy of #1 if I run across one.

I remember the #36 being one of the harder books to track down when I was working on the run. That #54 looks very orange compared to my copy:

In today, too big for the scanner. Always nice to find a 50 year old book with the dust jacket intact:

Hooray for Wally Wood! In today, actually:

In today. I think this was the only time PKD had a story in Playboy, but I could be wrong:

In today, something of an oddball book. Gotta love Goodwin/ Williamson, though!

It may mean it was sold on a military base? Similar stamps are quite common on Mark Jewelers variants.