OtherEric

Generally quite low, sadly. There's always going to be some love for it as the first, and a fair number of key issues will always be high demand. The August 1928 issue may be the single most wanted SF pulp. But for every standout issue there's a dozen that just demonstrate that the publishers weren't willing to pay the money for a-list material in general, and the whole "Shaver Mystery" doesn't help matters. So the desirability and value of a typical issue will probably be relatively low.

Today's batch of cheap readers:

I think you slightly underestimate the size of the group. Or overestimate the size of the phone box. Unless you’re talking about one of those weird British police phone boxes…

Whoops, wrong one... Amazingly, I don't seem to have any of my King Comics issues of Flash Gordon scanned, and I'm just about to head out the door to work so I can't find something more fitting for this thread. (Not that I have UK versions of the Flash issues, anyway.)

I love all the info you share on the various books, I just so rarely have anything to actually add to your extensive discussion. And when I do, I don't hesitate to comment. And when I don't, I sometimes throw in a Flash Gordon reference just so you know you're not whistling in the dark completely.

I wonder how my copy would do with a press, I’ve got the Fantucchio copy.

Not quite, but I'm good for another 10 months or so. And Vampirella is already complete.

Fixed. That's what I get for posting while tired. Thank you.

Makes me very, very glad I've got all three of those already.

After that buildup, I really wish I could give the issue a better review, @Axe Elf Vampirella #4 thoughts: So, we're entering the year where Vampirella is just a host, not a character in the stories. Which I believe was always the original intent, but it still seems odd in retrospect. Cover: Bode gets another collaborator on this cover, Jeff Jones. What is there to really say other than it's a stunningly gorgeous piece of art? Feary Tales: A nice enough filler page by Sutton, but it seems like they haven't really figured out what the identity of the feature is now that Ackerman isn't doing movie summaries. Forgotten Kingdom: Very nice Colon art, a decent if rather cliched story. Closer than Sisters: Some solid ideas, but the story doesn't really mesh as a whole. It doesn't help that Creepshow took the central image and did it better a decade or so later. Moonshine: I'm underwhelmed by Barry's art here, to say the least, and the story isn't nearly strong enough to leave much of an impression in the wake of the art. For the Love of Frankenstein: Very good art by Sparling, Bill Warren's underlying story is quite good but the execution is middling. Fan Page: It's impressive how quickly Vampirella became a cosplay favorite. Alan Weiss goes on to do a couple stories for Warren, and hundreds for other publishers. But my general impression of his career is he was a perennial fill-in artist, I don't really associate him with any specific run or title. I could be wrong, though. Come Into My Parlor: A fairly clever conceit for the story, but Piscopo's art is pretty bad here. Run for your Wife: Apparently the adapted by "Jack Erman" credit is just Ackerman barely hiding his work, while Richard Carnell doesn't have any other credits in comics that I can find. I'm becoming more and more convinced that Ackerman wisely avoided comics, for the most part. He just doesn't seem to have a feel for them. The art by Starling is decent but not as good as his other story in the issue, and the story is a mess. Overall I was very disappointed in this issue after I passed the cover; there's some great art and a couple good scripts but they didn't seem to match up that often.

That 50 presents really well for a 4.5!

I find the #35 cover particularly amusing, given that Gold Key had the Happy Days comic, DC had Wonder Woman and Welcome Back Kotter, Marvel had Darth Vader, and Charlton had the Six Million Dollar Man. Amazing what parody lets you get away with in terms of stuff that other companies have the right to.

I'm still being a bit Crazy these days:

In today, the last Dell issue of the title:

Today's addition:

In today:

A happy 110th birthday to Walt Kelly! A few books I got recently, they were all just posted on the Digital Comic Museum today:

A search of the Warren index page gives 560 hits for Bill DuBay. Most of that is Editor or Writer rather than artist, though, but I think he has the most credits for Warren of anybody, unless you only count each issue once, in which case James Warren probably wins as publisher.

And a pulp digest, always nice to add to the PKD collection:

Bought at the local store today to show here, since I’ve already got a copy in storage. I believe this is the thickest vintage paperback at 1600 pages. The spine is about as nice as you’re going to get unless you find a genuinely unread copy, I think:

As far as I know it does not have a poster, if nothing else the square binding would make it impractical. My copy doesn’t have a poster for certain. The only Marvel US magazine with a poster that immediately comes to my mind is the Kiss Super Special #5, but I’m pretty sure I’m forgetting others. I think a couple issues with fold out pages are incorrectly described in various places as having posters as well.

I'm amused by the use of hole punch reinforcers on the top and bottom of the spine, even as my collector instincts cringe. Not that I've got room to comment, my copy has tape all the way down the spine.

Closing in on the run of these. Oddly enough, it looks like the trickiest issues are actually #11 and #12, which aren't that old. I was lucky enough to come across a #11 at my LCS at a reasonable price, but #12 will require either a lot more luck or a lot more than I really want to pay.

Buckler. You can actually see the signature near the spine, right under the Black Bolt corner circle. But it's clearly Buckler in his full blown channeling Kirby mode.