BassGMan

POV, it's great to have you on board. Appears as if you were hooked recently just like I was six months ago. Having a pre-disposition to horror, as we both did, surely helps, but this stuff is just intoxicating. As I have said before, I think most superhero collectors, which make up the majority of collectors, are for the most part unaware of these books. But I believe they would be susceptable to them if they were ever exposed to them. I betcha', get any ASM or X-Men or typical Marvel or DC Bronze superhero collector over to this thread, sit him down and have him scan all the beautiful books on this thread, and with at least 90% certainty, I think we'd have another convert. That could be good or bad actually. More collectors coming into the genre would make prices go up, which is good for the books we already own, but bad for us as far as buying more books. Overall, I think these books need and deserve more recognition. I would not mind paying slightly higher prices if we can bring more light to this most awesome of a set of books. -----Sid

Love that WW 15 cover too. It seems as if the best War covers all have planes. At least it seems that way to me. By the way, a little OT perhaps. But my favorite "Bronze Horror Movie" of all time was The Exorcist. Prequel is coming out tomorrow. Have no idea if it will be good or not but I'll be seein' it either way. Shiver, you'll probably know the answer to this question but here goes. Do any of you know of a really good Demon/Devil posession story in any of these bronze horror books? Posession in the same sense as The Exorcist? I've always been much more interested in that style of horror moreso than typical monsters, skeletons and zombies. Thanks------Sid

Keith, if it is available would you want to post a scan of the book in question? Which actual issue was it? -----Sid

Yeah, I am happy with the quality of my MH order, but wait until I go over them for CGC potential. That's when all the flaws will pop up and I'll have to lower my average grade for the order. But I was happy with the books, and although I'm sure there were some possibly down to VF+ at the most, the majority of the books look quite nice. Remember, these were inexpensive books. More likely to be high grade than the more costlier ones. -----Sid

Basically everything late 70s that they had in NM with a cool cover. HOM,HOS,WH,Ghosts and Unexpected. Yeah, I was happy with it. I am picky, but not anal with grading. I'll be going over them with a fine tooth comb later to see which books are CGC-worthy, along with my Chicago pickups. I'll wait until after I receive my second MH order and then make a submission to CGC. I think I am done buying for now though. Spent too much recently. Just slabbing and selling for now. My next big purchasing event will be Wondercon in Feb. Then San Diego in July again. ------Sid Was there a HOM 236 involved? 'Cause if there is i would love to hear about the grade you assign Funny you mention that UV. Shiver asked the exact same question on my post in General. I saw ZERO copies of HOM #236 in Chicago (or at MH), and that includes ANY grade. I guess that one is rare, huh? ----Sid

Basically everything late 70s that they had in NM with a cool cover. HOM,HOS,WH,Ghosts and Unexpected. Yeah, I was happy with it. I am picky, but not anal with grading. I'll be going over them with a fine tooth comb later to see which books are CGC-worthy, along with my Chicago pickups. I'll wait until after I receive my second MH order and then make a submission to CGC. I think I am done buying for now though. Spent too much recently. Just slabbing and selling for now. My next big purchasing event will be Wondercon in Feb. Then San Diego in July again. ------Sid

Hi guys. I thought you may all be interested in a more detailed Chicago con market report from the Bronze horror perspective. I also just received an order from Mile High that I'll go over as well. First off, I want to mention that the San Diego show was MUCH better for buying Bronze horror, or any Bronze in general. Simply put, more dealers and larger dealers. Chicago was tiny by comparison and I had the time in three days to visit each dealer at least five times. In San Diego, in 4 1/2 days I seemed to always be running into another dealer that I had missed before, although I went back to the larger dealers many times there as well. OK, as mentioned in my overall Chicago report in the Comics General area, there appeared to be many more early 70s books than late 70s. I could speculate on the reasons for this, but anybody can just as easily. I have no answers. And this accounted for Marvel as well. Sure, the cheapo boxes and blowout dealers were stuffed with all kinds of low and midgrade copies of everything, but for this report, I'll be concentrating on higher grades. To me this would be around 8.5 and up. I will also say that there was huge variance in prices. Some dealers are very well organized and have each and every comic inside a perfectly new looking mylar with one or two stiff boards. Others just had their books in old yellowing bags with dented boards, and of course we saw everything in between. The guys with the mylars, as you can guess, usually had higher prices and less discounts. But don't pass up the sloppy dealers. Take some of those books out of the old bags and they may be just as nice as the books in the pretty mylars. I purchased from all dealer types. I noticed that I kept seeing the same issues over and over again as I was scanning the boxes. For example, almost everytime I went through a box with a decent amount of HOM, I knew I would see an issue of #180,181,183,184,193,194,195,196,199,210,202. Those are EVERYWHERE!. But, in the same run what did I not see? How about #177,187,190,192,197. I did see a bunch of #200s but I bought almost all of them as I just love that cover. I would say I witnessed this same scenario with each series, the same books over and over, and some books never seeing ANY issues. Perhaps this had to do with what books had better covers. Take me for example, as I am not trying to complete any runs, I only buy the books with the best covers, and mutiples of each. I assume many others buy like I do. I'd rather have five copies of HOM #200 than one each of #195-199, for example. Regarding grade, anyone looking for 9.6 or 9.8 of ANY issue, then forget it. I imagine all ultra high grade books are already out of the dealers hands and are already owned by individual collectors. Plenty of 9.2 and 9.4 but that is as high as you will get, and these books are usually priced above Overstreet NM. Not many slabbed Bronze Horror. In fact almost none. I was lucky in that I found a Ghosts #40 Giant CGC 9.2 in a CGC "bargain box" for $25 and I found the Wrightson cover Detective #425 (mentioned a couple pages back) in 9.0 for $25. But very few slabbed bronze horror overall. I did see a Weird War #1 in CGC 9.0 selling for $275. I could have maybe grabbed it for $250 which is about OS for that grade, but as I was looking for "deals" I passed it up (regretting it a little). As far as what I picked up, I was able to get alot of nice books. I found very few nice issues of Weird War at this con but I found plenty of the other titles. A Ghosts #1 in VF/NM I grabbed first thing on Friday for $50, 12, nice copies of HOM #177,187,190,200,205 HOS #86, Unexpected #113,115, WH #21. Many more books as well but there were the earlier more expensive books. Found a few cheap deals like a WH #1 in VG for $17.50, can't pass up some of the lower grade keys. Also a nice Fine + copy of DC-100 Super #4 for $45 and a Super DC Giant #20 in VF for $37.50. Anyway, I had a good time. Mile High order A couple weeks before leaving for Chicago I put in my first order with Mile High Comics. Wasn't planning on it, just went to the site for the first time and found alot of nice books. It was so easy to just click away and add books to my shopping cart that after ten minutes, I already had over $250 worth of late bronze DC horror. I have to say, that although Chuckie doesn't have everything, he has ALOT of stuff. I'd say overall he has a better selection of Bronze horror than all the dealers in Chicago put together. Missing some of the earlier Bronze high grades that I saw in Chicago, but other than that, a great inventory, comparitavely speaking. I ordered 30 books that were all listed as in stock. I ordered only NM. Since I was taking a chance with my first order, and on a budget, I only purchased the inexpesive issues ranging in price from $5 - $15. And only books published between 1975 and 1979. Upon returning home from Chicago my box had arrived. I received and was charged for 29 of the 30 I ordered. Order was correct and shipping was secure. OK, you are all interested in grading, who isn't? I was pleasantly surprised. Sure there were some books with a few minor spine creases or tiny corner dings, But I'd say that all these books would grade out between 9.0 and 9.6. I was happy with that. Certainly half of the books should generate at least 9.4, maybe even 60%. But granted, I have not yet examined most of the books thoroughly, this is just from looking at them in the bags (some with boards some without). Nevertheless, I was happy and yesterday I put in another order for $250 more of the same including some issues I don't have yet. I like Mile High because I am able to essentially "Buy It Now" for a large amount of issues. Ebay is cool, but I don't have the patience to buy one or two issues from any given dealer, especially for lower dollar books. With MH, I can buy a big pile and be on my way. That's the way I like to do it. Anyway, that's about it. ------Sid

Yeah, I know what you guys mean about the colors. Seems to have a different "feel" to it with every 3-year period or so in the 70s. Here's one of my favorite books picked up in Chicago. I'll put up my report tomorrow night. ----Sid HOM 187

For anyone that is interested, either tonight or tomorrow I'll be giving a more detailed Bronze horror report from Chicago on this thread along with a report from my Mile High order of the same material that was waiting for me when I got home from Chicago. I still need to go through all of it to sort it out, figure out what is worth slabbing and so on. I'll post up a few of my favorite aquisitions as well. I will say one thing for sure, the availability of these books was much greater in San Diego than in Chicago. More later........ Sid

Geez, it seems as if that damn code really changed things. I would have thought that by 15-20 years later, once that Bronze was upon us, that the code would have loosened up enough to at least get back to the 1950's level of gore. I guess not. But what about today? Even today could a code approved book be published showing the level of gore that we saw 50 years ago in EC? I am not yearning for gore by any means, but I just find the history of all this fascinating. Some of this Wertham and comic censorship stuff is more interesting than the comics themselves. -----Sid

POV, I love both of those HOS covers you posted. They are BOTH very EC-ish. And you know me, I am really diggin' these bronze horror books but my true undying love has always been with the time honored and respected ECs. All other anthology horror books just follow in their footsteps. Regarding the title change idea, doesn't matter to me either way. I don't pay attention to each individual post's title anyway. Just show me the scans and I'm set. So POV, I see Shiver and Sterling as the Bronze Horror gurus and you as the Pre-code Horror guru. Now that you are into both, care to explain the differences and give the plusses and minuses to each genre? Thanks-----Sid

Butt, I like that idea but it is always a little dicey when selling or trading raw books with specific "CGC style" grading. I certainly wouldn't want to sell or trade a book that I called a 9.4 when there is a chance the other guy might call it a 9.2. And these days there is such a difference in market value. -----Sid

I'm just happy that this mega-thread has stayed positive with true lovers of these books. This has gotta be my favorite thread. Haven't posted much here but sure been watchin'. You guys have really educated me and helped create my interest in these books. Now they are my focus. -----Sid

Thanks to the Guru of Bronze Horror, Mr. Shivering Bones for one heckuva' nice copy of GSX #1 along with fast secure shipping and a nice TPB bonus. -----Sid

Thanks to Mr. Shiver Bones for some great ASM books that looked ever better than described, super-fast shipping and nice bonuses as well. ----Sid

If anyone is interested I just posted several cheap low grade Bronze reader lots in Marketplace. -----Sid

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That's why it pays to go to the big and small cons and look through the 25 cent and one dollar boxes. These are the places that sellers do bother to carry these currently "cheapo" books. Either that or in large lots that people are selling on Ebay. I think it is well worth it to buy a lot of maybe 50 to 100 books if there are maybe 5-10 that you actually need. Pick out your copies and resell the rest in smaller quantities. Often this method can allow the comics you pulled out to keep to pay for themselves. In related news, just think about all those dollar box Predator/Aliens comics that we used to always see. Pretty soon you'll see these things coming out into the limelight and temporarily at least they will rocket in price for the better issues. Hell, I've already got three slabbed and waiting for the hype to begin. ----Sid

Ya' know, with all the generosity being shown on these boards regarding Joanna's plight, maybe we should start another donation cup for Sterling so that he can at least keep his favorite books. Sterling, good luck with your situation and let us fellow bronze horror dudes know if we can do anything to help you keep some of your treasures. -----Sid

Giant Drac This is one of my favorite Marvel covers. I love the purple mixed in with blue and red. Very expressive "horror mixed with romance".

Kinda' Cool

HOM 231

HOM 200

HOS 105

Witching #13