Ze-man

Hey guys, I may be (VERY) late to the party but I wanted to first off wish Brittany a speedy, and FULL recovery! She has been nothing but a total sweetheart to me, and everyone I have ever seen her deal with at CGC. I once watched her at the CGC booth in Chicago working with an elderly couple who was wanting to sub a large amount of books. Needless to say, they were very naive to the entire grading process but Britt helped them through the entire, looooong process, and she never once became agitated, or frustrated at their constant confusion. I walked away very impressed with her work ethic, and bedside manner in such a busy time for the CGC booth. Anyhow, I am putting up a Signed Serigraph I bought off Nikos many, many years ago for Ellen. It has since come down off her walls..and I have several others to pass along to her, for her children's walls. So while its a hard for me to part with, if anybody here still has sentimental attachment to Art owned by Nikos, well here is your chance to own a piece. It's not really about what the art is worth, but who previously owned it(and to help Britt!) Asking $250, all going to Brittany.

That would explain why the room started clearing out.

Man how time flies, seems like just yesterday I had Ellen pulling names out of a bowl watching her try and pronounce "jiveturkeymofo" "flying doughnut" and saying "greggy is a dork!!"

This I am really sorry to hear about this. Sometimes people just suck. Our community isn't that big, the books will turn up on some level, somewhere, at some point. And then we stomp on the a holes who did this.

That was around 86-87? When you applied, he started?

And one of the great stories that I took away from this weekend besides the usual(friends, dinners, stories, comics, and drinks) Saturday at the Gibsons Dinner, Danielle brought several portfolios of OA. As people started making their way to assorted tables, I noticed a few people still at the bar. Danielle among them. She was sitting with a guy who(I found out later) was trying to see if he could guess the artist behind each piece of OA, I met this guy after dinner was over while talking with Win, and Joey....it was the Artist Stuart Sayger. We talked for a good long while about numerous subjects, we looked at the commissions Joey had Stuart previously do for him(amazing stuff) but, Stuart had to leave early because he still had some 4 commissions to work on before Sunday AM. I told Stuart I would look him up on Sunday as I always buy a few prints for my studio wall each year and I liked his take on Batman. So Sunday comes around(after a late night at some urban bump and grind dance bar?) I am walking the floor and found Stuarts table, he was of course busy w clients, wanting sketches etc. People finally cleared out and he looked up and said "hey!" , I said "hey!" He then started showing me stuff, a GREAT commission on his take of Jack the Ripper somebody asked him to do. As well as several other, we started talking in earnest about his art, my resto and a few similarities between the two mediums. He then asks me..(and follow me here) He says, "where you from?" I say, "Zionsville In." He says, "no sh@t, I'm from Indy" I'm like, "no way" He says "I went to Broad Ripple High School" I say, "I worked for a stained glass studio in Broad Ripple back in the early 90's" He says " I worked for a comic shop in Broad Ripple around then" I say, "Comic Carnival?" He says, "YES!!..the owner was... " And we both say "Mike!" at the same time. We talk for awhile about how funny it was after all these years to meet here. How he went from scruffy kid to changing how they listed their big books. Then he says, "I swear I remember you" I then proceed to tell him the story of how Mike, the owner, after asking me if I collected back issues.. handed me a long box of ratty SA comics because he noticed my age, and I was buying all the Image variant junk each week. Mike said "take these home, read them, smell them, see if you remember anything from your youth" Well I did, and that was it. I was of course hooked on Back issues. All thanks to Mike, who knew enough to push me in the right direction. And Stuart stood there grinning, looking at me and said "I was there that day, I remember him saying that" So there it is , my "it's a small world story" of the day. And the funny part is, that's only half the story of my meeting Stuart that day. The other half was equally amazing, and completely unexpected by Stuart. But even longer to type out!

I think it has a lot to do with Chicago being centrally located as well. Besides Oregon(?), is there any other Con that attracts so many of you.... umm... "up north" folk?

That was a highlight for me as well. It was a pretty funny double take moment on your part! But I think we actually introduced ourselves earlier in that conversation..it just didn't register w you until Danielle, said.."This IS Kenny... Ze-man " Your face...priceless. Was great talking with you, and trying to make sure that issue came out after the Pearl harbor attack.

I didn't see any of that crew until Sunday afternoon.. I unfortunately saw Greggy like 35 times, and Chromium only once.

I heard you tell customers more then once when they asked about a particular book not on the wall... "I actually have several copies, but they are in Fl.." I also saw a lot of people taking your business cards.

What he said, unless you worry that the loose pages will get further damaged by not being re attached/supported. Beautiful book.

So basically they took a moderate restored 27 with color touch around all edges, cut away the color touch and all underlying original paper, leaf cast out those areas and recolored them and trimmed them to simulate a basic size parameter. If that is correct the the 9.6 extensive, while certainly very visually appealing, is significantly less original than the 6.5 moderate. If one applies water to the 9.6 the leaf-cast area should fall away leaving a mangled edged book similar to the attachment. It should be worth significantly less. Thank you kindly for your comment Mr. Bedrock. Just to clarify, the 27 prior to our resto was a CGC 6.5 B-5. This means it was previously Extensive (and more/less Amateur). 5 is the maximum CGC designation for degree of resto. Previous resto had a form of irreversible mending around 75% of the book's interior cover perimeters. Irreversible meaning permanent, meaning not removable in water, meaning it had to be chiseled/scraped off. This mending caused decent warping in the book. In order to grade high, the book cannot cockle or warp and must be seamless. It was necessary to extract and re-cast using a slurry containing proper amounts of conservation grade additives to prevent shrinkage over time. Nobody likes shrinkage. Best, Matt I got the Resto notes on the 6.5 copy through CGC. All the applied restoration except for the "interior lightening" was given an "A" or Pro rating. There was piece fill to the top, middle and bottom spine, as well as the top and bottom corners of the front cover. The color touch was very likely acrylic which is accepted in the "A" rating. And while typically a bear to remove, especially if heavily applied. It is removable with chemical/solvent treatments. And yes, sometimes you just have to scrape it off. The luxury you have with GA covers is how thick they are, so even if the CT removal results in paper(or ink) loss, it usually can be contained to the side you are working on(in this case the interior cover)..and not result in major paper loss. Granted each book is different, so are removal results. It's almost never perfect, or pretty. Comic Books while not Historical documents are still very rare, and since Conservationists do not condone the removal of paper for aesthetic improvement on any level. Restoring comic books should be no different, try and preserve as much original material as possible even if it means the results suffer from it. Not lose original comic art as a direct result from the restorative process. So yeah, I am concerned with the intentional removal of paper where it apparently wasn't necessary in order to avoid a "hard edge" upon which to leaf cast. It's evident from the 6.5 scans that portions of front cover edges were not color touched at all, especially on the right edge. Which is what led me to believe your version was trimmed. Art was removed, and is still missing. This is what bothers me more then anything, if portions of the cover were lost either through Resto removal, or intentionally jagged as part of your leaf casting process. Then the art inherent to this specific copy should have been replaced/restored. It wasn't. You said that the cover is the exact size it should be. I disagree. I totally get that Resto removal can result in loss of paper, inks, art. I get that this book is an extensively restored item that had a lot of work done previously, and looks much better now. But at some point I hope your process is not causing damage, even if the incurred damage can be restored to a higher grade.

Don't look at me..first time I've logged on in a long time. I might be in trouble too.

Sorry, I don't want to come off as bashing the competition. But when I was sent these scans, I couldn't believe it.

This is key before jumping to conclusions. CGC 6.5 B-5 as a starting point. Have an image? If it was older resto it's very feasible that it could be improved. Adding enough CT will cover most flaws. Same book. Small circle in Bat's cowl dead giveaway. Oh it's the same book, and it's been trimmed. I am fine with redoing old resto..but this really, really bothers me.

but he has to have jokes often explained to him. he laughs after you get him to undrstand, tho'. Look, I didn't want to say this, but since you brought it up. When you tell jokes, you sound like some back in the Bayou Hill Billy. And I don't understand LSU speak, ok

Yes, good idea if CGC is willing to do it for you on their dime! Not sure if it is worth it if you have to pay for the new holder yourself. Especially since this should already be a known fact by most of the people bidding on this book. I remember unsuccessfully bidding on Pep 23 on 2 or 3 previous occasions years ago and in every case, it was clearly identified in the auction listings as being the 2nd appearance of Archie. And you should get some kind of no-prize award for your keen unsuccessful bidding efforts. (thumbs u

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Man, I gotta get you a better pic, I took that with my iphone before it was even pressed. It really does look nicer now, that exposed Medical tape was a sticky mess.

It's an "ok" book Bill. If you like classic cover GA books, in nice condition, with first appearances of totally awesome characters that is. Otherwise,

Just an FYI, that's my site, not Matt's. He gave me permission to post the article to my site. He posted it as Matt's, that means you get to finish the book now. I decided.

Moar covers please! Trevor loves looking at Peanut books. He even had the common sense to tell me you aren't supposed to play baseball inside! "That's an outside game Daddy"

It won't be sniffing my 12K regions. Well one never knows : this particular book is the poor man's tec 27 More like "moderately well-to-do man's" Tec 27. With a low grade copy such as this, there's always the potential to see bids from collectors who view this as their holy grail comic book, especially since Tec #27 is out of most people's price ranges. But no "poor man" is getting close to a Batman #1, the prices are exceedingly strong. I'm with you Wayne-Tec. This book could fetch more than it normally fetches because of the "out-of-reach" Tec 27 prices. (thumbs u Exactly how much has this book ramped up in the last 5 years? Because beat,no BC copies went for around 5 grand didn't they? Is it more just the past 1-2 years where prices went koo koo? Because this copy on Ebay has no BC, and appears like its going to break 10K easily.

For give me if this is a silly question but I just want to clarify. Is it okay for the comic to come into direct contact with the kitty litter? I was speaking more to the archival safe stuff! Not pee-be-gone kitty kat klump litter.

I have used both kitty liter, and this product. http://www.universityproducts.com/cart.php?m=product_list&c=1630&primary=1&parentId=&navTree[]=1262&navTree[]=1296&navTree[]=1630 With the latter working more effectively. Granted, it's more expensive. But I always felt weird telling people I was going to put their books in kitty litter. Only thing I would suggest is to do fewer comics at once. And even better, open the book at the centerfold(if possible). Laying it right on top of the material. This allows greater exposure to the material trying to pull odors out.