Jaylam

Sorry to say, I don't own any of the Showcase Flash books.

To move the conversation beyond age and gender demographics, is interest in the hobby spreading and expanding across racial and ethnic groups as well?

Similar to this topic, my daughter's fiancé's brother is a big Batman fan. He's in his mid 20's and has some Batman graphic novels and more recent Batman related stuff, but since he found out I'm into comic books, was asking what older Batman comics he could get for reasonable prices as he would like to get some nice copies of a few books that are at least pre-1980's. So the market is out there among the younger set, it's just the buying power is not there yet, at least for pricier, key stuff, but they are starting to show interest in the old stuff and beginning to search things out and get a feel for what they can afford. (I recommended early 70's Neal Adam's material as some of it is still affordable and of excellent quality of course).

This is what I was wondering. The true litmus test is what are dealers and shop owners seeing as their clientele?

Most young people today probably don't have the sentimental attachment that older generations have, however, I have noticed at conventions (pre-pandemic), there were a fair number of young people, and to my surprise maybe even more females than males, looking for one or two books in particular. I ran into one girl that looked to be about 20 really scouring dealer after dealer for a decent raw copy of X-Men #101 (first Phoenix). I finally asked her what was so special to her about X-Men #101, and she simply said, "because Phoenix is my favorite character from the X-Men movies and I want a copy of her first appearance". So we might be able to say that the super-hero movies of the last 20 years have at least had some effect keeping the hobby going, but the younger set may have a narrower focus as I witnessed with this girl.

Got back my #151 that I picked up from Heritage last December. I thought this was a nicer copy than the #140 that got a 9.4 recently, however, I was concerned how a little 1/16" tear and a barely there tiny crease on the bottom edge of the back cover would affect it. Well, that must be what dinged its grade as that is the only thing mentioned in the grader notes. Too bad, as it looks like a near perfect copy other than that.

Posted this in the Flash threat earlier, but since it a white pager too...

And here I thought I was the only who had a garage that looked like that, whew!

I just discovered that James Bama, the artist who painted most all of the box art of those Aurora monster kits, passed away last month on Apr. 24, he was 95. He was a prolific artist, also known for his work on the Doc Savage paperbacks and Western themes. Alex Ross has attributed James Bama as being an inspiration for his work. I never saw any news releases about it and just came across it on Wiki as I was looking him up thanks to reading this thread. I found this interesting video about his art on those model kits. The Art of the AURORA Monsters - 1960's & 1970's. - Bing video

If it was higher grade it might have gotten a green "Qualified" label for that detached cover. I'm not sure what the break off is to still get a blue label. I had a 6.5 blue label with a cover detachment, but also had a 9.2 with the same problem and it got the green label.

It is now up on "mycomicshop.com" for $685. I checked the grader notes and it say the cover is detached at the top staple. I wondered what was holding it back as it looks nicer than your average 7.0.

I always thought this cover was cool with the "Hook" white out in the foreground. Creates a great contrast with the dark green background and Deadman.

Some have speculated it's Stan Lee, I don't think it looks anything like Stan Lee from that era.

@D84, @Betty-Bates In another thread I posted this observation concerning books released back in June 1962: The comics market was much more diversified back in those days. Superheroes were in the minority by far. Looking at the MikesAmazingWorld Newsstand listings for that month, I counted 13 different titles published by Archie Comics that month. War, Westerns, Cartoons, Romance, TV shows and Movies; the genres were all over the place. I counted 21 non-Archie Romance titles. In spite of comic books being regarded as a nerdy guy's medium, at least back in 1962, the proportion of titles directed at a female audience crossing many age groups tells a different story. Comics were obviously being read by a wide and varied audience and I knew more than a few females that were Spider-Man fans even in the 1990's. More recently, a girl down the street who was friends with my daughter was an Avengers fan and was shocked to find I was big into comic books when she was over one day playing games with my daughter. I showed her my collection and as a gesture to acknowledge and celebrate her interest, I gave her one of my graded Avengers from my original personal collection (I believe it was issue #109).

So many choices and so many stand out. No one could capture emotion and perspective like Neal. Also, I think some of his work on Superboy covers gets overlooked, but these two have always stood out to me. Mr. Cipher there in #150 kind of reminds me of a Sentinel and the raw emotion in #164 pulls you right into the horrific tragedy of the scene.

That's about what the last 9.0 went for, but that's been a few years now. For an 8.0, that's a record price that beat the old record by $840. Wow!

Update:

Being sold by My Comic Shop. I don't see it as a sold listing on ebay's site, and I don't see it on My Comic Shop's site either, just on ebay, which is kind of strange because whatever they have listed on ebay you can also find on their site (for a lot less than their ebay price).

Oddly, Wertham did not go after Archie comics with all their innuendo and double entendre on full display but sexualized content from other publishers he could not let pass.

Buy the book, not the headlights.

Yes sir, there are a lot of books that I'd like to have from this collection, but alas, at least to me, money is an object.

Grader notes say the cover has light multiple creases and tears which you can see along the bottom edge and around the lower spine of the front cover in the image. From my experience, I doubt the book could get a higher grade with those defects.

There's this Flash #139 up on Heritage Auctions this week. It's already been bid up to about $400 over the last 4 or 5 auction sales that I could find in grade and there's still 2 days left. Sheesh, you just can't touch anything at decent price anymore.