FFB

I know this is an old thread, but I'm just seeing it for the first time. When I was a kid in the early 1980s, I got virtually all of my comics from "Marvel Multi-Mags" that were on the spinner rack at our local Stater Bros. supermarket. I am quite certain that the "Marvel Multi-Mags" multipacks were distributed by Curtis Circulation. Over the course of four or five years, I bought more than a hundred of these multipacks and still have quite a few of those books in my collection. Every single book in every single pack was a Curtis Circulation "newsstand" copy. Any other non-Marvel Multi-Mag multipack that I've seen had the early Marvel direct diamond price box. I've never seen a CC newsstand book in a non-Marvel Multi-Mag multipack. Skwerl, a belated thanks for your input on these topics. You've clearly done your research.

Peter, I remember seeing you post this years ago when Ian was looking for his copy (I think that's when it was, anyway). Any backstory you can share about when and where/how you wound up with this book? I'm not surprised it's the crown jewel of your collection. It takes my breath away just to look at a picture of it. I can only imagine how excited you must have been to hold it for the first time.

Congratulations on completing your New Adventure run, Peter! Looking forward to seeing the rest of the run and (hopefully) hearing a little more of the story about how tough it was to find the last one.

Ok, so that explains why it doesn't show up in GPA. What a crazy loss on that book.

When did that book sell for $2mm?

Ian, I think your details are a little fuzzy. "Someone coming forward at last" with the New Adventure 26 is not exactly how it went down. I located the book and told you about where it was in February 2005. You asked Harley to broker it for you and he finally secured the book for you in mid-2005, not 2004. All these years later, I am still very proud of the fact that I located the last book for your incredible collection.

I'm in.

Count me in.

The entire board is buffered, so you would be fine putting them front to back. It just looks weird.

He don't show his weaknesses! But you don't know that, cuz you a big Barry White looking MFer! Now get off my back, all right? Wish my Bes would hurry up and get here, I ain't got no time to be sittin' in this cell wit choo. Favorite comedy of all time.

Mr. M doesn't have to be the main driver of the film. He could be a supporting character who is included for comic relief. All I'm saying is that I haven't seen a superhero movie or show yet from James Gunn that wasn't great, Marvel or DC. I would be reluctant to insist that I know better than he does what can be a successful character in a film. Until he screws one up, I'm not going out on a limb to proclaim that they should just shut the whole thing down because Mr. M is in it.

I would agree with you, except that if anyone can pull it off, it's James Gunn.

Matt, I appreciate the reply and appreciate even more the herculean task you undertook to get this book published. While my review primarily focused on what I saw as the guide's shortcomings, I hope that it did not seem that I do not like or appreciate the book at all. I'm still glad I bought it and it does have some very good information. I just won't be using it as much as I use the Overstreet guide, because the Overstreet guide is a more useful tool right now for figuring out where a book falls on the scale. That said, if you would flesh out and organize the text sections at the beginning of each grade level and include 5 or 6 examples from each grade level in the next edition, it will make it a much more useful "grading guide" and I could see it being my go-to when grading books. I would even happily buy an "Expanded Edition" where you add more pictures and leave the rest of the guide as is. Take my money, please! Thanks again, Scott

I agree completely. This is why the Overstreet Grading Guide's method of showing multiple examples of different comics with different defects in each grade is so important and helpful. I would also really appreciate seeing the initial text that appears at the beginning of each grade level be expanded to two or three pages to better explain the basics of each grade level and to address and include the various "limiting defects" that cause a book to top out at a specific grade. Further, it would be helpful to include in this section the defects that no longer affect the grade (like distributor ink at VG+ 4.5 and below). The chart is helpful and should continue to be included at the very beginning of the grading section, but the guide would be better if there were clearer, better organized, written standards preceding the pictures showing examples of each grade. The same applies to the page color section - that section should be at the beginning of the grading section, not buried amid a bunch of other unrelated subjects. And fix the pictures for God sake. The bones of a great grading guide are here in the CGC Grading Guide. I just think that if CGC takes this feedback into account, the second edition will be the best grading guide available.

Last month, I was really excited to see that CGC had released a new grading guide. For many years, a big complaint from the hobby had been the fact that CGC did not publish its grading standards. Now, at last, the curtain would be pulled back and those grading standards would be revealed! Right? Well, not exactly. Those of you who know me know that I am a grading nerd. I'm a lawyer, so I am very rules-oriented. I've owned a copy of every edition of the Overstreet Grading Guide since it was a 100 point scale. My 2nd Edition got so worn out that I took it to my printer to comb bind the spine for me, as it was falling apart. I use my 6th edition copy just about every day. Although not perfect (the pictures are still too small even in the larger 6th edition), the Overstreet Grading Guide has been my go-to for grading since I first started using it all those years ago. But, as much as I love my OGG, I was ready to chuck it aside if CGC could publish a grading guide that was superior to the Overstreet guide. As soon as I could place an order, I jumped on the CGC store site and the book was on its way. After a couple/three weeks in transit, it finally arrived! I was so excited that I cut open the box and started devouring the book. My initial impression was one of excitement. This book is BIG. I mean Heritage catalog size. Pictures of comics are actual size. There is tons of information in this book, too. Information on pedigrees, restoration, common printing defects and other issues, and a list of every type of defect they could think of, with a description and a picture or two. Where the book is lacking, in my view, is in the actual explanation of clear grading standards, i.e., "What is allowed and not allowed in each grade?" One of the areas where I feel the Overstreet guide does a good job is that every level of the grading scale has a full page description of what is allowed and not allowed in each grade. This page of text is very well organized and succinct, and is followed by several pages of pictured examples of books that exhibit the type and quantity of defects that are allowed in the grade. In my view, this is what is most helpful in a grading guide, as "a picture is worth a thousand words," so the saying goes. The only downside to the Overstreet guide is that the pictures are not full size, so a lot of the defects are not shown clearly. But this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that many different examples of books at each grade level, with different types and numbers of defects, are shown. The CGC guide, on the other hand, uses only ONE example for each grade level - and in each case, it's a different copy of Incredible Hulk 181. All the way to Gem Mint 10.0, I might add, even though no Gem Mint 10.0 copy of Hulk 181 exists in the CGC census. So did the owner of this million dollar book just decide not to get it graded? Or is it not really a 10.0, but rather, a book that looks like a 10.0 in the picture? There are multiple problems with this "only one copy of the same book used in every grade" approach. First, it does not show how one grades a squarebound, which tends to have different defects than a saddle stitched book. Second, by using only one copy of one book to illustrate a grade, it does nothing to educate the reader about how different types and quantities of defects may be permitted at different grade levels, or what defects are acceptable in certain eras but not in others. Third, I'm sick of looking at Hulk 181 after a few pages. I spent good money on this thing - how about a little variety to spice up a pretty dense read? I'm not sure what the thinking was in doing things this way, but the result is that the CGC grading guide reads less like a grading guide and more like a bunch of different books on comic history, pedigree history, the history of CGC's labeling styles, restoration detection and quantification, international editions of comic books, and finally, at the end, a bit about grading. The actual grading section of the book is roughly 20% of the pages. The rest is everything else. It's all interesting reading. There's nothing wrong with having it in this book, or even better, in a different book. But what I was looking for, and did not get, was a grading guide that was at least as thorough as the Overstreet guide at going through multiple examples at each grade level to teach the reader visually what defects are allowed in which grade. Another gripe is that, although most of the pictures are good for what they are, the least valuable pictures in the whole book are the ones used to demonstrate page quality. They are too dark! Literally ALL of them are too dark. The white page picture is a muddied gray. So are the pictures of Off-White to White, Off-White, and Cream to Off-White. They are so dark that it's impossible to tell the difference between the levels of page quality. One final bit of constructive criticism is that it's not particularly well organized. If I had to use this as a grading guide, I would constantly be flipping back and forth between the grading levels in the index of grades and trying to find the couple of helpful charts that show what range of grades certain defects are allowed in, and the page quality section, which are not next to each other. I can't really see myself using this CGC Grading Guide on a regular basis. I might use it as occasional reference if I'm looking at the effect that a particular defect may have in the hands of a CGC grader, but this is, to me, the only real value in this book. It is by no means a grading guide in the way that the Overstreet guide is. Having said all of that, if this book were reworked to address these issues, I would happily buy a second edition. But if it is just a second edition with a single copy of Amazing Spider-Man 129 at each grade level, along with the same bunch of extraneous information on international editions, pedigrees, and other stuff that I don't care to have in a grading guide, I'll skip it. I know a lot of work went into this book, so I don't want to hurt feelings or come across as too harsh. It's just that this book was an opportunity to show "how to grade a book the CGC way," and on that, it falls well short of the mark.