FFB

I know it's somewhat poor form to respond to one's own post, but just to add one comment on this point. I am already seeing certain goofy "influencer" clowns on YouTube speculating that the Universal Label 10 and 9.9s will "sell for a record price" now that CGC isn't giving out blue labels for these books any more. While I would hope that the collecting community is too smart for that, my 40+ years in this hobby tells me otherwise. And when it happens, it's going to create yet another can of worms and scads of YouTube videos and posts about how the books just should have been removed from the census. Better to nip it in the bud now. Just my 2 cents.

Mike, are you guys going to recall the existing Universal label graded copies? I understand that you can't answer this question on your own volition, but since it seems to be the biggest unanswered question remaining (aside from the "how did 10 submissions get 1 10 and 3 9.9s," which I know won't get answered and I don't think anyone really expects CGC to answer), perhaps you could ask the higher ups what is going to be done with these. If you can't recall them because you don't know where they are or who owns them, the next best thing is to remove them from the census and issue a notice that whoever has the books should send them back in for Qualified grades and new serial numbers, which will appear in the census. I look forward to your response in a few weeks.

Yeah, Meta and Buzz need to take this elsewhere. This adds nothing to the discussion and is completely

But that was the whole problem with the bootleg books in the first place. If Marvel gives its approval to a project, then it's an authorized release and is no longer a bootleg. I'm not sure what your problem is with this. Marvel can do whatever they want with their IP.

I don't think that's what's going on here.

No, it means that it's still copyright infringement but now Marvel is going to make it very clear that this specific thing isn't allowed. It's like what DrunkWooky said about 100 pages ago, when he commented that he enjoys reading contracts that have odd clauses in them, and imagining what misfortune caused that clause to have been inserted in the first place.

Not me, I quit Facebook years ago.

It was on page 8.

Yeah, I'm happy to see that Leifeld recognizes the obvious illegality of the bootleg acetate books, but boy is he going to feel dumb when he sees CGC Mike's comment that CGC agreed to this only because they understood exactly what the book was ahead of time. Right? I didn't imagine that part, did I? It was a lot of pages ago.

Unless it's a different Kris Moore, Kris Moore is an old school CGC boardie. I met Creig Flessel because of Kris Moore. And someone needs to tell Rob Leifeld that Kris Moore appears to be correct.

It's like an influencer civil war.

I really enjoyed your interpretation of the acetate cover. I think you put even more thought into it than the artist did.

They only priced it that way after they knew that they had CGC on board with the 9.9s and the 10. No one would have bought this for $85/100 unless they were thinking, "Bro! Acetates can get 9.9s!" Even if they didn't get a 9.9, they knew they had a shot at it and probably wouldn't get lower than 9.8.

Yeah, this was a lazy effort to sell through some unsold garbage. How they got CGC to agree to this astounds me, but I doubt that the "legendary" Clayton Crane put more thought into this "let's get.our money back" project than he did when he drew the full cover art that didn't sell out the first time.

You know what? You're right. I was too focused on the fact that it made the list in the first place before it dropped. Why and how did that happen? Kudos to them for calling an ugly book what it is. "bleh. Make it stop."

Those guys are clearly in cahoots with BF and CC. That book was on that list before the book was even released.

How about you name names and provide particulars? This is a huge grenade to throw out without specifics.

They deserve every bit of scorn they are getting. I hope Marvel pulls both of their cards for this. No more work for Crain and no more exclusives for Black Flag.

I'm not assuming they didn't make anything, but you can bet that this weekend isn't going to do the numbers they thought or even close to it. I highly doubt they sold all or even a major fraction of the two remaining acetate books, and if they did, those books are going to hit the market like a lead balloon for the resellers. These are the most reviled books on the market right now and most people would be ashamed to own them at this point unless they are completely out of touch. A week ago, they were the hottest thing going and now they're hiding behind their booth and giving away dum-dums.

I'll bet it was at least $25K for that booth, just from what I know similar booths sell for elsewhere. That guy must be sweating bullets. It's probably why he finally came out to start huckstering the rest of his inventory even though he knew people were gunning for him.

Does anyone know what they paid for that huge booth? The Black Flag guy was whining about how much money he had tied up in acetates and exclusives in that long video he made. Add in the cost of a huge booth and this weekend probably isn't going the way he expected.

Seeing nothing but crickets at the Black Flag booth restores my faith in my fellow collectors.

The problem with that is that all of their unsold books are Image/independent books and they can do whatever they want with those and call them "approved" editions. And no matter how silly it would be, it would still be legitimate in my mind because THEY ARE THE PUBLISHER. It's not a bootleg, unless you're talking about Leifeld selling some of the lame Marvel stuff he did when he came back, but I doubt he's sitting on unsold stacks of those that he needs to move.

How come you cropped the photo at upper right? Put the whole thing on an acetate and it would sell out immediately!

Yeah, he got the flag wrong in two different ways and he couldn't even get the "In God We Trust" motto correct. If it was artistic license, it strikes me as about as creative and innovative as Piero Manzoni's infamous "cans" of you-know-what.