Brock

I went for the Saturday… it was fun, but I spent way less than I planned. I wasn’t impressed with a lot of what was on offer, but to each their own. I did find some fun stuff at the “Ottawa Comic Cooperative” booth, where they had some more unique books. Overall, I noticed a lot of “repricing” for the show. One prominent dealer had taken all the $3 bins from his store, and set them out as $5 bins at the show. Another had unpriced CGC moderns, and when I inquired about pricing, he showed me some eBay asking prices on his phone to justify prices at about double GPA. I get that dealers have to recoup their table and travel costs, but this makes me feel like it’s not worth going to the show for buying books - I’m better off just visiting dealers in their shops. I talked to one dealer today who said they sold a lot of comics Friday, but the sales focus shifted to toys and Funko Pops on Saturday and Sunday.

I’d agree with this, except that I think Fables also - eventually - became a bit repetitive. It’s the Star Wars problem… what grand stories do you tell after the Empire is defeated?

I'm currently enjoying Amongst Our Weapons by Ben Aaronovitch, the latest Rivers of London/Peter Grant novel.

There have been large numbers of these scam sites on eBay for well over a year. “Super Collector” is just the latest label, but there have been a number of similar listings under other names. I have always assumed that it is the same party behind these efforts, operating under a sequence of different usernames. I see 10 or 15 of these a day on eBay, all dangling bargain prices on key issues, which means the actual number of these listings must be pretty substantial. To me, it’s pretty transparent, and I’m surprised that anyone gets taken in. Having said that, the obvious nature of the scam makes me wonder why eBay can’t stop these listings more easily. For example, every listing has a subtitle driving viewers to an external URL. This is an obvious violation of eBay policy (which should be a red flag to any would be purchasers), but also makes it really easy to spot which listings are the scam ones for eBay.

And Atari Force

Some of his work for Valiant on Britannia, an under-appreciated series about a criminal investigator in Roman Britain:

I’ve never understood why - in an age where Michael Turner art gets recycled and tweaked by publishers all the time - some of this classic Stevens art is not “redeveloped” for new covers. Even if the publishers don’t do it, why don’t stores for their exclusives? The Stevens estate is active and easy to find - they even sell on eBay - so it seems straightforward. To be fair, Jetpack Comics did some amazing Stevens exclusive covers years ago on some Rocketeer issues, but why not others?

Sorry… just assumed you thought it was subscription based like GPA. I’m not sure why it wasn’t showing up for you, then. @OtherEric has you covered!

The census is open to anyone.

Nice fish…

I'm reading Robert Kaplan's Adriatic. I'm a big Kaplan fan - he's usually an excellent mix of history, strategy and geopolitics. In this instance, though, he's writing a sort of literary history of the Adriatic region, and portraying it as the cultural birthplace of a new European identity. I've spent a fair bit of time in the region, and his argument isn't always convincing. Overall, the book is OK, but not up to his usual standard.

I'll agree with that... seeing the little Lulu in its slab after the last round looked like a different book.

I think a single book can be helpful, as it always has the possibility that it signals an emerging trend. A few months ago, I flagged Adam Hughes’ Scandal #1 (Thorby Comics) here when a copy sold for more than $200, and took some heat for it (it’s a a one off, it will never sell for that prices again, it’s an outlier, etc.). But the copies available since have all gone for much more… I’m sure there are times I’ve been wrong on some of these, but it seems to me that the real value in this thread is being ahead of the curve, not trailing behind.

Depends on the issue, I guess… this ran until 1995.

Lots of attention on the McFarlane Marvel Tales covers reprinting Spider-man issues, but it looks like the Adam Hughes covers of X-Men reprints in X-Men Classic might also be starting to climb... a 9.8 copy of #79 just went for a little over $200. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/CGC-9-8-X-Men-Classic-79-Adam-Hughes-Cover-/165440112215?_trksid=p2047675.m43663.l10137&nordt=true&rt=nc&orig_cvip=true

Think we could fool anyone?

I think this is all of them, but I could be wrong:

Anyone else remember these?

My guess (and this is pure speculation) is that it was printed as part of the larger run, but with the intention of capturing additional sales through discount stores. My OO copies were purchased c. 1980 at a Canadian discount retailer called "Bargain Harold's" (maybe somewhat akin to Five Below in the US today). As far as I know, only the Star Trek books were part of this - I've never seen such editions of the other Golden Press books. Interestingly enough, Bargain Harold's also carried Modern Comics 2-packs, and discounted editions of Dynabrite comics. As an aside, I recall $1.95 being the going price for new paperbacks at the time... Hardcover books were an astronomical $4.95.

There are some very rare variants of these with a black bar printed over the price. You pictured the Lassie book as well, but there are a few other of these, including (IIRC) Questar, Mickey Mouse Club, Walt Disney Christmas, Ripley’s, and 3 different UFO books.

I’m in, please.

Check out the toxic thread in Comis General… it’s approaching 20 pages worth of your life you’ll never get back.

I remember ancient history, back in the olden days before 2021, when we always cautioned each other not to sell in the stagnant, quiet market bracketed by the Christmas shopping season and the the last few days before the arrival of tax refunds.

I remember as a kid growing up in southern Ontario in the mid 1970s that I had a few books that were MJ variants… I would have bought them locally - maybe used bookstores? - but at 7 or 8, I was not hanging out in American PX shops. they were also common enough that I didn’t find it weird that they were in my books…