Brock

FREE THE CAPS!

So, I don't know how seriously to take this, but I just got off a chat with an eBay representative. I listed a couple of issues of Dr. Strange the other day, and just noticed that I had been charged $4.52 for a "bold listing". Apparently (according to my eBay rep) this is because I used more than one capital letter. Here are screen caps of the part of the conversation about this issue:

I’m in Canada, and we’re just about to make the transition (at least, I’m being told I have to - it could be a staggered rollout). However, eBay linked me to a video that suggested buyers could make payment to their new system in lots of different ways, including PayPal. What am I missing?

I have to say, I’ve never met a kid who read comics on a tablet. Do they exist? it seems to me that this Is like e-mail or text messages (or message boards) - a technology that is used by old people who imagine that young people use it too. It could be possible, though, that the kid who is interested in Black Panther goes to YouTube and watches a video that tells him about an early appearance in a floppy, and then he seeks out the story in that format.

My kids are Gen Z (14 and 16 now), and they love comics - but they have no interest in Marvel or DC except for the movies. My 14-year-old daughter likes Dark Horse's Stranger Things series, and the occasional Archie book. She collects anything and everything by Raina Telgemeier (though she thought the X-Men book was dumb), and has recently been trying YA graphic novels like Sheets and Delicates. My 16-year-old son loves old Gold Key books, especially Super Goof and Tom & Jerry, and collections of Bone and Mouse Guard. Some of the Gen Z kids will likely be lifelong comic readers, but their interest in floppies is minimal, and if nostalgia kicks in in 25 years, their "keys" will be nothing like ours. I also recently sold some old Sugar & Spike books to a prominent comic book writer on ebay, who told me they were favourites of his 6-year old son.

DC: HardCORE Station Aircel: HardKORR No wonder they say there's nothing new under the sun...

I understand what you mean, but while he was the artist on Wonder Woman up to #24, he was the writer up to #62.

I don’t find Gore Shriek often, but they always sell well online, even for mid grade copies.

I've been wrestling through this all morning, as I post some new listings. It appears to lump every single comic listing on ebay into a single category, and the "item specifics" will do little to assist. It's clearly designed by someone who has no understanding of the comic marketplace. It would be interesting to reach out with input and advice, but there really isn't a place on ebay that this can be done...

I learned more about Navajo pottery from that newsletter than any other comic book newsletter ever.

Technically, the answer is “the ability to use it to pay your taxes.”

If ever you needed proof that “the market” is insane, this is it. Why Canadian price variants command a premium but UK ones don’t is practically the textbook definition of market irrationality.

Once again, the unstoppable “You can use logic” meets the immovable “You can’t prove a negative”.

I will organize a group of boardies to storm the Bastille and free you if you run into problems.

That’s one of those things I never really noticed before, but I’ll never unsee now.

If I'm correct, that is also a first, but will ship on April 21.

A flea market buy today:

Well, a raw copy sold on ebay last Sunday for $889.00 - from that perspective, I suppose this makes more sense.

Here are today's new arrivals. Action #495, Flash #275 and Justice League #169 are all the highest copies of those books on the census, while Flash #278 is the 2nd highest. It's worth noting that the Justice League issue is not noted by CGC as a Whitman edition - technically, there are no copies of this book on the census. CGC seems to have a real quality control issue with DC Whitmans. Based on my own experience, I would suggest that about 15% of these books are mislabelled, either not noting them as Whitman editions, or assigning them an incorrect issue number.

It seems likely... The Grand Comics Database is fuzzy on this one, and lists everything as "later printings", as is mycomicshop.com, which lists only "Reprints" generically, stating they will have either a $1.25 or a $1.50 cover. However, comicspriceguide.com has more detailed lists and photos (though these are only the covers, and not the indicia) suggesting 7 printings of each issue, with some clues for identifying them, and with the suggestion that the $1.50 cover price appears with the 5th print. I have some $1.50 copies of #1, #2 and #3 currently listed on eBay, where I've identified them as 7th prints. In looking at the indicia, there is no printing notation - it seems to be copied from printing to printing without much change. When the price jumped from $1.00 to $1.25, it looks like someone changed the price per issue and the annual subscription costs by hand in the indicia with a pen. When the price jumped to $1.50, they didn't bother to update it again. To me, this is all consistent with the Pinis running WaRP Graphics from their apartment... I could be wrong, but it seems to me that when something sold out, they just printed it again, with limited documentation around subsequent print history. Who knew that 40 years later, this approach could be turned into a business model for Bad Idea...

When I was about 13 and first starting to really collect, I was a New X-Men completionist... I wanted every appearance, but my knowledge was limited. One day, I was looking through the bins of a rather unscrupulous dealer, and found an Iron Fist comic. I was sure that the X-Men had appeared in an issue of Iron Fist, but I couldn’t remember which one. I took it to the dealer, and asked if I could open it to check. He said no, but assured me that it was the X-Men issue, so I bought it for the enormous sum of $7.50. When I got home, I opened the book up, only to find that it had no X-Men appearance in it. Now, I’ll never know for sure whether that dealer was lying to me, or if he simply made a mistake, but rather than finding Iron Fist #15 with its X-Men appearance, I had found Marvel Premiere #15 with the first appearance of Iron Fist. And as disappointed as I may have been that day, today the book is worth many multiples of what I thought I was buying.

I'm not sure this is entirely accurate, though I may be nitpicking. I believe that Elfquest #2's 2nd, 3rd and 4th printings were all priced $1.25, and the $1.50 price began with the 5th printing. Elfquest #3's pricing works the same way - that is $1.25 for the 2nd, 3rd and 4th printings, and $1.50 beginning with the 5th. Elfquest #1 and #4 also follow this pattern. I believe there are 7 printings of each.

I don’t think it’s been mentioned here yet, but Machine Man #7 is picking up. It’s the first appearance of the Power Broker, with connections to Falcon and Winter Soldier.

So... the crux of your argument is that Warner Bros. has warehouses of old Pepe Le Pew merchandise, and is using an army of 3rd party sellers to somehow boost corporate profits?

They were fan-voted annual comic awards given in the UK. They were a reasonably big deal for a few years.