Brock

Not me, brother - though for the life of me, I can't remember why. I'm well-stocked with OO copies of "sure things" from the same time frame like Void Indigo, Sisterhood of Steel, Timespirits, etc. I missed my chance to get rich a couple of years back when Crash Ryan got hot for 5 minutes, and I didn't liquidate. I'm not sure why I would have passed on Coyote, but I did.

The last part of the week was busier than the weekend for me, but there was lots getting snapped up. My Blue Beetle books went first, but I also sold ROM 31 & 32 (Rogue), Iron Man Annual 5 (Killmonger), some modern Transformers, some modern Shazam!, some JSC Spider-Mans, a Godzilla 1, Micronauts 8, Omaha the Cat Dancer, and even a run of Last of the Viking Heroes. Sorry, not all moderns, I know, but there was action across the board...

oh, YOU were the one!

That may be my favourite series ever...

Comics have been so many sizes since they were introduced 100+ years ago, that being biased towards one size makes no sense. Think about someone who would say “I don’t want that Action #1 because it’s too big. I only collect issues that are the size I’ve been able to buy since about 1968.” Or Imagine a coin collector who says, “That’s not a coin, because it’s big. I won’t collect it.” As I always say, “comic books” are about content, not platform.

Then there's this example of the very scarce digests that Whitman published a bit later in the 1970s. There were a number of these, but I'm not aware of any catalogue or list identifying them all. They are very slightly larger in dimensions than the typical Gold Key, Archie or DC digest books. I am only aware of Disney digests, though there may well have been others. This The Wonderful World of Disney #2, published in 1978. Again, we can see this is produced by Whitman Golden Ltd. in Cambridge. There's also a statement in the indicia that talks about "Western Publishing Inc., of which Whitman Golden Limited is a registered user."

THere's some obscure (and unexplained) Whitman/Western content before the weekend... Happy Friday! Many of us have noted that Western had some kind of weird "subsidiary" operation (for lack of a better term) based in Cambridge, Ontario. Western itself was based in Racine, Wisconsin. For those not familiar with Canadian geography, Cambridge is about 175 miles northeast of Detroit, not too far from Toronto. Some speculate that around 1980, Western's US distribution system "imploded" (again, for lack of a better term), but that its Canadian operation remained viable. This would help explain why the 8-12/1980 Gold Key Whitmans and the Whitman DC "Big 8" are both incredibly rare, and most often found in Canada. I have not been able to find a lot of verifiable data about this subject, but I thought it might be fun to look at a few other oddities of this cross-border arrangement. Here's a couple of photos of a copy of Au dela du réel ("The Outer Limits") #43. Ironically, although this is a French-language reprint for an Outer Limits comic, it actually is a reprint of Gold Key's Twilight Zone #43, likely due to cross-border licensing issues. We can see that this book was produced for "Whitman Golden Ltd." in Galt, Ontario in 1972. Galt was later absorbed into the City of Cambridge. If nothing else, this shows us that Western - using a combination of the Gold Key logo, and the Whitman and Golden names - was publishing content specific to Canada as early as about 1970.

pssst... Free Trade, dude.

These all bring back memories... I had a goal of collecting every appearance of the New X-Men. Back then, that might have been 200 books - now, it would probably be 20,000. I remember going through Fantaco's X-Men Chronicles in 1982 to make a full list. Back then, the tough books were thing like The Uncanny X-Men at the State Fair of Texas, which was a whopping $15 in the guides, and incredibly hard to find for me in Canada. Flash forward 40 years, and its probably worth less than I paid back then...

I have most of them raw (though not all of them), but in terms of slabbed issues, I have a copy of Action 508 (CGC 9.0) and a copy of Justice League #179 (CGC 9.8). Both are top of the census. I'm always looking to purchase more books in CGC 8.0 or better, and I have plenty of raw copies to trade!

And here are today's arrivals, courtesy of a seller in Columbus, OH. One step closer (or three, I guess)! The #256 is CGC's highest at 9.0, while the #253 is CGC's second highest at 8.5. I'm about 1/3 of the way to a full set of DC Whitmans in CGC 8.0 or higher now.

I think that @bellrules and @Warlord are your best bets for info on this, though I don't know if anyone has a complete list yet.

Yes, I just had a message from your LCS, and it’s the 7.5.

That’s what I love about this thread... Nobody gets caught up in the “I think I’m right so you must be wrong” game, and we all just share the scarce, cool books we’re finding.

First appearance of Lobo

It gets worse... No LCS in my area is carrying the Bad Idea books, so I contacted the closest one (about an hour away) about a year ago to set up a standing order. My work takes me to that community regularly, so I could stop by for regular pickups; I also offered to provide a a credit card if they wanted to take immediate payment from me as books arrived. After multiple e-mails and a voicemail, I never got a reply from the store. So... From my perspective, Bad Idea limited their distributor network at the outset. Then they spent money promoting the small number of shops that could carry their books, but never vetted them for performance. After that small number of shops placed their orders, Bad Idea underprinted their books, and will ship fewer books than requested. It’s either a cynical ploy to manipulate the market, or the most poorly organized launch ever.

I have a hierarchy of these things in my mind, in terms of how seriously I take these previews. You mileage may vary, but starting with the most important for me, they are: Full and original preview story (e.g. DC Comics Presents #26/New Teen Titans) First cameo appearance (e.g. Incredible Hulk #180/Wolverine) Multi-page preview of story content to be fully published in an actual first appearance (e.g. Tech Jacket #1/Invincible) Preview promo content in an in-house publication (e.g. Marvel Previews #95/Miles Morales) Preview content in an external publication (e.g. Amazing Heroes #45/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) Single cover image or character image in in-house promo ad (e.g. Daredevil #115/Wolverine) As a collector (someone who buys and reads stories and books they love), I will buy often from categories #1 and #2. As an investor (someone who hopes that their collection has some future resale value), I may occasionally buy from categories further down the list, particularly from #3. As a speculator or flipper (in my case, someone who sells comics to buy more comics), I will buy from all six categories if I can turn the book over fairly quickly at a profit.

It seems to me that a better model is to buy the books at 50 cents, group them in lots of 5 or 6, and sell them for $25 to $30. This reduces the listing/processing time and investment, while reducing the shipping cost per book (making the overall price more attractive to the buyer).

This was a great series, though IIRC the DC issues were reprints of an earlier indie title.

I suspect I'm a bit older (), but I remember a similar experience with Splinter of the Mind's Eye when it was released in February of 1978. Keep in mind, this was sandwiched in between Jaxxon the giant green rabbit of Marvel's first Star Wars issues (November, 1977?) and the dancing Wookies of the Star Wars Holiday Special (November, 1978). The idea that we could have relatively sophisticated original content between movies was mindblowing.

I do to. Is ComicalGems still buying?

Do you have a picture?

Canadian cover price is $1.50 (2 x 75 cents), so some are packaged for the Canadian market.

This is pretty fascinating... It suggests a couple things to me: It's more proof that, by 1982, Whitman was inserting direct editions into its bags. This is exactly what the "fat diamonds are not Whitmans" crowd is asserting for the 1977-1979 period. So the question really boils down to whether Whitman or Marvel changed their practices around 1980 or not. This is yet another weird and wonderful product from Whitman's mysterious Canadian division, based in Cambridge, Ontario. I note the bag is sealed... is there an original price on it anywhere? Since this is the direct edition, I'm wondering whether the price reflects the Canadian 75c price, or the US 60c price. If it's not priced, it could suggest that the pack was intended for distribution on both sides of the border. Does anyone know when printing of comics shifted from Sparta, Illinois to Montreal, Quebec? I'm thinking out loud here, but that might help explain how Whitman distribution might have shifted to Canada.

I've never seen one either... Since #8 had a 40 cent cover, and #11 had a 50 cent cover (and #10 was never published?), this would fall into the same period of confusion and timeframe as the price variants that @bellrules mentioned. Somehow, this seems typical of this era of Whitman, and (to me at least) just adds to the desirability...