Brock

This one came from an antique mall... I've never seen it before, and Overstreet calls it scarce. No recent listings on ebay that I can see, either...

Is it possible that’s just sampling bias? If you live in the Chicagoland area, it seems to me that that’s the place you’re most likely to find them... Kind of like automobile accidents- you’re more likely to have an accident within 5 miles of your home, because - of all the many, many places you may Drive - that’s the one place you drive in most frequently.

I buy high grade Uncle Scrooge books... but only if i see them cheap. There are lots a Duck collectors, and their numbers swell overseas, but in my experience they’re run collectors and completionists who read their comics, so condition may be less of a priority. They are generally well-informed, and are looking to fill a few specific holes, rather than make a bulk purchase. just my two cents...

It’s all a bit vague, isn’t it? In earlier posts in this thread, we’ve established that we’re using a (rough) 1982-1992 timeline. We’re not looking at variants or the highest priced books, but those books that are the “keys” that help define or shape the copper era.

Market Reports are usually due in December... I’ll definitely re-post the list before then for more input.

I feel much the same as the OP... while I still enjoy bin diving with the dollar books sometimes, a lot of cons seem to have precious little between the dollar bins and the nosebleed books. And increasingly, the nosebleed books are priced in silly ways. Recently, I was interested in picking up a Hawkman 4 (first Zatanna)... I saw a raw wall copy that a dealer called a 4.0, but which was probably a 2.0 or 2.5, and they wouldn’t move from the $400 price (“because it’s a hot book”). Sometimes, it seems that a lot of cons are just a way to part the ill-informed from their money. I still go to cons and enjoy them, but I find I spend precious little money. That gets spent on ebay, or on a few specific dealers who have the kinds of things I collect (like Doug Sulipa, who always amazes). However, I have started to look for what might be called “recent obscurities” - things like 75c Whitman variants, or DCU variants. This gives me the chance to hunt for fun, with books that are generally cheap, but sometimes truly difficult. It helps make the con shopping experience more enjoyable.

As promised, I am posting the revised list that has appeared in the latest Overstreet Guide(see page 117). Thanks for all of your input and help with this - I think you'll see that several of the changes suggested here have been made! Here's the new version of the list: Albedo #2 Amazing Spider-Man #238, #252, #298, #300, #316 Archie's Girls Betty and Veronica #320 Batman #357, #404, #428 Batman: The Dark Knight Returns #1 Batman: The Killing Joke Bone #1 Caliber Presents #1 Comico Primer #2 Crisis on Infinite Earths #7 The Crow #1 Daredevil #181 DC Comics Presents #47 Evil Ernie #1 G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #1, #21 Harbinger #1 Incredible Hulk #271, #340 Marvel Graphic Novel #4 Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #8 Miracleman #15 New Mutants #87, #98 Punisher (limited series) #1 Sandman #1, #8 Spectacular Spider-Man #64 Silver Surfer #34 Spawn #1 Suicide Squad #1 Superman #75 Swamp Thing #21, #37 Tales of the New Teen Titans #44 Thor #337 Transformers #1 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #1 Uncanny X-Men #221, #266 Warrior (UK Magazine) #1 Watchmen #1 Wolverine (limited series) #1 X-Factor #6

Just to circle back here, it looks like the did take my advice on this, and Marvel Age now appears in the Guide (it's on page 814 this year). They break out the following issues as "key" or noteworthy: 1, 10 (Star Wars), 12 (Black Costume), 16 (New Mutants), 25 (Rocket Raccoon), 38 (Masters of the Universe), 41 (Stan Lee), 76 (She-Hulk), 90 (McFarlane Spider-Man), 91 (Thanos), 97 (Darkhawk), 99 (Black Panther) and 138 (Cable & Deadpool).

It wasn’t a stupid question ... just an opportunity for everyone to have some fun. i remember as a kid being so excited to learn that Stan Lee and Larry Lieber were brothers. And there have been lots of others... the Romitas, the Days, the Buscemas, the Kuberts, and - as you rightly mention - the Adams’.

I remember seeing a magazine cover once years ago (National Enquirer?) that said Bill Cosby and Mikhaïl Gorbachev were 63rd cousins. Not as closely related as Jack Curtiss and Curt Davis, though...

Don’t stop there... Amy Adams, Bryan Adams, Ansel Adams, President John Adams. Maybe even the Addams Family? Google also won’t confirm that THEY’RE related... but if they are, it’s definitely the proof that kitten-eating lizard people rule the earth. But though Google draws a blank, Wikipedia tells me that Adams is the 39th most common surname in the USA... Of course, even if there isn’t an Adams branch of the lizard family tree, how do we explain the Lees (Stan, Jim, Jae, etc.)?

And then asked for a refund of your fees, since - out of the package - it’s worth much, much less.

I was in Poland earlier this week... you had better luck finding something than I did. I spotted a Donald Duck on the newsstand, but not much else. I’ve been in the Czech Republic since Thursday, where comics are more visible, but I haven’t had a chance to visit any shops... Hopefully next time!

B&B was always my favourite title that I never collected... if I had an extra quarter, it was always my first buy.

Just my opinion here, but I'm #1 on the CGC registry for DC Whitmans, FWIW... my suspicion is that you would not get substantially more for this book by having it graded than you would for the raw version. in either case, you're likely in the $400-$500 range, IMHO. Others may disagree...

That's an outstanding copy for a Platinum book. Nice!

Marvel, of course, did it because the real Human Fly had it on his costume... and he had a rocket-powered motorcycle for some of his stunts, so perhaps that's the original reason for wearing a rocket belt?

I loved Hitman, and count it among my favourite series of all time. Brilliantly and subversively funny, with a genuine 60-issue story arc. Although the tone and content are very different, it ranks (in my mind) with books like Gaiman's Sandman, Robinson's Starman and Vaughn's Y: The Last Man as an outstanding example of long-form comics storytelling. It was definitely a cult hit, but a hit nonetheless...

I have to admit that I'm not really buying this outrage/argument. It does make me wonder if newsstands accused Marvel & DC of stabbing them in the back when they began to work with comic shops. i love LCSs. I visit dozens every year. But I'm a middle-aged guy who knows how they work, and that might just make me part of a a dying breed... Right now, publishers desperately need to sell more books to remain viable, and the whole variants/relaunches/crossover stuff in the traditional market has gone as far as it's capable of going. If we're brutally honest, the number of LCS owners or retailers that are aggressively GROWING their markets is pretty limited. There's a few out there (Brian Hibbs springs to mind), but they're scarce. Now, we can certainly blame the publishers for producing substandard work, or for using lousy business practices. We can blame Diamond for poor performance. But we also have to acknolwege that the TYPICAL LCS is not an innovative engine of growth for the marketplace. Of course, this is happening as SOME comics are selling literally millions of units in non-LCS venues - see Raina Telgemeier's books as the prime example. What rational, responsible publisher would hide from this kind of opportunity? You could relaunch Iron Man again and sell a hundred thousand copies, or revive the Creeper and sell rwenty five thousand copies... or, you could try to launch into a massive potential market that is already seems to be proven and is only available outside the LCS. It may be a shot in the dark, but after twenty five years of offering product more or less exclusively to LCSs, and seeing poor results, you have to admit that trying a new approach makes sense. We all love our LCS, but we cannot truly be surprised by this latest experiment.

Another small group of recent finds:

Adam Warlock?

And Alf 48 with the seal beneath that... It's like a "Where's Waldo" of comics.

It was one of my favourites as a kid. IIRC, it's a true story about a young girl who starts out in the Hitler Youth, but becomes a Christian and ends up joining the Resistance. Of course, it's been a loooooooong time since I actually read it. There are a few others that are still somewhat collectible... some of the Archie's do OK in high grade, and the Johnny Cash biocomic can do well at times. Overstreet on most of these is about $20, though not all are listed. I'm not sure what the basis is for that price, though... maybe 40 years of price bumps from the pricing algorithm.

I grew up with Spire comics... they were very positive and upbeat, and mostly fell into three categories: Archie stories with a religious bent Biographical stories of people like Johnny Cash and (Dallas Cowboys head coach) Tom Landry True Adventure stories about people smuggling Bibles into Communist Europe, or leading the resistance to the Nazis, or turning kids in street gangs away from a life of crime They were evangelical and overtly religious, but not fire and brimstone, end of days kind of stuff.

Only when it has a Mark Jeweler insert and a double cover. And is signed by Stan Lee...