helionaut

The recent run of Magic The Gathering comics from IDW includes a MTG card sealed into each copy. So far the comics haven't made any impact as far as I can tell, but some of the cards have some player interest since they feature art different from the originals, and one thing MTGers love is alternate art cards (to "pimp" their decks). Standstill (Spell Thief #3) and Faithless Looting (MTG #1) are the leaders, and Electrolyze (MTG #4) are the cards people actually play with, and sell for more than cover price of the book itself. But it seems like none of the others are worthless, a couple bucks at least even if their regular versions sell for a nickel. The interesting thing I've found is that the comic with the card listed in the comic section might sell for cover, but listing it in the MTG section brings double that. And since you can play up to 4 copies of a card in your deck, playsets of 4 copies bring a small premium. Anyway, if you come across these books in a discount box, you might pick them up. that might not be easy, though, as I am seeing complete sealed sets of "Spell Thief" sell for up to $40, double cover.

Just read #5. Really opens e story up with concrete explanations of what's going on. It almost feels guilty being so direct. This series was good but took a huge jump for me.

My LCS is preselling a set of the 10 covers for #100 including the sketch. I rarely have ever bought special/multiple/variant covers, and this is pretty pricey, but this is pretty tempting. I have to pre-order this week, but what do you think prices on this will be at on release? On ebay they're preselling for around $300.

There you go. It figures that the page I most wanted, #15, is sold already.

Haven't read it yet, but Nick Pitarra was signing last night at Austin Books (I think he's a local guy). He had the original art for I think the first 3 issues and there was some great stuff in there. He was very nice and was doing head sketches on the covers for people who wanted them. Very personable guy and it was neat to hear stories of how it's going to go with Hickman and this book and particular. He said this would be an ongoing title, so hopefully it's good for the long haul. And I wish I had inquired about availability of the OA. Probably more than I wanted to spend, but should've asked. One thing he mentioned was a new guy named Aaron Kuder (http://aaronkuder.daportfolio.com/) who has the same look of being heavily influenced by Darrow and Quitely. His stuff looks even more detailed than Pitarra's, but not quite as maniacal as Darrow (as if). He said he's got a few things published from smaller houses, with a fill-in issue coming out soon from DC (Legion Lost #7, IIRC) and then he's going to be on a regular book TBA. Nick said Kuder is their go-to for a fill-ijn artist on MP if they need one, and if he's still available. It all looks good.

I've scooped up large quantities of books, and am probably one of the reasons why the shop I go to started to limit quantities (yes, I'll take these 15 copies of YTLM #1). One smart thing they stopped doing is putting a sign on limited books. The owner explained to me if you put a sign on a book, everyone buys it whether they were looking for it or not. If someone tries to buy 10 copies, they are quitely told they can't. But everyone who really wants one likely can get one. That seems fair and it's better to annoy the profit-scrounger than the 'true collectors.' I think about a book like Captain America #25, the death thereof. It got mainstream media attention, and when I got to the shop that week there was a line of at least a dozen people to check out at 6pm and they all had a copy of it. On the shelf, there was a sign stating 1 copy per customer. At that time, it was already selling on ebay for $20 or whatever, and the shop was selling it for cover price. Obviously, without a limit, one person could have walked in at 9 am, bought all 600 copies or whatever they had (this shop is well-capitalized and informed and very rarely gets caught flat-footed, especially on a high-profile item) and flipped them for huge profit. Who benefits? The one guy with $1800. Who gets annoyed, irritated, and speaks badly about the shop? The other 599 people with $3. Those 600 copies sold out, probably to a large number of people who only knew to buy it because it came up on their Google news page. And if they gained a couple regular customers from it, it was more than worth it for the shop.

Finally read the last issue. I have to say that while I enjoyed this series because we got to learn about more keys and backstory, it felt like it suffered from both story decompression and loose ends. The main thrust of the arc could've been wrapped up in probably 3-4 issues, except for the digression into Darnell's personal life and whatnot that I felt went nowhere. Although his boyfriend is so entirely mismatched to him there must be a reason. I dunno, I'm still completely hooked anyway. On the investment side, I bought 2 copies of V1 #1 off ebay last week for $2 each. They were listed as NM, and I was a little dubious but decided to risk it. They arrived today and one's solidly NM+ but the other has a bit of a crumpled corner, non-color-breaking. But they are both 1st prints. The books obviously not the quick $30 it was, but half cover-price is quite a deal for a nice one and a reader copy.

I haven't been following this thread or book closely for the last year or so, just buying, reading, and filing each issue. But now I see the book has officially exploded, $305 for a 9.6 Avatar #1, wow. So I dug this up in my Outlook Notes. While I went through my initial Goon frenzy I tracked ebay sales. Here's what they were went for in October of 2005. Just an interesting tidbit, I think, maybe not. The Goon #1 Avatar 6569980380 - 49.50 10/21 6569978203 - 69.95 10/21 6567360909 - 48.00 10/11 Albatross 6570251715 - 36.00 10/22 6569982610 - 56.55 10/21 6568370177 - 64.75 10/13 (1-4 + Color Special) 6567340948 - 14.76 10/11 (VF+) 6572083155 - 10/26 (VF/NM) The Goon #2 6570252079 - 26.06 10/22 DHP 157 6569517846 - 10.77 10/19 6569120626 - 10.92 10/16 Digital Webbing Presents 5 6569254127 - 66.25 10/18 CGC 9.8 6568605109 - 6.95 10/16

Nothing in the story. It was the issue right after the 8th trade which was the exciting ending of the huge prison arc. Since many people followed that story, they switched over to singles to pick up where the 8th trade left of. The number of regular issues put out stayed the same while the number of monthly readers increased. Therefore, demand on that issue bumped up while supply was the same as previous singles. The new 48-issue omnibus book came out a couple weeks ago, so users that weren't sucked in the first 5 years got a chance to get it all in one go and 49 becomes the target floppy again.

I wish these were mass-produced. Heinously expensive now. I had some time to kill in a comic shop last week and passed the time browsing a year and a half worth of Catwoman. Hughes' run of covers is wonderful, widely varied and intriguingly imaginative. I wonder if the actual comics are as good. I read Darwyn Cooke's start to the current series but dropped it afterwards. I never bought the idea of Batman giving her a pass.

In The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension, two hunters tracking the Black Lectroid's thermopod find a copy of Buckaroo Banzai, a comic prop apparently created by Marvel. -script faux pas: one hunter says,"It's the latest issue," when it clearly shows #1 in the price box. That always bugged me. He should say,"It's a #1," or,"I didn't know they were doing comics now," or something. Or else the issue number should've been something other than #1.

That could be something that I've wanted to do myself for a long time. When hippies were portrayed in comics in the 60s and 70s, they seemed to always be goofy or drug addicts or criminals. While this could be, and likely might be, simply X-Men recast as hippies, with strong writing they could infuse mutants with the kind of hippie ethics of "peace, love, and rock-and-roll" and changing the world by willing change. Super-heroes help people. Hippies want to help people, (yeah, I know, all they did was smoke dope and smell bad). No, nevermind, found a blurb on the story, no real hippies. Could be worth a look, though. And I'm sure a new round of action figures will be derived from it.

Just got my second page in last night: I was surprised, it actually has quite a bit of blue line on it. But I always liked this issue. "BLANKing inverted commas!" Starr rules.

Extraordinary book. If you get the trade and read it all in one sitting, it's really impressive. I love the successive double-page spreads of the corporation building growing and taking over the city. This is one book I'd love to see in a deluxe or Absolute edition.

With grading there are always some "ICantBelieveThat" because someone missed a wrinkle or something and it comes back with a very low grade. With baseball cards, a microscopic wrinkle on the back only visible under bright light at one exact angle can reduce an otherwise gem mint card to a 5. But also since card grading is cheaper than comics you see a lot of things graded that I think are funny, like 2003 Topps commons. Set building is very strong with cards, so you need the commons, too, but 2003 Topps is just about down at the bottom of least interesting sets ever, and in no way worth the $6 per card.