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.

Dang, I saw this morning that the guy on ebay with the 9.8 lowered the BIN to $249. I debated about buying but had to leave before digging into it further, though I figured someone would snag it. I like that book but wasn't sure I liked it that much. Sure enough it sold within a couple hours after that. Now I have snoozer-loser remorse. Ah, well. My LCS has the whole run in good shape minus 15, so I can still get a fix if I need it.

I'm back and forth on this. I understand your arguement. Heck, it's perfectly logical - demand is high for collectors and readers. The only way you can read it is to buy the issues. On the other hand, I think the prices tend to keep people from buying it and seeing how wonderful it truly is (like that cheap-arse Andy ). Once the trades are available and people can read the story on the cheap, they may want to assemble the run and drive prices even higher. I think there's a pretty good track record for the real top-notch work to hold and often increase in value once reprinted. While there is a segment of the market that would be content with a trade or Absolute-style big hardback (please oh please), I think a big reason why prices aren't higher than they are is due to lack of exposure people have to the books. You can find the first few issues pretty easily, but the series really doesn't take off until after that. I think that of the segment whose first complete reading will be in TPB form, there will be a large percentage who say,"Now I see what all the fuss is about, I want the original issues," and then there could be an upswing. If new books ever come out, and they tie into the originals, new key issues, 1st apps, etc., could become more sought after.

Gaiman did a signing here in town Monday night and someone asked about Mircaleman. Apparently, the court battles aren't over due to a bankruptcy proceding (I don't know of who), and they ordered that nothing could be reprinted, or new product created or anything until its resolved. So this'll probably keep things status quo (and prices strong) for some time to come. Gaiman did say he wanted to write more MM stories, though, so maybe sometime in the second term of the Rodham-Clinton administration we'll see something.

I'm looking forward to giving this book another try. Something about it turns me off, but I keep an open mind to things. I remember flipping through the first issue when it came out but didn't buy it. I got the first 4-issue trade, but it didn't grab me. The street talk hit too many false notes, but I like the marked-bullet idea. Other people have told me it really takes off in the teens, and I want to give it another chance sooner or later. The good news is that if I like it I get to read 60 issues at once all with that "new discovery" glow.

I've been waiting to finish some projects but I hope to get into some Fiction House books later this year. While the comics and stories are less impressive than the covers, the covers are usually awesome. I like Planet Comics best, being a sci-fi fan, but I'm into all of them. The CGC email newsletter this month has an article on Wings, coincidentally.

In 8th grade I took the new "X-Men/Teen Titans" to school with me, carrying it along with my books in a plastic grocery bag. Riding my bike home, it I was letting the bag swing at my side. Taking a curve, the bag leaned into my spokes and it got "lightly" shredded. Also in 8th grade, I took my X-Men #135 to school so a friend could read it. He showed it to another friend. Then when the first friend tried to take it back, the second friend wouldn't let go. A tug-o-war ensued, and it got ripped down the cover and the first couple pages. I was compensated for it ($5) but I still haven't replaced it. It'd cost a bit more now.

When I was a kid I wrote a letter to The Flash, my favorite book. It wasn't printed, but I did get a large postcard-type thing back saying "thanks for writing" showing superheroes reading a letter. Around 1993 I wrote a toungue-in-cheek letter to Dave Sim asking for statistics on Eric Lindros, as I had recently moved to Texas and getting info on hockey was difficult. He never answered or printed it. Then last year I wrote to Sim again the day Cerebus #300 was due to come out. He wrote back personally as promised in the book and answered a couple questions I had, so I know he actually did read it. That letter was the capper to my Cerebus collection, though I still need a t-shirt or two, and an original page, and a gold #0. I was reading some older books recently and came across a letter signed "The Mad Maple" who of course became TM Maple and had over 500 letters printed. Sounds like maybe an article or something to track down TM Maple, Kent Phenis, and those other guys who seemed to have every letter printed.

TMNT was a fun book at the time. Frank Miller had made a huge splash with Ronin, which now is overshadowed by Dark Knight, but at the time was seen as a really big leap forward for comic art, with all the graphic "Millerisms" in full force, the use of the full-page bleeds and such. If you haven't read it, check it out. My favorite part is actually to make a close comparison of the double-page cityscape spreads as the "living" building evolves over the series. Anyway, TMNT was a pure Ronin homage when it started. Ninjas were very hot at the time (thanks in no small part to FM), and stylistically, there was so much cross-hatching and solid black on the page it was sometimes hard to see what was going on. But it sold out it's first print run. Then it's second and third, etc., and by the time the 80s were over many original fans (like me) were completely turned off by the...CARTOON...it had become. Six-year-olds were running around calling each names of Renaissance painters while karate-chopping them, there were videogames, Kevin Eastman and/or Peter Laird was married to Julie Strain and driving the Batmobile, it was all a bit much for a Frank Miller homage. But we have our memories. The original "one-issue micro-series," the Fugitoid, the magazine-size issues so hard to keep in good shape. I remember back around 1990 when I heard that first print #1s were selling for $100. I thought it was totally illogical. I couldn't think that serious collectors took the book $100-seriously, and the kids who would want it couldn't afford $100 for a comic. Anyway, lesson learned. BTW, I have a 2nd print #1, first prints of 2-4, plus "Raphael" and "Fugitoid." Haven't read them in years, but maybe I will tonight.