ttfitz

I'm a fan of Roy's writing over the years, but am greatly disappointed about this. I recently was reading Green Lantern 174, and thought when I read it that this would be good to post here as the thoughts of a different editor - but I knew it was when I realized who the editor was. Yeah, Len Wein.

I see you have disdained tradition and spelled it "grammar" rather than "grammer"

Week 5 of Troy's 100 Back Issue a Week Challenge, and it has been completed! So, this week I read: Adventure Comics 391-393 Batman - Legends of the Dark Knight 19-23, 37-54 Checked my collection and realized I had read the first 36 issues when it first came out, so I skipped ahead. Green Lantern 119-163 Some great writers on this run (Wolfman, Barr, others), not always at their best, though, IMO. But one noteworthy thing - first published work by one of my favorites, Kurt Busiek! Starman 54-80, 1million Finished off this excellent series, recommended. Sandman Vol 7 4 The search for continues! Well, that's it, another 100 issues down this week, and the madness comes to an end. Back to a more reasonable pace for the rest of the year. This brings me to 800 read for the year.

Big GrimJack fan, one of my favorite books all time. Don't think I've gotten to this one, though, waiting on my daughter to get caught up. So, good stuff?

Week 4 of Troy's 100 Back Issue a Week Challenge ended successfully on Saturday, but I hadn't had time to post an update, so this is short and sweet. This week I read: Starman 28-53 Power of Shazam 35-36 (crossover with Starman) Green Lantern 90-118 Brave and the Bold 190-196 Batman - Legends of the Dark Knight 1-18 Batman - Shadow of the Bat 1-15 Sandman Vol 7 1-3 Nothing much to say, beyond Sandman being a delight as always. So, as they say near the end of the Kentucky Derby, and down the stretch they go! Only one week left, and I can get back to my life! Total for the year now reaches 700 read.

Week 3 of Troy's 100 Back Issue a Week Challenge Busy keeping up the pace, so another brief update. This past week I read the following: Brave and the Bold 174-189 Batman 325-342 Green Lantern 60-89 Starman (1994) 0-27 Sandman Vol 6 A few different time periods covered in this week, as well as picking up again with my entire family reading Sandman. One point of note, for me anyway, was the first published work by a favorite of mine from the 70s/80s, Elliot S! Maggin. Also, the word for the week is "serendipity" coming to us via a minor spoiler for Starman. Over the course of reading Brave and the Bold, Batman time travels via hypnosis (ah, those fun 60s and 70s plots!) to the Civil War, and teams up with Scalphunter, a character I was completely unfamiliar with. Later on, as I am reading Starman, the Shade refers to a long ago sheriff in Opal City who was "a white man raised in an indian tribe." I said to myself, "Self, could this be Scalphunter that he's talking about?" And yes, it was! Kinda strange, but fun at the same time. Okay, so that brings me up to 600 issues for the year. Two more weeks to go in the Challenge. See you next week.

Continuing with Troy's 100 Back Issue a Week Challenge, finished off Week 2. 100 comics in a week takes a bit of time, so this will be brief: Batman 301-324 Detective Comics 477-480 Brave and the Bold 149-173 Green Lantern 22-59 Adventure Comics 381-389 Just continued from where I left off last week with the Batman and Green Lantern titles, added in a few of Supergirl (debut in 1959 - 65th anniversary) run in Adventure Comics. Yearly total - 500 issues See you next week!

I really like the clearbags.com ones. Occasionally there will be one that splits, but not very often. Like you, I like the Silver Age size, and my only complaint about clearbags is their biggest one is 7 1/8" rather than 7¼. They are also OPP material, listed as 1.6 mil but they feel as thick to me as ones listed as 2 mil - and frankly, I've had problems lately with bags claiming to be thicker than they end up being (easy to tell if you buy in quantities of 1000).

If you are talking about the bags from clearbags.com, I've gotten some and really like them.

Sorry to hear about your cat. Pet deaths are hard - one of our dogs died in November last year; he could be very annoying and would often snap at me if he was sitting by my wife and I came around, and I still miss him a lot.

Yeah, this was excellent, even if I didn't like the (expected) ending.

It's been a while, and I'm woefully behind my goals. This will be a two-part update, first we have the standard day by day reading. FCBD Flash Gordon #0 Flash Gordon #1 A pretty good revival of the old character, interested to see where this is going. The Nice House on the Lake 1-12 I've been reading and enjoying Something Is Killing the Children and The House of Slaughter, but I had missed this when it came out. When I saw the new book in the solicitations and realized this was a title from James Tynion IV, I said to myself, "Self, you should check this out." And after I read a couple issues, I said to my daughter, "Daughter, you really should check this out." And we were both blown away, wow, this book was so good! So I say to all of you, "All of you, you really should check this out." Alan Scott Green Lantern 1-6 Another of the Golden Age characters, this wasn't bad, but I think I liked the Sandman one better. Still worth a read for fans. 007 James Bond (2015) 1-12 Warren Ellis' portrayal of the agent from Her Majesty's Secret Service, and like most of Mr Ellis' work, it's pretty good. The Road to Perdition I've finished up the currently reprinted Ms Tree stories, so to get my Max Allen Collins fix, I moved to this graphic novel. Based in part on a true story, and the source material for the movie by the same name. MAC is always good for a crime story, and this is no exception. Cemetery Beach 1-7 Remember what I said above about Warren Ellis? Well, this isn't it. I mean, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great. Just okay. 007 James Bond (2023) 1-6 Moving on from Ellis, alphabetically it was on to Garth Ennis and his interpretation of Bond. James Bond. Sorry. Anyway, we are on to His Majesty's Secret Service, but still the same ole James, getting himself into trouble. Ennis does a fine job on this one, but really, what do we expect? Norse Mythology III 1-6 Telling tales that have been around for hundreds of years can't be easy to make new, but except for maybe Walter Simonson, I don't think anyone could do as good a job with the assignment as Neil Gaiman. As much fun as the previous volumes. Superman '78 1-6 This was just okay. Princess Leia 1-5 Keeping with my earlier practice of using his name as an adjective, this wasn't really as Waid as a lot of his work, but it was a good book from Mark Waid. Liked it but didn't love it. FCBD Stories from the Atlas Library Some fun stuff from this reprint book, if you can find it you should check it out. From the World of Minor Threats: Fastest Way Down 1-4 I've been enjoying these miniseries from Patton Oswald, and this was no exception, although I think I liked the others better. Now, Part 2. If you have been following my posts in these threads over the past few years, you will remember that the manager of my local comic shop has something called Troy's 100 Back Issue a Week Challenge. The rules are pretty simple - over the course of 5 weeks, each week you are challenged to read 100 back issues (defined as more than a year old) of your choosing. Starting last Sunday and going on thru the end of August, I will be attempting the Challenge. As I have done on a number of occasions, I have decided to read books where the main character(s) are celebrating an "evenly divisible by 5" anniversary of their start. So, for week one we have the following: Batman 272-300 Detective Comics 455-476 Brave and the Bold 124-148 From his beginnings in Detective Comics #27 in 1939, I couldn't pass up this chance to do some reading on Batman's 85th anniversary. I had read earlier issues from my collection 5 years ago on the 80th anniversary, so that's where I started this time. This would be mid-to-late 70s, and like most DC's from that time frame, there were some classics - There is No Hope in Crime Alley! - and some clunkers. But mostly a fun bit of nostalgia, some that I'd read before, some that were new. Showcase 22-24 Green Lantern 1-21 The Silver Age Green Lantern made his debut in 1959, so this was high on my list for this year's Challenge. A lot of the classic lore began in these books, and it's been fun seeing how they develop. So, looks like 73 issues before the Challenge started (I counted The Road to Perdition as 6), plus 100 for week one brings us to a yearly total of.... 400 issues for the year. See you next week with more of The Batman, Green Lantern, and probably Supergirl. Perhaps other newer stuff, who knows?

Try Invincible. I preferred that. Reading back thru this thread to make a list of the stuff I've previously read, and I came across this, so I thought I'd say if you've been following my posts in the more recent threads, you know my daughter and I have done just that, and you were right, great book.

I agree. I mean, the green "qualified" label means "if it wasn't for X, it would be this grade", so if it's still a 0.5 either way, it really doesn't make sense.

Not that my opinion matters much, since I don't collect slabbed books, but I think the most important consideration would be things you couldn't see on your own. So interior would be a big one for me - I look to buy books in the 2.0-6.0 range, and a lot of time I'll see a grade that seems rather low for how it looks to me, and I always wonder if I'm missing something or if there is something wrong on the interior that isn't noted.

One store I used to shop at (no longer around) would occasionally get books in that I was interested in but was over my price. I had a good relationship with them, and I'd say, "Look, that's a decent price, I know it is, but way more than I can offer. If it's still here months from now and you'd give me a ridiculous discount to get rid of it, just let me know." Didn't get a lot of books that way, but I got enough. I think they appreciated that I knew they were being fair.

I would agree, although it's not an absolute for me, as I will put the books back in the right place if we can't make a deal. Hard for me to know in advance whether I even need to ask for a discount (if the book is in my price range, I'd probably not ask).

The page doesn't seem to be from this.

It's threads like these that make me glad I don't collect high grade books.

You don't say where this was, but if it was eBay or a site that works similarly, there is a possible explanation which would be less nefarious. Let's say for example, your "hidden" bid was $1073.32, and the bid increment - at that level - was $100. If someone placed a later bid than you for a quite normal $1000, you having the earlier higher bid, would win, even though you didn't bid more than the next bid increment from the underbidder.

Button humped, politics!

Just one will definitely be runny, needs to be at least a 3-minute.

I know you are just cracking a yoke, which is eggsactly what this board needs.

Ugghhhh! You'd think Gerber or any business would know and understand their customer base. Here Gerber carved out a leading market share with their premium backing boards and maintained it for 35+ years selling to a customer base of those with OCD. (If they didn't have OCD, they wouldn't be collecting old comics now would they?) And by their very nature OCD individuals don't like change. So what does the "brain trust" at Gerber do? They change the product which is a move sure to annoy/anger their OCD customer base. Just thought I would point out, since you said you were using halfbacks, that the halfbacks are still white on both sides.