ttfitz

It's been a long time since I've bought any oil stocks - but my wife worked for ExxonMobil for 17 years, so we've got stock from her time there which has been pretty good for us.

Ahem.

Nor I. But I also wouldn't be surprised to receive an assessment letter saying I owed $6. That letter likely wouldn't come until 2026 when the low level admin gets around to sending it but it will come. Well, if you got a 1099k and if you then didn't include that information on your return, then yeah, maybe you'll get such a letter. But I'd say the likelihood of getting a letter if you did report it - and reported that your cost basis was higher than the reported amount - is pretty low.

Seems nuts to pay $500 for a book, sell it for $500 and be expected to pay taxes on that. There was no profit. That's right, there's no profit, so there is no tax. I think when Sharon says "expenses" she isn't talking about the cost of the book, but other things like storage, office space, etc. If you aren't a business, you can't deduct those things - and if you have a loss on one item, it can't offset a profit on another. But other direct costs of the item, yeah, those aren't taxable income. From the IRS website (https://www.irs.gov/businesses/what-to-do-with-form-1099-k): Gross payment amount (Box 1a) The gross payment amount shows the total value of payments you received through payment card and third party network transactions. The gross payment amount isn't adjusted for any: Fees Credits Refunds Shipping Cash equivalents Discounts These items are not taxable income. You can deduct them from the gross amount. Check your records.

I had a reply ready, but then remembered that English wasn't your first language, so it might be a translation thing. In the usual English vernacular "a sure thing" when used in regards to something with a financial component means "it will definitely go right". So in that regard, spending $1k or more on ANY comic, raw or slabbed, is probably not "a sure thing." Now, if you meant do people do it, sure - if you know what you are doing (ie can accurately assess the proper grade, identify whether the book is restored or not, etc) you can get a good deal, and even then submit it for grading to increase the resale value. Like @Dr. Balls I don't buy comics as investments, so I haven't - but if there was a raw book I wanted for my collection that was priced fairly and I thought I could afford it, sure I'd spend that much on a raw. Probably would prefer it, actually, I'm not much of a fan of slabs in my collection.

Hmmm, I'm not sure it even tells us that. Once again, it shows percentages, and within the particular genre. So, let's do an extremely simplified hypothetical - let's say there are 100 reviews for "philosophy" books, and 10 for "Historical romance." From the chart, that means there were around 61 male reviewers (approximately 60 for philosophy and 1 for historical romance) and 49 female reviewers. I would agree that, given the heavy weighting towards genres where women reviewers predominate, it suggests that women probably review more than men. Assuming I found the right study that this came from, if we want to look at this in regards comic readers, there is actually something I found rather interesting listed in the abstract: "There are known gender differences in book preferences in terms of both genre and author gender but their extent and causes are not well understood. It is unclear whether reader preferences for author genders occur within any or all genres and whether readers evaluate books differently based on author genders within specific genres. This article exploits a major source of informal book reviews, the Goodreads.com website, to assess the influence of reader and author genders on book evaluations within genres. It uses a quantitative analysis of 201,560 books and their reviews, focusing on the top 50 user-specified genres. The results show strong gender differences in the ratings given by reviewers to books within genres, such as female reviewers rating contemporary romance more highly, with males preferring short stories. For most common book genres, reviewers give higher ratings to books authored by their own gender, confirming that gender bias is not confined to the literary elite. The main exception is the comic book, for which male reviewers prefer female authors, despite their scarcity. A word frequency analysis suggested that authors wrote, and reviewers valued, gendered aspects of books within a genre. For example, relationships and romance were disproportionately mentioned by women in mystery and fantasy novels. These results show that, perhaps for the first time, it is possible to get large scale evidence about the reception of books by typical readers, if they post reviews online."

As noted, the chart is about reviewers, not readers, and as a user of GoodReads, I'm not sure it is a good proxy. Further, the chart shows percentages, not numbers; that is, it shows than among those reviewers of philosophy titles, 60% are male, and 40% are female. So it really doesn't tell us anything about the subject line of this thread (at most comic books were reviewed by men more heavily than anything besides philosophy), nor how many men or women read/reviewed a particular genre. Signed, Captain Math, with an assist by The Pedantic Kid

Well, it's been over 50 years, and I was just a wee one, but I think it was more like this one:

When I was little, I wanted a Mickey Mouse gumball machine for Christmas. When I got it, I was very excited - my folks loved to tell how I would put in a coin, and say "Thanks for the gumball, Mickey!" Ah, the power of advertisement!

Happy to do so... what's the format it should adhere to? Can't say for the entire period that was mentioned, but the last 3 or 4 years I've taken part the thread title was "1000 books in 20xx"

Previous total of 52, time for the February update.... Murder Inc Jagger Rose #1-6 Third series from Brian Michael Bendis of an alternate universe where the Mob takes over the country. Decent read, a bunch of twists are turns along the way - who said there was honor among thieves? Descender #17-32 Finishing up this series from last month, looking forward to reading the sequel series, whose name escapes me at the moment. House of Slaughter #16-20 Book of Slaughter Book of Butcher Something is Killing the Children #31-35 Thought I'd group these all together, as they are part of the same overall story. House of Slaughter was okay for this storyline - better than some, worse than others. Book of Slaughter/Book of Butcher gave some pretty good background on the whole Order of St George, which was good, while leaving some questions ("to be continued" it says) which will keep me guessing. and Something is Killing the Children FINALLY finished off the storyline! Man, that was annoying. But a very good one, too. Invincible #91-102 What can I say that hasn't been said before? Very, very good as always. Gun Honey Heat Seeker #1-4 Bought this thinking it was more Gun Honey stuff, but ended up being "from the world of" type story. Still a fun read, a little more twisty than the previous ones, which I enjoyed. And I see a new series being solicited this month! Star Trek: Year 5 #20-25 Finally circled back around and finished off this series. Had a little trouble remembering what was going on from before since it's been a little while, but still a decent finish to the "Five year mission." The Madness #1-6 A recent series from the three letter man himself, J. Michael Straczynski aka JMS aka Joe. Good story, but what do you expect, it's Joe! Joe Fixit #1-5 No, not that Joe. Never been much of a Hulk fan, but it's Peter David, so I gave it a whorl. Not bad, not bad at all. Black Summer #0-7 It's Warren Ellis, so it's a little bit dark, a little bit twisted, and as usual, a lot good. Didn't care for the art at times, it was very ... busy I guess is the right word. Had trouble telling what was going on at times. But still worth the read. If I've done the math right, I'm up to 127 for the year. Still behind schedule...

I feel you, brotha. Perhaps we can convince @rlextherobot to change the title to match?

If you enjoy time travel stories, I would recommend Papergirls, by Brian K. Vaughn. Really, really good, and I think he did an excellent job of tying up all the loose ends.

Read this one last year when I was on a JMS tear, and I would agree, didn't really seem much Watchmen-esque at all. A good read, though.

Not in the least - I am just pointing out that each slabbed comic is unique, and thus not a matter of "mass production." Some principles of mass production are most certainly used, but that alone doesn't make it mass production - I mean, you kinda undercut your own argument in your prior paragraphs: You can't tell me that Lamborghini's don't involve some "principles of mass production." Let's say you have a 3.0 Amazing Fantasy #15 that you send in to CGC for grading. Will you be happy if they send you back just any 3.0 Amazing Fantasy #15, or would you insist on getting back your 3.0 copy? If the products aren't largely interchangeable, they aren't mass production. And, once again, the actual physical slab is only a portion of what you are paying for, it is the service of providing a grade; the slab is just a means to an end.

Sure, but "standardized products" isn't.

[all emphasis mine] "Mass production, also known as flow production or continuous production, is the production of substantial amounts of standardized products in a constant flow, including and especially on assembly lines." - Wikipedia "Mass production is the manufacturing of large quantities of standardized products, often using assembly lines or automation technology. Mass production facilitates the efficient production of a large number of similar products." Investopedia "Mass production, application of the principles of specialization, division of labour, and standardization of parts to the manufacture of goods. Such manufacturing processes attain high rates of output at low unit cost, with lower costs expected as volume rises. Mass production methods are based on two general principles: (1) the division and specialization of human labour and (2) the use of tools, machinery, and other equipment, usually automated, in the production of standard, interchangeable parts and products." Britannica "mass production noun: production of goods in considerable quantities usually by machinery" Merriam-Webster When they start putting out slabs without certification numbers then maybe they fit the definition of "mass production." Otherwise it's not even close.

Well, indirectly it probably is.

Just read the TPB collection with this issue, and I liked how it was done as a reversed perspective on Issue #1.

Somewhere around here I've got a copy of Youngblood #1 with all the word balloons whited out. At the time it came out, I was active on Compuserve's Comics and Animation Forum, and someone opined that most of us could write a better version of that book. I thought that was a fine idea, and thought I'd give it a try. Pretty sure I lost interest in the idea before I got past erasing his words.

Rob's response: Funny, I thought of that exact thing while watching the video with his "5 things different" defense.

Well, no, I simply meant that both Cable and Deadpool had writers that were also involved in their introduction. The link you provided even said the same in regards to Deadpool, "Deadpool was created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza in the early 90s, while Deathstroke has been around since 1980. When Liefeld sent his co-creator his first designs of Deadpool, Nicieza replied “This is Deathstroke from the Teen Titans.”" In the case of Cable, the writer was Louise Simonson.

I don't know why you are complaining, you made out like a bandit!

Co-created.

I wouldn't argue with that as the reality of the situation, just whether it is a good thing. I think it's a rather terrible thing, but I'm not their target audience (I've never submitted anything, and only buy a slabbed book when it meets my own standards and is at the price I'd pay for a raw), so they probably don't really care about the perspective of a person like me. Well, I guess I would argue a bit with the bolded part - some portion of their service is sold by the value of the book being graded, right? Which I always thought held the potential for abuse there, as it is in their best interest to give a high grade as they can then charge more.