I was a part of the effort, but Matt did the lion's share of the work as far as the research and writing. Just got my copy today.
Did somebody say, "Catch-22?"
That's ALWAYS been the risk we enthusiasts run in sharing stuff we like with other collectors. I have always hoped that it would mean that comics would pop outta the woodwork because people'd recognize that high grade war comics had value. To some extent, that's been true, but unfortunately (for me), the vast majority of those that DID come available didn't make it into my hands. . .not that I'm complaining about what I already have. It's just that we comics collectors always want MORE, right?
Jamie Graham swears that in a conversation back in the 90s, he was disputing the logic of my willingness to share my interest in war comics in public forums because it jacked up the hype and in turn, the value. My response was that I hoped it WOULD jack up the value. He interpreted that statement at the time as me trying to capitalize on it. I think he thought that I had some designs on selling them eventually. It is entirely possible that I COULD eventually sell them, but that'd really happen only if our income had dried up and my family was destitute on the streets. Yes, I've occasionally flipped a few, but only to turn the cash immediately around in to more first string stuff. Few collectors have NOT taken that tack. I wish I had the luxury of NEVER doing that. Anyway, in subsequent conversations with him, I've tried to be more explicit about my intent. . .that an increase in value would pull the comics out of the woodwork.
Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, I think more HAVE come out of the woodwork, but few of those have made it in to my collection. So, while Jamie's impression of my design was off-base, his prediction for what would happen was right on the mark. So much stuff is now out of reach for me. . .I've been priced out of a large segment of my favorite genre.
So why continue along this trajectory by cooperating on an Overstreet article?
Because I figured it was going to happen with or without me at the end of the day. I viewed Matt as a person who genuinely wanted to approach it from an impassioned collector's POV and was going to do it right. It seemed to make more sense to work with a person who wanted to do justice to the genre than an Overstreet rep who wants to parse out the most valuable "keys." Matt was very systematic and deliberate about the process and my hat's off to him for being as careful as he was. To his credit, he constructed that top-20 list based on criteria that only included price as one of a NUMBER of different factors.
Anyway, wish I could say I had all the keys on that top-20 list. As it stands, there are HUNDREDS of comics that didn't make that list that I'd rather have in grade, so maybe folks'll concentrate all their efforts on those keys and leave the other worthless drek for me.
I can dream, can't I?
Cool story, i don't think War books will pop up that much more, as LCS hate to buy War books. Any books we might see will be at conventions, Jamie is bit better with his prices compared to Harley Yee. Is Matt a board member here?
