Jaydogrules

I'm sorry, what was I "wrong" about again? Was it the science that I explained quite thoroughly, and then echoed by October's post above ? Or am I "wrong" where you claimed I said things I didn't say? Rhetorical questions, of course. -J.

Actually I never said either of those things. In fact I literally just said (again) that foxing has nothing to do with "PQ" maybe two posts back, but yet it can (and does) affect the colour. And I also did not say that a book with foxing couldn't get higher grades. Did you read my post in context? If you had, you would have seen that was a direct reference to a hypothetical posed by namisgr earlier. -J.

Dust and sun shadows don't cause tanning halos. Not sometimes, not occasionally, not ever. Three completely separate things, with separate causes and separate appearances. Read a book yourself. Now I'm a "troll" because I point out that you quite literally posted something that said EXACTLY what I said three pages back? Something that, in your zeal to disagree, just seemingly for the sport of doing so, you called "nonsense", only to then post the same thing, evidently oblivious to that fact. To make things easy for you I bolded the relevant parts. And I'm the troll. You're a class act. -J.

Dust and sun shadows don't cause tanning halos. Not sometimes, not occasionally, not ever. Three completely separate things, with separate causes and separate appearances. Read a book yourself. Um excuse me. Did you even read what you just posted? Seriously dude. -J.

Science doesn't make sense to you ? But you're okay with a colloquialism like "toasty" as a perfectly fine description, even though it literally has nothing to do with either heat or fire. -J.

I used it describe ONE cause of "tanning". Also because foxing, which does NOT affect the actual "quality" (ie the integrity) of the paper (ie the lignin), and simply the colour (ie the visual appearance). This was in response to the myth that the "colour" of the paper is inextricably tied to the "quality" when it is certainly not. For a more detailed explanation just re-read my very detailed posts about it above. -J.

Oxidation or dust/sun shadows. Read a book. -J.

Here's where you say precisely what you just said you didn't say, while at the same time using your favourite (and just plain wrong) pejorative of "toasty" to denigrate a book you "wouldn't be a buyer" of. Or maybe I'm just making things up again. Crazy me. I get it, you don't know the difference between page "quality" and page "colour" nor do you understand the science behind paper degradation, and what it actually means, even as you purport to pay a "premium" for a random "PQ" designation on a label, that may or may not even represent the current condition of the book in the slab. You literally just don't know what you are talking about my man. I was very thorough in my details and explanations, and evidently you believe your ego and reputation on these boards means all you have to do is say "nuh-uh" while offering absolutely nothing substantive to back up your entirely wrong OPINIONS. But of course you won't do that even though a monkey could do a simple Google search and see that everything I posted is technically accurate. But don't stop believin' brother. Get that campfire going and tell me some more about how much more you know than me and everyone else, and let's listen to some more of your ill-informed and unsolicited critiques of other people's books. Meanwhile the more civilized of us will continue to abide the time honoured tradition of not saying anything at all if we don't have something nice to say that most of us learned in grade school. Anyway man, this conversation has run its course. Peace out. -J.

Ok Well if we are talking about that 8.0, no that doesn't look like a "bad press", it was just stapled slightly off center (not uncommon among AF 15's). No presser who isn't out of his mind would actually send a book like that back to a customer . -J.

Eh. Once again, you just described namisgr (and yourself, although to your credit, you do it slightly less often than you used to). I collect all manners of books with all manners of grades and "PQ" on the label. And if I do have an "agenda" it's only to offer a counter balance to such misinformed pejoratives as "toasty" that namisgr was repeatedly using to denigrate books that "he wouldn't buy". It got to the point where he simply needed to be corrected. And so I did. Hope that's okay with you. I honestly couldn't care less what you (or he ) or anyone else deign to pay (or overpay) for. I subscribe to the notion that ALL of these books are treasures and worthy of being collected and cherished for future generations. I have said that in numerous occasions, very recently even. But again, you're just seeing the POV that meshes with yours. Can't really I say I blame you. That's just human nature after all. -J.

Not you, but namisgr has been fairly snarky as well. I only give when I get. Maybe look at the the entire ebb and flow of the conversation and not just what I have written (but I suspect you don't examine namisgr's posting style with nary the critical eye that you do mine, simply because you agree with his POV, even though I almost everything I have described is well settled scientific fact, regardless of what you think about the "PQ" CGC decides to slap on a label when they grade a book). And at the end of the day, if someone can't handle a little ribbing on a chat board (as was made very clear is what I was doing in most of my snarky posts) , then maybe the internet isn't your thing. -J.

No, but I do take the so-called "PQ" on the label for all the reasons, knowing what I know, for the reasons I have outlined in great detail above (barring "brittle" of course, which is indeed a palpable quality of the page, AND is even visible through the slab via flecks of paper accumulating at the bottom of it in many well documented instances). -J.

Since I can, through a combo of a high res scan and graders' notes, either confirm or deny the structural grade of a book with independent judgement, yes I do rely on it far, far more consistently. If I feel a book is "over graded" I bid accordingly. Same way if I feel a book is "under graded". Isn't that what everyone does? There's an entire conversation about it, and how the "only" reason those AF 15's in the last CC auction went strong is because they "looked upgradeble" literally, just a few pages back in this thread. While that belief is nonsense, it's still a conversation that just recently occurred nonetheless. -J.

Yes the majority of books are sold online though, with the benefit of a scan, and, as we all know, it is fairly common around these parts for people to offer an opinion on how a book "looks" based on scans. (Something, again, that can not be done with "PQ"), since that is obviously based on the suppleness of the book, and not what it "looks like". -J.

Don't stop believin'. Have you ever considered starting a religion based on the alleged "PQ" of your comic books? You could sit around a campfire with other like minded followers with the drumbeat of bongos in the background whilst you all marvel how much better you think your books are than everybody else's. -J. (I kid, of course, just yankin' yer chain a little. )

A structural grade can, to a reasonable extent, be determined and verified visually through a slab and with graders' notes. The "PQ" on the label, unless you can interact with the book directly, cannot, not to any extent, be ascertained through a slab. "PQ" ("Page Quality") does not have anything to do with how a book "looks", it is the suppleness of the pages in hand, and that has nothing to do with the literal colour of the pages. I think the fact that books with legitimately brittle pages usually appear brown leads people to believe that a "less white looking" book must have "inferior page quality". But as I have tried painstakingly to explain above, that is not necessarily true, and to namisgr who just edited his post, I repeat, those "toasty" looking edges you think you see in those scans of those AF 15's have nothing to do with the "PQ" on the label, those are either light dust or sun shadows (assuming they are even really there as I have seen scanners produce a similar effect). To suggest otherwise would mean that you believe a book with light foxing (ie tanning, and not to be confused with mold, which is biological, caused by exposure to moisture, and can spread around a book) can still pull an 8.0 or even a 9.4 from CGC. -J.

Actually, you're still a bit off base (though I acknowledge the ever so slight course correct). Blazing heat in a storage unit will not cause a book to get "toasty". I've seen comics come out of dry storage units that were there for 15 years, no climate control, nothing, and look perfect (well, at least not with any environmental damage). Exposure to sunlight will damage a book though. Moisture is the biggest environmental risk factor to comics. Dry heat is not. Heat does not make a book look "toasty" (at least not in the way you seem to mean it). Dust shadows and sun shadows do that, and neither of those necessarily has anything to do with "page quality". You can have a dust shadow with newsstand fresh suppleness in the pages. Don't believe me ? Look it up. A book can deteriorate even under the supposedly most optimal storage conditions. And look, if you don't believe me, call CGC/CCS and ask them for yourselves. Depending on the original quality of the paper it was printed it on the acids that are naturally in the paper all by themselves can literally eat through the paper and cause it to become brittle over time. This can happen in a cool, dry, temperature controlled attic! Furthermore, a book can be perfectly stored, and still have "tan pages" because, guess what ?- that was actually the quality of the paper it was originally printed on. How would CGC (or even some of our esteemed experts on these boards know the difference)? - bad news, they really don't. Different types and quality of paper were commonly used during a book's initial print run, especially in the GA and early SA. This fact has been discussed at times on these boards, by boardies knowledgeable of these matters, but it's always conveniently forgotten and/or ignored when the discussion of "PQ" comes up because it doesn't fit the narrative of a few who "want to believe". And here's one last rub for you- and I've also mentioned this before- "PQ" can (and has) degraded on even slabbed books, even those stored under perfect conditions. There is nothing a slab can do to stop the natural acids of the paper from doing it's thing, short of restoring the book (or "conserving" it). So on top of the "PQ" grading that you are putting so much stock (too much stock IMO) in being wildly inconsistent , what you see on the label may be even doubly wrong. -J.

The analogy is kind of funny, but accurate. It really doesn't matter "who" is portraying "Domino" in NM 98, the identity, character, name, etc first appears in NM 98. And yes it is simple- Vanessa Carlyle first appears as Domino in NM 98. Then, a year and a half later, Neena Thurman appears as Domino. Just because Jason Todd puts on the Robin costume for the first time in Bats 366 (or whenever it was), doesn't make that the first appearance of "Robin"- that would still be Tec 38. The CGC label describes what actually happens just fine on NM 98 (even factoring in the subsequent narrative ret-con that occurs). So sorry pump and dumpers but the introduction of Neena Thurman taking over the role of Domino does not un-ring the bell of NM 98 being the first appearance of that exact same character several months earlier, and I can't believe how impossibly stupid this conversation has become (actually yes I can, considering the the entire point of this thread is to pump and dump X Force 8). -J.

Ads still aren't "first appearances" and the first appearance of Domino in both the story and on the cover of NM 98 is still nothing remotely like an "ad". Keep pumping.... -J.

Whether you want to call it a ret-con or not (which it was, and it wasn't a "couple of issues" later, try a couple of YEARS later, and it wasn't a "story arc", either, it was a cheap narrative device that came out of nowhere, ie, a ret-con), it doesn't change the fact that NM 98 is and always will be the first appearance of the character, likeneness, identity, and name of Domino. All the attempted pump and dumping in the world is never going to change that. -J.

Agreed. But I was permanently spooked off from the variant to Ultimate Comics Fallout 4 when I learned it was one of the books sold at under cover price to retailers three years before the Five Below debacle even: -J.

The two hour Pilot at least is getting an IMAX release. I doubt Marvel would do that with a chintzy product that it didn't believe in. -J.

It's a 1:10 on a 41,500 distribution, so at least ~4100. -J.

This could just as easily been used to describe Guardians of the Galaxy. Given what Marvel has done with that, I'm more than willing to give them the benefit of the doubt as they adapt one of Lee and Kirby's best runs in the history of comics. -J.

You may have a point there (regarding the ASM 667 Dell'otto, Bats 608RRP and Wolvie 1 Deadpool Campbell).... -J.