Doktor

14 minutes ago, jreezy said:

 

37 watchers on that raw copy. Hard to tell  if the book is a 9.8 candidate though.

Upper left corner has some damage 1/2" down the spine & it looks like some dirt/staining along top 1/2 of the spine too. Could press & dry-clean out But dunno. 

31 minutes ago, Jaydogrules said:

Here's a raw one you can play on... (don't see these raw too often)

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Marvel-Uncanny-X-Men-510-J-Scott-Campbell-Pyslocke-Sketch-Variant-Ultra-Rare/162953644720?_trkparms=aid%3D222007%26algo%3DSIM.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D50527%26meid%3D0f0209e9867b45c7b573e3c60325fa56%26pid%3D100005%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D6%26sd%3D132537422365%26itm%3D162953644720&_trksid=p2047675.c100005.m1851

-J.

Yeah. I saw that one the other day... Thank you though!  If I had the spare scratch, I'd consider it. But I think I need to replace a toilet & possibly the floor in my bathroom. 

5 hours ago, ExNihilo said:

Not quite the same case with Nick Fury.  Ultimate (Samuel L. Jackson) Nick Fury preceded the MCU.  The story I heard was that Marvel asked if they could model the character after Sam and he agreed as long as he got to play the character in any movies.

A better analogy would have been Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie in Thor: Ragnarok who got her own version of the character in the comics as a result of the success of the movie.

That's actually a little backwards. Sam Jackson found out after Hitch had already used him as the model in the Ultimates & basically he said "as long as I get to play him in the movie, I don't care" when he was asked about it about 6 months after it happened. To my knowledge, Hitch didn't ask permission before loosely modeling Ultimate Fury after Sam Jackson. But that's just me being pedantic & trivial.

3 hours ago, PerlAddict said:

Thanks for the info! Interesting that it's the unsigned packs that sell out first. I would have thought that signed packs would be the hotter item. But I guess if you're wanting to CGC, unsigned is probably the way to go so you don't get a Qualified grade.

that's my thought as well. Anyone that's going to flip is going to probably want to slab & get either a legit yellow label by getting him to sign it via a facilitator or at least get a blue label. I know that's why I go for unsigned. When/If I grade and/or sell, I want either blue or yellow label.

9 hours ago, Jaydogrules said:

Who wants one ? 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Uncanny-X-Men-510-partial-sketch-variant-Super-rare/132537422365?hash=item1edbd8921d:g:d2YAAOSwpcBaqL1h&redirect=mobile

-J.

I remember seeing some guy with 2 of these at exactly this same grade up on ebay about 3-4 years ago at around $1100 or so (I think it was each, but maybe it was the pair? I don't remember) & I thought it was kinda nuts. Now, I'd pretty much jump on that. And now I think I'm nuts.

Signed 4-pack lasted about 30 minutes. Unsigned lasted under 10. I got mine in under 2 minutes. I'm getting good at it. But I think I might take a break now. 

That B cover is what's selling me this time.

2 hours ago, ExNihilo said:

Personally, regarding the issue of forced diversity, I think A) fans don't like change and B) they're using diversity as an excuse when really it's just poor storytelling.  I mean, look at Thor and Miles Morales as examples.  Changes to the classic white/male formula but are backed with solid storytelling.  The end result is that asides from a few people complaining, most people are okay with the change.  I for one have really enjoyed exploring the story of a woman grappling with her impending death while still possessing the power of a god.

Then you get Riri and whomever else and I think a lot of the blame is due to poor writing.  I guess that's where the "forced" part comes into play (as in forcing the writers in a certain direction as well as forcing the readers to read drek).

This is partially the case. But it's got a lot to do with the forced nature of it all. Shuffling every single classic character off the stage at the same time to replace them with a cheap dollar store GoBots-esque replica, and drastically changing the tone/character/etc of the few remaining single characters (Pete is suddenly Tony Stark, Steve suddenly a Nazi, Inhumans suddenly replacing the X-Men as the hated & feared minority) all that the EXACT same time basically left a Marvel that was unrecognizable. Mix that with the Tumblr level fan-fic writers & the mid-grade DeviantArt level artists and a disregard for any continuity pre-Dark Reign or so and it feels like you're being asked to pay $4 for some generic knock-off "Morvel Comix (made by the makers of the hit Tweenage Alien Samurai Tortoise!)" instead of buying Marvel Comics and expected to buy that everything is the same or better. And when you refused to swallow the lie, editorial & creative tells you that you're a terrible person. 

Like, it feels like from about 2012 thru now, Marvel has been trolling its own readers; upping the ante every year & getting more defensive at the same time when anyone tries to point out that it feels like they're trolling.  

22 hours ago, ExNihilo said:

I don't think it's as much Cebulski's fault as it is Quesada and Brevoort.  You can't blame Cebulski for coming in and wanting to do things fresh his way.

I think it's a combination of Brevoort & David Gabriel. 

21 hours ago, Lonzilla said:

Jeff Lemire writing The Sentry, count me in for that. If it's even half as good as his Moon Knight and Thanos runs, it'll be worth the $4 or $5 every issue

I'm really surprised to see Lemire back. My understanding was that he quit on his exclusive a year or so back because he hated being there. So him coming back is a little surprising. Maybe it's the new boss. 

I really want to make a joke about approximately 3 people on the planet buying it & everyone buying on eBay doesn't want to dig thru the quarter bin to find one. But I'll hold my tongue. 

23 minutes ago, ygogolak said:

I will say that I think Black Panther brought some new people in. At least to collecting, maybe it's just short term. I've had some pretty obvious questions asked on some of my BP stuff. "Is this the first issue?" (it was a #1 variant of a mini-series) "What grade would you say this is" (when it's stated in the title and description)

Every new movie/show had the chance to bring in new readers, but it's always been a question of "do any of them stick?" and thus far, the answer has been "almost none"

Of course, that doesn't mean this won't be the time that that changes.

Just now, ygogolak said:

I actually think it could be popular. But, from what we've seen and heard from store owners, movies, TV, etc....aren't bringing a lot of new people into the shops.

That phantom "new audience from [insert other media format]" has been the same story that's been bandied about by publishers since... oh... the 1st X-Men movie? The last time I think any cartoon/movie/tv show brought in new readers was MAYBE the X-Men cartoon in the early 90's. But even that was probably very minimal. These "new customers" apparently have never once gotten the memo about them continuing caring about the character(s) by reading a comic.  

1 minute ago, ygogolak said:

But, but, she has a cartoon coming!

Can't wait for that cartoon that 9 kids will watch & will draw exactly zero new people into buying a comic!

Anyone else noticed that almost all of these assignments are identical to that intern post that ended up on BC from 4Chan back in the summer? Slott off Spidey to another big book. They thought it would be a Friendly Neighborhood Spidey book, but it ended up Iron Man. Then Coates on Cap, Spencer on ASM, Waid's run on Cap was only a stopgap, Legacy being a rush-job. Almost everything out of Fresh Start is exactly what was predicted there.

3 minutes ago, martini25 said:

Awesome collection!

I do think he is over saturating the market with his covers but as long as they sell well, best of luck to JSC! 

He did do a Jean Grey (Black Queen) cover that never made it to the set Phoenix Resurrection set. I probably would have gotten that as my first book ever from his store. 

I definitely think his Gen13, Danger Girl & Spider-man covers were his best. 

Yeah. I remember him showing that one, but I really wish he would have added that one. It would have been a great change of pace from the other ones & distinct enough without being totally out of the blue.

On ‎2‎/‎24‎/‎2018 at 1:59 PM, jreezy said:

 

 

Sweet collection Doctor!

Thank you, sir! I realized recently exactly how much JSC stuff I had (it doesn't include my Black Cat Sideshow statue either) and I felt like getting a full accounting. I'm still missing a few big ones, but I can live with that.

1 hour ago, Mercury Man said:

I think you strike while the iron is hot.  Give Black Panther your best writers, artists, cover artists.   This is the diversity push they have been trying to tap into.  They have people's attention with the movie.  Build on it with a remarkable Panther run.    

And make damn sure that Priest's BP series is in trade & available. 

12 hours ago, Mercury Man said:

And Black Panther is doing mad money $$$ right now in the theaters.  I still think the medium needs monthly comics.  It's overkill at the moment.  I just think Marvel needs to go to about 11 titles per month.   We don't need 4 X-Men books.  We don't need the Champions, or Defenders, or Gwenpool.   We definitely don't need The Great Lakes Avengers.   I would keep it to this:

1) Amazing Spiderman

2) Captain America & The Falcon

3) Iron Man

4) Hulk 

5) Thor 

6) Black Panther

7) Avengers - with a strong female lead presence *Led by Ms Marvel, Black Widow, The Wasp etc.*

8) X-Men

9) Daredevil

10) Fantastic Four (but put them off-world-  Give them a Space Station, or a Mars base or something-stick to intergalactic

11) for the 11th slot, I would take a character and run it for a 12 month storyline.  For example do a Power Man/Iron Fist story for a year.  Then when that was over do a Punisher arc for 12 months, then do a Deadpool etc.   

 

I think it needs to be a little bigger lineup than that. There's too many X-characters for only 1 title. 1 "school" book and 1 "mutant adventures" book at bare minimum (but maybe that's because I'm an X-junkie.) And I think the line can handle another maybe 5-6 alternating solo B & C-list books. I'd also argue that Black Panther, though it's doing very well in theaters right now, has never historically been able to carry a solo title for more than about 5-6 years without needing a break. We'll see if the movie can bolster it out of being a C-list property.

1 hour ago, ParamagicFF said:

You may not like this model, and I'm not saying I do either, but the publishers need to pick a model and stick to it. When I was a retailer, the publishing model was the biggest hurdle with getting new readers. Fans would come in and have a hard time figuring out the different spider-man books. And they would always ask "are there any books that are just starting?". This wasn't an occasional situation, this was many times a week. Not many people want to come in 500 issues later and spend a few evenings doing continuity research before they can read their comic.

I'm like many here, I'm good with the long term continuity. I love having a backlog I can read through as well as current publishing. But to teenagers/young adults today, they want something that can be theirs. I think a clear season/volume model would be good.

I agree in principle to the "pick something & stick with it". The problem is, that the "tv season" model is built around the idea that 99.99999% of tv shows are essentially disposable. The shows. The characters. The actors. They appear, stick around for maybe 3-5 seasons on your average decent show (1-2 on an ok or bad show, 6-10 on a great show & 11-whatever-the-simpsons-is-at for a cultural touchstone that manages to be that that 0.00000001% show) whereas the core comic titles, at least from the big-2, are designed to be evergreen. They are need to last. They are the "tentpoles". This tv season model works on a Moon Knight or Scarlet Spider or whatever D-lister gets a book for 2 "seasons" before the nostalgia fades and then gets replaced by an Iron Fist or Defenders or Champions. They can get swapped out for one of the other replaceable properties & then "rebooted" 5-10 years later to start the cycle all over again.

But this harms titles like X-Men, Avengers, Cap, Hulk, Spidey, etc. Those need to be evergreen & ongoing. Because those tentpole titles are going to always be in production, applying this model that ALWAYS leads to a downward spiral of viewership/readership, is a horrible idea. As I said, even some huge show that starts at 15-20M viewers loses a few million ever new "season" until they're a friday night deathslot show with a viewership of 5M by season 4 or 5. 

Now, if Marvel wants to become Image or Boom Studios or IDW or whatever low-tier, 5k-average-sales-per-issue studio, then that's their choice. Image & Boom and whoever else can put out nothing but 4-15 issues of someone's rejected screenplay adapted into a comic and then when that peters out, they can just swap in the next rejected screenplay turned comics -script. Hell, even Invincible, Walking Dead & Spawn realize this and keep their sequential numbering. Because they know they'll take a hit in the long-term if they relaunch with a new #1 that's nothing but short-term bumps. The new "normal/plateau" sales numbers will almost always be lower than the old one.  

But that's the inevitable end result of this model. At least on the tentpole titles. Because every new #1 is just as much a jumping off point as it is a jumping on point. And fewer people jump on as those that jump off almost every time. I can only speak for myself & friends when I say that I'm FAR more likely to buy a #25 after buying #24 than I would a #1 after buying #24. Every new relaunch, I (and I'd hazard to guess that a lot of others do this as well) re-think if they want this book on their pull list. I think we re-evaluate even more than we do when a new creative team comes aboard on say issue 194 or something. We think about it as a new purchase, rather than a continuation of an old purchasing habit. And you don't want your long-time customers re-thinking "is this a book I want to keep reading?" 

And sooner or later, customers get sick of asking themselves this question & just say "nah" and go spend their money on something else. 

Just felt like posting this. I got the urge over the weekend to dig thru my boxes & find all of my JSC cover or variant cover books & get some pictures. Not the best pictures or collection but I realized after I pulled everything out how many of his covers I actually have & it's sort of absurd.

17 hours ago, kimik said:

Maybe the House of Ideas has figured it out. Basically, treat every title as a 12 issue mini-series each year and cash in on the Marvel fanboys that will continuously buy the next #1.

Yes & no. The Law of Diminishing Returns has been kicking in on these titles for some time now & the pace will only increase the more often they go back to this particular well.

Apparently tho, they're not entirely renumbering. They're "dual-numbering". They're going have that big #1 on the cover but still keep the "legacy" numbering too (I will forever just keep calling it "original numbering"). I'm guessing it'll be similar to the Heroes Reborn/Return titles that were relaunched & then got their original numbering back when they started approaching an anniversary issue & then stayed on the OG numbering going forward.

13 hours ago, Tony S said:

IMHO it falls into a gray area. It's not right that the LCS sold them knowing they were stolen. But it's not right either that they are expected to  guard and keep safe said property for months.  The OP's story was that the comic book store called the police multiple times asking about the status and received  no reply.  

If the police want the stolen goods looked up for safe keeping for months, they should have taken said goods and put them in the police evidence lock up.  

There's no grey area at all. Selling knowingly stolen goods is wrong if it's a day or a week or a month or a year after you get made aware of it. And until any sort of statute of limitations runs out, it's also a crime.

Based on the timeline here, the store knew when they bought the books that they were stolen (hence why the got ID), which is fine... sorta. It skirts the "receiving stolen property" laws because they were trying to be helpful & probably figured "I'll get my money back when they arrest the guy tomorrow/the next day" & couldn't just hold the guy or the books there waiting for the cops to show up. (or at worst, realized it shortly after buying the books)

But it seems like, when the cop got in an accident & the investigation got delayed & the perp didn't get nabbed in a very short period of time, they started realizing "by now, he's blown the money & they won't be able to recover my payment for the books. I'm going to be left holding the bag" and figured he'd sell them & recoup as much of his money as he could. And that's when he's probably going to be falling into selling stolen good charge territory.

I mean, I feel for the shop owner if he was just trying to do someone a solid & realized later he was gonna get screwed because of a cop getting into an accident & an investigation getting delayed/neglected. But that doesn't excuse selling books that he KNEW before he even bought them were stolen, was aware that YOU knew he had them, and was aware that a police investigation was ongoing on the matter. That's just trying to cover their to the point of near-criminal (or criminal) behavior.