Doktor

Claremont only wrote the first 3 issues of the adjectiveless X-Men series and Jim Lee was only on for the first dozen or so issues. Then it was mostly Lobdell or Fabian Nicieza & one of the Kuberts for the majority of the next 50-some issues. It was pretty good, but not spectacular. It was basically the fizzling out of the end of an otherwise amazing era. There was a number of good stories during that post-Lee/Claremont era, but nothing quite as good as the Uncanny-only era.

I'm really loving this book & surprised that it's not getting a lot of attention here. But I also think his mechanical art is just top notch. I'm a car guy thru & thru & his automotive art in this is just outstanding. I'm definitely in for the rest of the series & I would probably buy a trade if they released an ink & pencil only version.

^ This. If Alterna Comics can put out a 32 page book for $1.50 using a printer in Oregon, Marvel or DC could absolutely get a better rate since the print runs on most titles would be significantly higher.

Yeah. They're Doctor Who curtains & that is a pencil drawing of Matt Smith. I didn't do the sketch, but I don't recall where it came from either. I have so much comic art around the house that I lose track of where it all came from.

I believe so, yes. She just cut up a buttload of old X-Men comics & layered them down with some overlapping. I personally would have went with full pages or covers, but this worked too. She would brush some adhesive onto the table, lay the comic bit on it, then lay some more adhesive & then keep repeating. The top coat was just done with a spray clear coat. I was torn between a glass top over top of the finish or doing an epoxy pour. I went with glass for a while, but I think I'm going to do the epoxy in the spring.

I made the barstools. My roomie did the tabletop. I did the barstools with stripping the old fabric, adding a new layer of batting & spray upholstery adhesive, an industrial staple gun, and reinstalling the seats onto the frames. The roomie did the table with just decoupage. I also laid down a few coats of clear coat overtop. But I've been thinking of laying a whole layer of the pourable epoxy on tope.

Nope. Not the maskless one. Just the normal Select figure. I also got the whole Marvel Legends X-Men build-a-figure Juggernaut set also hanging on that board.

Yeah. the Dining room table was one I picked up to replace a simple round one that wasn't big enough & after repainting the frame & legs, the roomie decided that an X-Men table was necessary. It's 100% X-Men.

Yeah. In fairness, the base was a little filthy & rusted around the lip, so I did sand it all down to bare metal, prime & respray the whole base & center posts in a matte black. And I cleaned up the support disc & bearing ring that the rack mounts on in order to get rid of most of the squeak. As nice of a nostalgia reminder that is, it got super annoying after about 20 minutes once I got it now.

Thanks dude! Picked it up for $50 on one of those phone classified apps like LetGo or OfferUp or something. I need to take a new picture of the bookshelf in the room, cause I just realized that's an old one & I can't seem to find a more recent one. Cause I've changed that a good bit too.

So I wanted to post up the updated pics of my room. Especially since Photobucket stopped hosting for 3rd party: And here's some other things in the house: Some barstools in the basement: My roomie decided that our dining room table was boring: And a terrible panorama of my living room bookshelf: There's quite a few other things around the house as well.

I have the 4-sided version of this. I would hazard to guess that the 5-sided version used the same base & spinner post. When I get home later, I can pull mine apart & measure the base & the post. It shouldn't be terribly difficult to fabricate it for the most part. The biggest issue you're going to have is the 2 flat pieces with the ball bearing ring sandwiched between them that the rack portion sits on. I'll try to get some photos & measurements for you.

I think when people get a little overly verbose (which I saw in both parties last few posts here), what they're TRYING to say can get a little lost. I think if you both chill, you'll see that you're both fine. Bad transaction. Heated words. Apologies all around. Walk away.

One of these days, I really need to send my 5.0 out for a press & clean at CCS. Looking at it, it should definitely get an upgrade from that.

Sorta super jealous of that Absolute Danger Girl.

I like it, but I hate the rotating artist on every issue.

This pretty much the Law of Diminishing Returns writ large.

Maybe he never takes his pants off? It's bound to induce some sores eventually and probably start smelling very quickly, but maybe they figure "screw it, he doesn't need to change pants!"

Really hoping to snag one of the Jean Grey Roadshows. I didn't really like the ABC covers, but that D cover is just awesome. The white phoenix is absolutely my favorite Phoenix version.

1x each raw

Josh Middleton's art is pretty rare to come up for sale (he doesn't have a huge amount of published US work) and this is kind of his ONLY really important piece

I understand that, but Amazon is a business that sometimes ceases doing business with suppliers. Apple and Google spring to mind. You can't buy Apple products from Amazon anymore (maybe this changed that again, but for a year +, I know you couldn't) (except thru 3rd party sellers, and 3rd party retailers are a whole other can of worms in the digital world). That distribution contract ended & wasn't renewed because of competition reasons between Apple, Amazon & Google in the realm of streaming devices & mobile devices. For physical products, that's no big deal because well... if you bought a laptop or a phone or whatever 2 years ago, you have already received your phone or your laptop or whatever that you bought from Amazon. You don't need amazon anymore for dealing with that product. But for digital products (like comics), if any publisher decided to cut off their business arrangement with Comixology for whatever reason (maybe Comixology wants a larger cut of the product? Maybe the publisher wants to make their books exclusive to their own distribution app. Whatever the reason, licensing agreements end all the time & are sometimes renewed & sometimes not renewed. It happens monthly with Netflix coming & going content), then the books you already purchased will vanish from your collection unless they're saved locally. Look at it this way; with a physical product, the publisher ships it to a distributor who ships it to a store who sells it to you and you take it home and store it permanently(ish), right? With digital, the publisher sends the file to the distributor who then stores it FOR YOU and send copies of it to you, as you demand it, and then you essentially "give it back" because you're not storing it locally. When the publisher and the distributor reach an impasse in their business arrangement, the distributor is no longer permitted to distribute the same file that it had distributed for maybe years. They basically cannot send that file anymore. So unless you have it stored locally, after the last time you "gave back the file" by NOT storing it locally, the distributor can't send it to you again. So you've lost access to that file until the publisher & the distributor start work out a new business arrangement. EDIT: Maybe I'll use an example: A reader buys the newest issue of ASM thru Comixology today for the same price as the print version (Say ASM #26) and they can read it once or read it 500 times. It doesn't matter. But they didn't save it to their devices. They are storing it on Comixology's "cloud" storage. Now, say it's 3 years from now. Marvel has decided that Comixology wants too much of a cut in the distribution or they just decide "we want to launch our OWN new-release comic app" and decides to make their books exclusive to their app and stop distributing thru Comixology. The current contract expires & is not renewed. Now that reader decides "I want to re-read that copy of ASM that I bought 3 years ago" and fires up their comixology app. They look in their "library" or whatever Comixology calls it, and low & behold, ASM #26 isn't there. It's vanished. Because Comixology isn't permitted to distribute it anymore because that contract runs out. Now the reader is out the book that they thought they were buying because they didn't understand how the digital marketplace works and that the most that they're doing is "renting" that book. Another example? A publisher is making a comic about a licensed property like GI Joe. They publish the comics & sell them in print & digital. A reader buys the digital version on Comixology and reads it. A year later, the license holder decides to not renew that license with that publisher or the publisher decides it's not worth the license fee to renew because the comic didn't sell well enough. Whatever. The license ends. Now, the reader goes to re-read that licensed property comic that they bought from Comixology and again, it's nowhere to be found. Because the license has expired. So it can no longer be sold or distributed.

I don't disagree that new comics are a terrible value (mostly because the stories suck & they're wildly overpriced) but if comparing apples & apples (new digital issues vs new physical issues), physical wins every time because it's ownership & not rental. And yeah, for reading back issues, digital is fine assuming all the issues are there & you just want to read an old series once with no expectation that you'll ever be able to go back & re-read it at a future date. Digital is great if you're looking at reading as the disposable entertainment that comics were originally designed to be. No different than Netflix with old tv shows & movies, or going to the library to check out a book you want to read but don't really care enough to own. I mean, this sorta goes back to collector vs reader. If you're exclusively a reader and don't really care about collecting, digital binge-reading is mostly good for you. Like renting a movie or dvd of a tv show. But if you are a collector, then physical is the obvious choice. Partially because there's zero value to digital products. And partially because you're only renting it & it can vanish at any time. I can understand the appeal of Marvel Unlimited for readers. And the appeal of physical for the collectors. I just don't understand the appeal of people buying new issue digital comics at the same price-point as printed. It's all the cost of the print, with none of the ownership & permanence & potential secondary market value.

I don't mean to say that digital is 100% awful, but that buying digital is a horrible value choice. Marvel Unlimited is OK (I still don't really like it much, but to each their own) but it's extremely limited. They have a horrible tendency of missing 1 issue in the middle of pretty much every single storyline I ever tried reading on there, so I just gave up & cancelled my subscription. For reading back issues only, it's OK (even great, if it doesn't decide to randomly not have, for instance, part 4 of the 6 issue arc you're trying to read). But if you have any interest in staying even remotely current, it's worthless. It's 6-8 months behind on every title. And with Marvel publishing some titles at 16 issues per year, you're like 8-10 issues behind on some books. So comparing it to buying new comics at any price-point is an apples & oranges comparison. Marvel Unlimited is for reading old comics. Buying new comics is for reading new comics. They're not the same thing. And it still doesn't change that you don't own any of it. And if for instance, they decided to launch a whole new distribution platform tomorrow & phase out their (for instance) Comixology association, all those comics you bought through Comixology? They vanish. As I mentioned above, if any part of the licensing of any of the content in the book expires, those books vanish from your collection. You're renting comics if you go digital. It's that simple. That rent might be for 6 years or 6 months or 6 days. You don't know until they just vanish because a license expired.

Well, even if they did... it wouldn't be for an indefinite period of time. It would be a contract that went from Day X to Day Y and when it expired, there wouldn't be any more copies of the collected editions printed/shipped to stores, and any digital copies that you "bought" from a digital distributor would simply vanish from your collection unless it was downloaded locally (and even then, I believe many of those apps can simply erase stuff that they aren't legally permitted to distribute anymore). It's like the longest Blockbuster rental in history that didn't include a late fee. Point blank, digital sucks because it's an indefinite rental & not a purchase & can vanish without warning because a distribution/licensing contract ends. I mean, I take that risk every time I buy a movie or tv show from iTunes. But it's why I also make sure I download it to my local media server so that even if I can't watch it from my iTunes purchase history, I CAN watch it from my local media server on my appleTV.