Amadeus Arkham

What makes this book so tough to find in 9.8 and above? Is it the black back cover and black/red front cover being magnets for defects? Or were Marvel's printing standards not up to snuff in 1988?

Has to be early 2000s? CRT computer monitors, older police cars, and flip-phone cell phones. I was wondering this myself. Maybe they set it back in time about 10-15 years so that they can have Batman emerge in today's society with a contemporary and older (glasses and moustache) James Gordon.

Prediction - Penguin takes over Fish Mooney's establishment either running her out of town or (more likely) killing her and re-names the club The Iceberg Lounge. Sidebar - did anyone else mark out when they first showed Arkham Asylum?

Yep. As attached to my 9.6 as I am sentimentally, I'd be hard pressed to turn down $800 for it.

That trough was ridiculously clean, though. Guess even in the apocalypse you have to worry about the health department.

I wonder who's sitting on those 9.9s.

Either people who had books with hidden interior defects they were unaware of, or people who can't grade and therefore thought that their 4.5 was a 9.0. Or, sometimes people slab their OO copies for sentimental reasons that have nothing to do with value. True. I slabbed a 5.5 American Air Forces #1 because of sentimental reasons.

Updated shot of the Census. My 9.6 has to be in there somewhere.... My question is, who pays to grade and slab a 4.5 and who the hell sent in a 2.0 to be graded? Strange times.

Thanks. It's especially satisfying since I bought it raw at my LCS for $200. They had it graded as a 9.2 sitting on the rack, and it had already been pressed by their pressing guru. Sent it on a trip to Joeypost and CGC and it came back 9.6WP.

Please update the list. Mine shipped from CGC: 9.6 WHITE PAGES!

MST: 8/6/14 - Received 9/23/14 - Verified 8/6/14 - Received 9/23/14 - Verified 9/25/14 - Scheduled for Grading 8/6/14 - Received 9/23/14 - Verified 9/25/14 - Scheduled for Grading 9/29/14 - Graded 8/6/14 - Received 9/23/14 - Verified 9/25/14 - Scheduled for Grading 9/29/14 - Graded 10/6/14 - Graded/Quality Control 8/6/14 - Received 9/23/14 - Verified 9/25/14 - Scheduled for Grading 9/29/14 - Graded 10/6/14 - Graded/Quality Contro 10/13/14 - Shipped/Safe Uncanny X-Men #266 - 9.8WP Batman #405 - 9.4WP Batman #406 - 9.4WP Batman #407 - 9.6WP

What was with the X-Men logo carved into the tree?

What's with the over-sized slab on the TMNT #1?

Finally got my Ron Frenz commissioned sketch back from the framers.

Feed her to Killer Croc.

A dealer at the Pittsburgh Comicon had a CGC 9.8 listed for $1500. Needless to say, I bought a Wolverine #1 instead.

Yep. Sell it now for $800, buy it in two years for $500.

Possible, but unlikely. Batman first used the yellow ellipse in 1964, and Bob Kane retired from DC in 1966. The design of Catwoman looks more like a 1970s design as well. Unless DC was allowing Bob Kane to sell sketches of their characters after he retired, I'd be inclined to say this was a forgery.

Countless variant covers, characters being killed off, people buying boxes of books and holding them on speculation. Sure sounds like the 1990s bubble to me. I have to wonder what would have happened to the market if eBay had been around back then. eBay is the major difference between this bubble and the 1990s bubble. eBay has allowed for a much, much larger audience to have an opportunity to get at these books and, in turn, has led to fiercer competition for the books. Add in the fact that people are buying books based on movies or TV shows that may happen which sounds a lot like stock speculation, only with a physical commodity instead of a stock, bond or investable commodity like oil futures. Deadpool is hot right now, but NM #98 is not a particularly rare book, even in high grade. There are 4,475 copies in the Census between 9.0 and 9.8. Once the speculators have paid their pretty penny for their copies, the market will correct itself and prices will stabilize. As a collector and a Deadpool fan, I'd be insane to pay market prices for a 9.8 copy of NM#98 right now.

It feels like the whole hobby is due for a...correction. Movie and TV hype have been pumping books up like crazy lately and the bubble is due to burst eventually. The market can't handle these inflated prices. I know that comics are "in" right now but eventually studios will stop making or slow down production of comic book movies and the prices will settle. I just hope it doesn't completely collapse like it did in the 1990s.

Picked this up at the Pittsburgh Comicon and just had it framed. It's a print of a map drawn by an artist named Joseph Freistuhler and it has every street individually named. The artist said he lost count at 70 different references. For $10, I couldn't pass it up.

Where could they go, story-wise? Didn't Blade kill f'n DRACULA at the end of Blade: Trinity and unleash a virus that killed all the rest of them? I suppose they could retcon it, but dang.

So what's the best time to send books to CGC? Dead of winter when all the conventions are over with?

What are Key Notes?

Leaked Professor Zoom on-set pictures.