VintageComics

Found this Cookeville out in the wild. I had it slabbed.

No it isn't impossible. This hobby is built on paying more for 'better' so any quality that makes a book 'better' or more appealing will increases how much someone is willing to pay. Not in every instance, but over all, on average you will see it affect prices.

That's because no two books are exactly alike. If they were, and PQ were the only difference, you can bet the house the book with better PQ would sell for more. When no two books are alike, it is ONE factor of many that people use in how to bid.

The photo is not representative of the movie at all, just like a photo of Gimli and the dwarves standing up on a set wouldn't be representative of the movie at all.

Wow. Why the hate fest? The movie is etched in my 18 year old heart as one of my favorite movies of all time. You can NEVER tell how tall anyone is, relatively speaking in a well made movie and not once did anyone suspect Batman was short in this movie. Just look at Tom Cruise - you'd never know he was 5' 7" (or is it 5' 6"?) Nor would you know that the Dwarves in LOTR were all normal humans. I don't get the dislike for the movie.

The reason for any division is the hiding of information by either side. Both sides are trying to discover what the other side is hiding. So to me, the solution doesn't seem to be more hiding. Yep. This nails it. You have an agency that holds all the cards (government) and a communications platform that spans over half the civilized planet, and that platform is used to signal whatever the agency deems correct, this is an abuse of the system that does not allow open communication. The consequences have already shown recently on more than one occasion to be wrong, bordering on horrific. If there's one thing we should have learned in the last 2 years, it's that trying to cover information is not the correct way.

What if that business is found to be negligent and causing human harm by limiting information?

MOST of the research and investigation comes from #3 - 5 to challenge and either overturn or establish #1 and #2 And if you quash discussion of #3 - 5 you absolutely destroy the integrity and credibility of #1 and #2. It's unequivocal. That should be obvious to everyone.

Social media has taken draconian measures to censor discussions about some pretty important things over the last two years only to reverse their decision once they realized they were wrong. I assume they reversed their decisions so that they would not be held liable. The topics aren't really allowed to be discussed here any longer but if anyone wants to start a group chat, I'm game. And no matter the topic, this sort of censorship does massive amounts of damage not only to the proper exchange of information but also to the public trust. It's one of the forbidden topics here. Big deal over the last 2 years. The solution is to stop producing low IQ types, NOT to keep them in the dark. Actually, it's basically a fact that the media is the misinformation and that it takes a proper entanglement from all sides to get to a truth...because NO SINGLE SIDE has a monopoly on the truth and most certainly NO AUTHORITY does. That sort of thinking sends us back into the dark ages faster than a time machine.

Watch it, you're going to be associated with me if you keep thinking like this and then it's over for you. I too have noticed MANY things disappearing off the internet. Almost always weighted in one direction. What has happened in the last two years in regards to censorship on the internet should have everyone quaking in their boots. These are truly dark times for freedom of speech, expression and information. Unfortunately, there are many even on these boards that welcomed it.

I wasn't using them as examples of tolerant societies. I was using them as examples of societies with high standards living and education, which is why they're considered some of the best countries in the world to live in, and they seem to have a high level of voluntary civil obedience because of it, unless I'm mistaken. Censorship is a temporary band-aid. Having a good society is a long term solution to the root problem.

The root solution will always be as simple as having a solid family unit. You raise your kids well and they won't look for pots to stir. And Facebook is absolutely complicit for capitalizing on division. If they're too big to be held accountable, I think it's safe to say they're too big.

I think the word 'reasonable' should be used here when talking about open entanglement. How to build a pipe bomb is not a good instructional video to have on SM. How to be a good Nazi is probably not a good topic. I don't think ANYONE will argue those are not reasonable. But I also think the solution is not so much to keep limiting content as it is to build a society that is more communal, and that sort of thing happens from having cheaper education, better education, higher living standards and more involved parents. Northern European societies seem to excel in this in ways that most of the West doesn't so the rest of the West uses censorship as a short cut. The West seems to always be bent on 'the short game' rather than 'the long game' That's probably the main root problem.

I'm not against social media. I'm against kids being addicted to it, against the lack of transparency (they should have warning labels the way tobacco does) and I'm against them using SM as an information vacuum. I'm well aware. So you're saying that Facebook is guilty of creating the monster because they did it for profit? Yup. They could have built it differently, but they didn't. Hold them accountable.

The cure is always true to be better ideas. The honesty part is the difficult part. So many people are so disingenuous and charged in one direction it's nearly impossible to break through.

The only way to disprove a bad idea is with more ideas. Yeah, I just made that up. Agreed. As we have seen in the past year or two, social media platforms decided through advice from authorities to absolutely censor and destroy any sort of online chatter about some concepts. Well, now they're not. Why? Because they are worried about liability issues as it not only turns out those authorities were WRONG they or someone along the way may have been falsifying information. Who watches the Watchmen? There really is NEVER a good reason for censorship for grown adults as at some point one side will ALWAYS, NECESSARILY lean towards corruptions. We've learned this through history repeating it endlessly. The only way to keep a balance is to allow a proper entanglement and a proper opposition to form so that the conversation can be moved forward towards more understanding. More education is always the answer. Less education never is.

Call it limiting freedom of reach, freedom of speech or whatever but the phenomenon of cancelling things is being driven by people who think it's better to shield people from information than it is to expose them to it. The intent is the most important part of any situation when judging it. The entire phenomenon of counter culture comes from people rebelling against this sort of thing. If you want to limit the misinformation, you can't dictate what people can and can't see. If you want people to stop believing in flat earth theory, forcing them to stop somehow will have the opposite effect. I always bring it around to children. The more you hide from them the harder they are going to push to do what you don't want them to do. That's just nature and it can't be stopped. It always finds a way.

Imma just say that many of us saw this coming YEARS ago, talked about it on this forum and some of the people appalled in this thread even argued against that it was happening. We're living in turbulent times and it's emotion and vain ideology vs reason and logic. Which one wins is up in the air.

If it made money they'd do it. I don't think enough people really care about comics to make it viable. These days, most people care about the 'idea' of comics but not the comics themselves.

Imma insist on the strip designation.

Look for all organizations to draw as much blood from a stone as they can now that they've indebted themselves for all eternity.

so you endorse the same outcome (giving Zeck money as a result of the sale) but only when you cast yourself as pure of heart and benevolent but anyone who accomplishes the same goal for a different intent is flawed unrealistic and impractical. Sorry I didn't answer this sooner. I meant to. Yes, because it should be a personal choice, like charity or volunteering and not something about being 'fair' which is what the other poster had posited. 'Fair' denotes either legal or implied responsibility to me. He's not owed anything. But conscience is an entirely different matter. That's how I perceive it. It's much like how some dealers do a comic deal and if they make a large amount, some kick funds back out of appreciation and some don't. I once left LIFE CHANGING money on the table on a deal I did. I felt I was owed NOTHING by the other party and didn't expect anything back as we both fulfilled the terms of the deal. I learned my lesson and moved on. But I've done deals where I have made a lot of money and I've kicked money back in some of those deals. Make sense? Yep. 100%. That's a really tough call, because for example, without Miller layouts for Janson in DD #185-190, would those pages really be so sought after? Or would the Byrne X-men pages be worth zillions of Claremont didn't --script them?

Something important to remember about the Real Estate collapse was that it took a lot of people by surprise. Only Gold Bugs were really expecting it to my knowledge. This current potential slowdown in the economy, at least to me, seemed to have been telegraphed better to Joe Public as we've been hearing about rate hikes, supply chain issues, inflation and a bear market for some time. Or maybe I've just been reading too much of the Gold thread in the WC. Also, the staggering amount of wealth created in the last 2 years dwarfs any previous time in history IMO. I mean, we had TRILLIONS pour into people's pockets. That has never happened before. There could be a few guys like that who have entered the hobby, but I doubt there are enough to fully explain the recent trends. A lot of people are staying at home—bored to death—and spending their cash on everything and everything. In 2020, people were allowed to take $100K out of their 401Ks early without the usual 10% penalty, and a lot of people did. Interest rates are low, so some people are taking equity out of their homes. People are working from home and saving money by not paying for day care, not traveling, not eating out, etc., etc. They have money, and money burns holes in a lot of people's pockets. Regardless of what's going on with crypto and the stock market, I don't think the various collectibles bubbles will be popping quite yet because the circumstances that helped to create them won't go away until the pandemic is in our rearview mirror. With comics, moderns will probably be the canary in the mine. Other bubbles (BA, SA, GA, OA) will not pop before that one. I do believe it's a combination of both crypto money (you can't pull $2TRIL in profits and not have it affect the economy) and stimulus money. I mentioned this in Comics General, but I don't think the average Joe realizes just how much stimulus money went directly into people's pockets. I speak to my musician, restaurant and other friends and they all say they 'did really well' with a wink. And the wealthy definitely got money they didn't really 'need'. I've spoken to some people in various industries who saw massive government checks being cashed for personal use. All that money sloshing around drove up asset prices and then driving up the prices got the attention of more investors and here we are. Personally, I don't see a massive slump. Most of the wealthy can hang onto stuff and don't want to sell for a loss, although you could see a period of stagnation and a slight correction. But who knows? We're in unprecedented territory.

I would love to see a time 60's piece ala X-men: Days Of Future Past with an FF #1 reboot, with a Thing that looks like the early Thing, pre rocks. They can always have him evolve later. Not much gets me excited these days about movies, but that throwback piece would make me melt. I thought this was BY FAR the best of the Netflix shows. I couldn't get into any of the others.

I don't follow news updates on the MCU but I do trust him as an architect and I'm betting he's planning as we speak.