VintageComics

If anyone wants to bid, these items end tomorrow evening, 8PM PST, Sunday Dec 17th 2023. And believe me, next year will be huge. You will want to follow the event if you're in the area or want to do a travel stay-cation for a great rock and roll event and an amazing cause! Thanks to everyone for their time for reading this. @CGC Mike Hopefully these last posts are OK. If you want to move this to the Dealer / Selling form I understand. Just wanted to give these auctions a little more traction for a great cause. Thanks to all!

And finally, we have a framed, signed drum skin and sticks, donated by our very own John Dolmayan of System of a Down AND Torpedo Comics!

We have a guitar donated and signed by Sammy Hagar

We have a Marvel Comics Super Special #1 CGC 9.2 donated by myself (KISS donated their blood into the red ink for this comic.

We have a signed photograph of Ronnie James Dio

The reason I'm posting about this event again is to share that Midnight Wonderland decided to auction a few of the more expensive items to raise money for the Midnight Mission in Downtown Los Angeles and you may be interested in bidding. The auctioneer, Velvet Cricket, has waived their auction fees for this event and ALL proceeds will go directly to the Midnight Mission. https://thevelvetcricket.com/search/product-buyer-auction/4485?Whisky A Go Go Auction PC #10Midnight Wonderlands Benefit Auction

Gang, a couple of last posts about the Midnight Wonderland event that I posted about a few months ago. The event was this past Tuesday, December 12th at the World Famous Whisky-A-Go-Go in Los Angeles and was a smash success! We had members of Bio-Hazard, Body Count, Cypress Hill, Goldfinger, Bad Wolves, Ministry, BulletBoys and more perform. If you want to see concert footage and pics, you can go to the IG page for Midnight Wonderland which is run by my friend Jowell. I'm just a grunt and have no other affiliation other than being a sponsor and helping with some of the grunt work for the event. I'd recommend you follow the page as the event is just getting bigger and better and will be happening next year again. We already have some even bigger, surprise superstars lined up for next year! https://www.instagram.com/midnightwonderland_/ This is a shot of me at the event. I was an official sponsor and I had to get a shot of me with my logo on the sponsor screen! You'll notice the Heritage Auctions logo below mine as they were a sponsor as well.

To me it's a sobering wake up call as to how life can turn on any one of us when we make just a few bad decisions. I'm not trying to moralize at people, these are conclusions I've come to myself as I've matured. Life is pretty fragile no matter how much we want to think it isn't, and often the "Goldilocks conditions" that we live under can come undone pretty quickly. Sometimes it just takes one bad decision and I can remember times in my life where I took one turn that changed everything. This is such an unfortunate story on so many levels for everyone involved that it's heartbreaking.

My apologies if there was a misunderstanding. I didn't mean you at all. Eugene in particular just has a long history of bad behavior around comic books for some reason. I think everyone appreciates your efforts to help.

I sure hope it wasn't pressed. This is just simple economics. Flippers obviously have done the homework and see the value in restored books enough to unrestore them. If collectors were more educated about restoration and paid more for that book when it was restored nobody would perform that work. For example, let's say it was something like a 5.0 Restored, if buyers were willing to pay 3.5 Universal money for it as a 5.0 Restored, then that would remove the incentive for someone to buy it and remove the resto for a profit preserving the book AND keeping it better looking. I argued the same for pressed books when the Great Pressing Wars were happening. If regular collectors were willing to pony up for "virgin" books they'd remove the profit incentive for pressing them and kill that market. Those markets only exist because there's incentive.

As anyone who has followed the hobby for a while knows, Eugene, OR was a hotbed of bad comic activity for many years and so I hope the usual suspects have not gotten involved as this would make customer's books easy pickings for this sort of thing.

I have plenty of crazy stories, but I don't want to go first. I'm shy.

It's actually a clay-like substance in the paper stock that causes the sheen, IIRC. That's why books with shiny cover stock are heavier than comics with just newsprint, and this is why when a glossy cover gets wet, the gloss disappears. The clay changes form when wet.

The Qualified grade SHOULD ALWAYS HAVE ALSO HAD the actual higher grade of the book on the label as though it did not have the defect. The graders know what the two grades and it relays a lot of valuable information to the buyers. I've stated that and stood by it for as long as I've been here (and probably even in this very thread), and it makes NO sense not to have it.

They're owned by Steve Geppi now and about as honorable as any major auction house. They carry quality items. Do you have any concerns with them?

Junk.

It's incredible. And you can see why Disney goes into overdrive to protect its merchandising. Disney Consumer Products, Games and Publishing is a financial monster in itself. I've read on here for YEARS about how Disney vehemently protects it's characters, but never really looking into it in depth. This all makes it look more clear. I think it's time to update that to "The Mouse has teeth and claws."

Very few merchandise companies have their own private theme parks throughout the world, which probably explains why they dwarf all other merchandise companies for sales.

Great. This post will be responsible for a new AF #15 boom. It's not really odd because I believe the strong representation of primary colors in the costume, especially the contrast between red and blue is really what makes him a very popular character visually. Whether it's a woman's dress or a sports car, reds just attract attention in a way no other color does. Combine that with the fact that much of Parker's life is relatable to regular people and has an incredible rogue's gallery of enemies and it's a great formula for success. Historically, red / blue characters (and some with yellow) have always been among the most popular characters or costumes - Spider-man, Superman, Captain Marvel / Shazam, the new X-men and of course, Wolverine. You name it and the majority of hot characters were generally associated or revolved around primary colors. Another interesting factor is that in China, Reds and Yellows (or gold) are extremely popular and lucky colors making these colors, and therefore MERCHANDISE much more marketable in the most populated country in the world (tied with India, but you get what I mean). It would be interesting to see the differences in popularity in China, actually. I would assume merchandise with reds and yellows would sell really well. I got this notion from when I worked at Porsche, when I found out that the 944 didn't sell well in North America because 4 was considered an 'unluckly' number and the Chinese North Americans avoided the car until they changed the model designation to 968 - a purely marketing idea for the Chinese markets because 9, 6 and 8 were all more lucky numbers than 4. I believe this is one reason why Batman has trouble appealing a as much visually as the blue / grey (or black) is just not as universally appealing, even if the costume lines are, which is likely why he had to have at least a yellow belt, which if you think about it is a bad decision from a practical point of view (the yellow would pop at night) but they needed to add something to break up the visuals so that he wasn't just a black silhouette, which would make it very boring artistically.

So you're saying that outside corporate involvement (Disney) affected the final art form (comics). Not directed at you at all, but I'm so glad that after many months of people arguing, tearing their garments in protest, wrangling and personal mud-slinging that everyone can finally agree. Halle-freaking-lujah!

That is VERY likely. When they break ground to build a new entertainment venue in a major city, that venue wasn't planned last year. It may not have even started planning in the last decade. I've spoken to people on city councils and they've told me that talks on that sort of thing can start 20 years before breaking ground. Really big plans can often take many years from the first idea to the final form, and I have no problem believing Marvel Studios already had big plans almost a decade (or longer) before the Disney acquisition, and I also believe that a company as big as Disney will put a lot of planning and effort to destroy or stunt any opposition. Counter attacks are just as important as the initial plan of attack when it comes to execution.

Didn't you yourself say (I'm paraphrasing) that it was unlikely that Disney was trying to starve Fox out by shutting down or manipulating their Marvel owned franchises? Your reasoning for believing this was that if Disney had done that, Fox would have had a lawsuit against them. Now you're saying 'it's just business'. I agree. Nobody is saying it was personal. I just don't think Joe Public realizes how extensive and intense the corporate backstabbing in the industry can be, and I'm just making the case that Disney isn't the "Snow White' they project themselves to be to Joe Public. Of course. This is the point I've been making all along through various avenues of reasoning and yet always coming up with the same answer: The rules don't really matter. Big Money dictates the rules before, during and even after the game. If you ARE the game, you ARE the rules.

The most annoying thing about this 'Nuke The Fridge' interview besides how obviously phony she is, is that they recorded the interview in stereo, making her voice sound booming and annoying in your right ear, while his voice is much more quiet and in the background in your left ear.

Bosco, did you bump this based on the discussion in the FF thread or is there some new news regarding these new franchises?