VintageComics

CGC does not give out it's grading standards, although guys like me who spend a lot of time studying and learning them have been able to reverse engineer them with good success. I don't understand why you are confusing grading standards with valuation. The grader's job is to grade the book, not agree on value. Valuation is based on what the market is willing to pay. Of course it does. If people choose to pay less for chipped copies, it affects sales value. We already covered this and nobody is stating otherwise. But many things devalue a book. From reading this thread, some people assign different values based on page quality, clean / smudged greys, centering (witness the discussion on the TOS #39 thread where people are discussing 'cut off quotations and blue box at the bottom of the book'). So MANY things affect valuation outside of the technical grade. Chipping just happens to be the hot topic right now because people are scrutinizing a book that has increased in price unlike any other in memory. And I will add that there are people who don't mind chipping. They are out there.

How do you know that the improvement of the rest of the book did not cause the grade increase?

No.

If that is the asking price, it is going to be asked for another 50 years. Completely unrealistic - a lone 9.8 wouldn't even come close to commanding that. It's not Marvel...or the first Superman or Batman - expectations need to be tempered. Owner doesn't care if it sells or not. And if someone wants it, that's the price unfortunately.

The price for this book will move if the lone 9.6 ever sells. Asking price for that one is currently at $900K IIRC.

Marvel chipping happens during the final trimming process. The covers are separated from sheets, matched to interiors, stapled and folded and then trimmed on 3 sides. It's during this final trimming of the 3 sides that the chipping happens - and you can prove this because often the chips or prechips from the cover match the interior pages.

I don't know why people keep repeating this. No they do not. The amount of chipping affects the grade directly. It may not affect it as much as you want it do, but in my experience of grading books for 15 years, it definitely make a measurable difference.

I can't comment definitively but since the advent of the Bronze Age, story telling has always progressed towards an adult direction with a definite trend towards quality story telling. The big BA arcs of the death of Gwen Stacey and GL #76 onward are the big two that come to mind, but stuff like Starlin's long winding arcs are also pretty good. I still adore his run on Warlock. Moving into the 80's you had stuff like X-men and Superboy which hold up reasonably well IMO. You had The Watchmen and Dark Night. You have the Moore and Gaiman stuff. Kingdom Come. And with the advent of independent publishing you have tons of titles that people rave about (but I never read anymore). I've just noticed a general trend towards better and better story telling with some titles / arcs / Graphic Novels standing out head and shoulders above the rest. The 60's stuff was geared towards kids. After that, it began to be geared for young adults and today it seems to be geared to all age groups, but the stuff geared for an adult crowd definitely is doing so with an effort to produce quality story telling. The last arc that I read actively was the Bendis / Maleev Daredevil stuff. I thought it was top notch, quality wise.

I was simply explaining to Sharon (skypinkblu) why I don't read the threads anymore because she asked me to read them before posting. I thought homecoming captured who Spider-man was supposed to be, even if they had to change the supporting cast to make it more PC for today's world.

I hate people eating popcorn next to me in the cinema. If I saw somebody having a meal I'd probably spontaneously combust. I was thinking about you when I posted it. The theater is designed for having dinner and a movie. Like I said a few years ago, it's probably just a cultural thing. It's very common over here.

Another way of looking at it is that the standard we're holding the films up to is a standard that 99.99% of comic books ever written would never stack up against. We as collectors seem to endlessly give comic writers and artists a pass on mediocre writing and/or art, but not film directors, screenwriters, and actors. Why do we do hold filmmakers up to a standard our primary comics medium has never lived up to? That's untrue. It used to be true when comics were just for kids, but as the hobby matured so did the readers. People don't give free passes to books anymore either. Sure, kids do but adults don't. Online discussions always include quality of a story line now. This isn't the Silver Age where Peter Parker is a teenager for ever. Comics (and Graphic Novels) are now competing with real literature in my opinion.

I did not realize they made that film for under $100MIL If so then maybe it is possible to stay profitable and put out a quality film.

It's hard to make a production like this cheap. It's not that they WANT to spend $300MIL to make a movie, it's that they need to. I posted an article about a year ago about unions and costs in Hollywood. The costs are staggering. You need your make up done? You can't touch it up yourself. You have to get a specialized worked which charges an exorbitant rate to do it. You need a prop moved or a light switched on? You need to call a specialized person to do it. Everyone wants their cut of the pie and they want their jobs protected. Movie making is no different. People want raises, they want to make more and so they have to spend more. I don't know how cheap you'd have to go before it starts to affect the film, but I don't think you can make a cheap movie anymore.

Between BVS and JL they could have made 3- 5 movies IMO.

I can't be bothered reading pages and pages of a missed thread. There are so many meaningless posts in this forum that I have no interest in (toys, advertisements, multiple trailer and poster posts, fan creations, etc) that I don't visit as often as I used to. I just check in from time to time when I feel I want to post something about a film I've seen recently. My comment towards the mustache was because I could tell something was up while watching the movie but I couldn't place my finger on exactly what it was. When Superman was making his evil grimace, it didn't look like Cavill and it annoyed me (in the theater, not after reading the article - which was two days later). To me, accumulative small things like this ruin what should be a world class production. I also don't understand why people who voice negative opinions about a movie shouldn't say anything. I don't have any particular agenda except for the fact that I believe that these movies should be held to high standards. I'm past the 'I should just be happy to see my heroes on the screen' phase. I was happy for this 30 years ago. We're well into an arena where I would expect quality productions at this point and not just passable, mediocre efforts to pry my money from my wallet. It's what competition is supposed to bring....quality and choice.

This and the fact that there is no true cohesion between movies is what I'm seeing. What made the Marvel universe so unique in 1961/62/63 was the cohesion between characters. The same stands true for the movies - I called it the Golden Age of comics all over again a few years ago. And it is. If it's done right.

How the other half live eh? Hey, that was considered an expensive date.

I didn't realize you were trying to be funny. I'm waiting for the time to read through that thread. I'll get to it.

That is a product of comics being investments rather than being a hobby. As a collector I never thought about resale. I thought about owning nice copies. Unfortunately, as values rise people need to think about resale. As I said years ago, these books are moving from being collectibles to being artifacts. And artifacts become commodities when the emotion is removed. I've been a collector since 1974 or 1975. I pay no attention to quotes, blue boxes or anything else like that. Personally, I'd just want a copy with nice greens. If people continue to focus on such things we're going to jump the shark as a hobby IMO.

Got kids. Can't. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Another thing I just read about this movie (and it blew me away because it's inexcusable). I thought Supes looked kind of funny when they resurrected him but didn't think much of it. Apparently, he was growing a mustache for another movie (MI: 6) and didn't want to shave it for filming JL. https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Why-Superman-Mouth-Weird-Justice-League-44272188 So instead of waiting till his 'stache was done with or wearing a fake one for MI: 6, they CGI'd it out of his face. But in the process they changed the way he physically looked. So I'm watching this part of the movie thinking 'why doesn't this look like Henry Cavill?' but I couldn't place it. It looked very 'video game' like if you know what I mean. The answer is easy. His face was digitally touched up. Honestly, there is just no excuse for this sort of a garbage on what is supposed to be an A list flick. It's a slap in the face of the consumer to bring something like this to market after spending $100's of millions and expect us to like it. This isn't high school anymore. It's time to bring your A game or go home. If you can't bring your A game it's time to retire. Good grief, Charlie Brown!

This particular theater allows you to choose your seats, there is an open bar and menu the entire time you're there and food is delivered to your seat up until the movie starts. It is extravagant but it makes for a nice evening out when time is limited but you still want to see a movie. But I think most movies at a theater like that are still about $15 minimum and if you want DBox or Dolby, etc it becomes up to $20-25 a head. I don't think you can buy a movie ticket for under $10 around here anymore.

It's the ENTIRE point of the MCU. Everything is gearing up for Infinity War isn't it? They're just going about it properly. They're not trying to saturate you with everything at once. They're building each piece to the puzzle deliberately, patiently and thoroughly by developing each character slowly. It's what DC should be trying to do. Even if the Darkseid final battle appears 5 or 7 years from now, they'd still be better off than just pushing out a few weaker films over 2-4 years.

It was one of those theaters where they serve you dinner and you sit in reclining chairs. Not really my favorite place to watch a movie but Lou enjoys it and they serve you dinner in your chair which is a good use of time. Unless someone orders fish.

Co-incidentally, I read this after making my post above and this critic and I seem to see eye to eye on everything. https://www.monkeysfightingrobots.com/justice-league-review-the-flash-cant-save-this-poorly-written-tale/ The one thing that I appreciated about the movie was Elfman's soundtrack. Bringing in the 1989 Batman theme and the Superman theme from other movies really worked well. I just wish the rest of the movie was as solid.

Thou dost lack perspective. It's not about having fun or not having fun. It's about dishing out decent money to watch something 2nd rate when other franchises (Planet of the Apes, Marvel Cinematic Universe and others) can really deliver something special that you can't wait to talk about with people or see again. I called JL a stinker without seeing it but I still went to see it. I went with Lou last night to see it and we dished out $100+ at a VIP theater with dinner. I expect value for my money when I choose to watch a movie. While not an absolute stinker, it's still an amateurish film in my opinion. They throw a bunch of new characters at you with no real development, they make up a lame villain to move the plot along, they ram too many things into one 2 hour movie (something the were guilty of with BVS as well - that easily could have been several Billion dollar films if it were done right) and then they try pass it off as a top shelf movie. It isn't. Sure, it's fun watching superheroes use their powers, but ultimately quality wise it just felt rushed and I felt like they could have done better. Wonder Woman was a much better film. It was crafted and well paced start to finish. DC, what is the hurry? Why not make every film great? At this point there just seems to be a rush to rival the Thanos saga that Marvel has been building up for nearly a decade. Well, it ain't working. The emperor has no clothes.