GeeksAreMyPeeps

How do the staples look? A lot of the Nintendo books have rusted staples.

Since Venom properly is Eddie and the symbiote bonded, arguably 298 is just a cameo of Eddie, not Venom. Mostly the last page is Eddie talking, and only at the very end do we see the symbiote slide over him, but we can't say for sure if they're fully bonded. Still a must-have for a Venom collector, I think, but questionable whether you can consider it a first for Venom.

Much like Hulk 180/181, Venom's first appearance is 299, but it's a teaser; 300 is first full appearance.

I really wish CGC wouldn't take a stand at all, when it's not clearcut. Let collectors decide what issue is important to them.

That seems unlikely to me, as I imagine that the editorial team would not have much input regarding the production budget. Also, as mentioned, it did happen on issues of X-Factor where the regular artist was doing the cover.

Just for further clarification, what I wrote about the Spideys is clearly *not* what's going on with the issue of X-Men that prompted the thread.

Yeah, I think that was the idea behind dropping Newsstand Editions eventually for everything.

Not exactly sure what you're getting at, but here is an example of the Newsstand 290: Since the artwork looks to be black-only in the area where the UPC box is, they don't have to run the box with the spidey head on the Direct edition (which, as mentioned, they do so that they only have to run a different plate for the black, rather than all 4 colors). Instead, they can run the full cover art in that area: Same situation with 295:

At some point, I think the Nam went Direct-only. That may be why the box dropped off of those issues.

I can't be bothered to do the work right now, but I do wonder how many of the books no longer qualify.

290 & 295 would be additional examples of where the Direct Edition only has black in the area where the barcode is on the Newsstand Edition. 358, 425 & 427 have the box on the back cover (none of those have ads on the back cover).

It looks like the art is probably only black ink in that area though, which would be a case where they're still using common CMY plates.

Just wanted to note that typically, the reason for the box on the Direct version is so that you can print all of the Direct and Newsstand editions using the same cyan, magenta, and yellow printing plates. Then you just need to create different black plates for the 2 versions. If there was some other difference between the 2 covers (different back cover advertisements, for example – which is not the case here) that meant the cyan, magenta, and yellow plates were going to be different anyway, then that would be a good reason to drop the box on the Direct, since you couldn't use common plates for any of the separations. But that doesn't appear to be the case for either of the books.

No idea why, but I know of at least one other similar book in this time period: X-factor 11.

Or just looked at eBay for the much cheaper BINs.

um, there *was* a tv show

I had the same Watchmen pin. Might still be in a box somewhere.

Honestly I don't see the need to limit to those specific dates. Anything you picked up at a comic shop will do.

Apparently a Marvel staffer, with this issue being her only writing credit. I'm guessing she had to step in and write one of the pages. While I think these are all distinct from ads (as, unlike the issue with Darkhawk, it's not as if the content used is direct excerpts of the comics to be published), they're not exactly stories, as there aren't any story arcs involved. They're more recaps of where the protagonists of each series stands. But the art is the art, created specifically for this issue for the recap. Whether that's important enough to be collectible is up to the discretion of the individual collector.

This board needs a steel chair emoji, where someone can interfere from outside the fight, with neither combatant getting a clear victory.

Golden Apple comics, which is big/popular enough to offer their own store variants, indicates CGC offerings ship in 60 days. That suggests they're in the same queue with everyone else.

I agree with others suggesting they may be allowing additional time for potentially increasing TATa and/or ME fixes, but the timeline still seems long for that. I imagine that they're also going through the print run and picking out the best copies to submit (which takes time) so they're not getting hit with charges for prescreen rejects. That would also explain why the copies you're ordering ungraded aren't in the best condition; you're getting the ones that they feel aren't worthy to submit for a 9.8 prescreen.

Since Advanced Dungeons & Dragons had a moment in the sun, and now Dragonlance is getting hot, any thoughts on the other DC TSR comics?

It doesn't hurt that Dan Slott teased it on Twitter, basically indicating that he's the real deal. Next one to watch will be his first solo story in the Edge of Spider-verse mini (issue 3). Since pre-orders are still open for that, I expect that will be this generation's Turok #1.