PopKulture

Vintage Superman comic book and record set by Musette Records, New York, 1947.

How regretfully pathetic it is when people look through the rearview mirror of history through a prism imbued with the artificial moral superiority born of today's fatted sow. Were those depictions racial or even racist in nature? Absolutely, and quite seemingly. Were those the depictions of people who were dedicated to killing us? Most assuredly. How utterly and distastefully disingenuous to ignore the homicidal and genocidal intent of enemy states, and instead focus on the overwhelmingly trivial historical trail of what was the contemporary propaganda of comic books intended for children. It's folly, I tell you. Nothing or nobody can conceivably bear up under the scrutiny of today's most vicious gatekeepers and arbiters of morality. This is a path that leads us not into light but into darkness.

Ken, I'm really not trying to pick a fight, but I respectfully ask can anyone seriously suggest there's much that's liberal about modern progressives? Don't today's progressives try to ban free speech and the open exchange of ideas everyday, as well as rewriting history? Someone speaking on campus today you don't agree with? Defeat them on the merits and strengths of your arguments? Heck, no - ban them from speaking. Don't like something in a book or movie from a different era? Well, do we provide historical context or even (gasp) let people glean that for themselves? No way: ban that, too. I urge anyone who thinks they are so "progressive" in their thoughts and actions to study the classical liberalism of the nineteenth century and earlier. No classical liberal would deign to defend the rabid collectivism of today while so forcefully dismissing the individualist flickerings of yore. I do believe the semantical ship has sailed: the terms "liberal" and "progressive" appear irreconcilable and really have little correlation in relation to today's modern political spectrum. And lest we ignore those aforementioned sins of the past, at the dawn of the previous American century there were self-touted "progressives" then as well. Their champions included Margaret Sanger and Woodrow Wilson. Those are two of the most racist and xenophobic people who ever roamed our public corridors.

JLA 105 - 7.5 OW $4 Take at 15% off

Action Comics 278 - 5.0 OWW $22 Take at 15% off

ASM 143 - 7.0 W $12 Take at 15% off

JIM 110 - 4.5 OW $24 Take

I got caught up in the Wolff's free-for-all for the better part of one summer, but mostly because a bookseller kept bringing box after box of paperbacks that were worth digging through. I was a "flashlighter" for much of that summer until one morning when I stood rummaging with no less than twenty other flashlighters going through some thoroughly mundane offerings by one of the regular clean-out guys. I pulled out a few lower grade silver age comics like the 15-cent cover price Outlaw Kid reprint books. When the seller quoted me $7 each, I asked myself what the f#%K was I doing competing in this mad frenzy with all these rabid zombies for this underwhelming junk?? Now, there are quite a few people who literally had made life-altering scores there,* but it just got too nuts for me. * Not the biggest score there - and I know of almost a half dozen instances approaching $100,000 or more - but a collector friend who had sold a lot of his comics far too early wound up re-creating much of his Fantastic Four run one fateful morning for chump change - we're talking single digit FF's and up mixed in grocery bags with Lassie, Richie Rich and Dr. Kildare. I've seen the books, and they're drool-worthy, with gloss I've seldom seen on early silver Marvels. The best comic I ever got there? An Avengers 93 for five bucks. I'll just stay in bed with my wife Sunday morning and buy one on the Bay if I need it that bad.

Take 137, 138, and 141 per PM - thanks!

It's hit or miss with the older stuff I like. Usually there are a few guys with long boxes full of 90's drek, and then a dealer or two with some higher-priced bronze and beat-up silver (think Marvel Two-In-One or a Bomba 6, with a smattering of 20-cent cover price Superman's). The better deals usually come when a toy guy with a realistic sense of prices drags along a few boxes of miscellaneous gold, silver and bronze, which is where I picked up the few books pictured above. When the market is functioning on all cylinders, like the pre-covid days, the really good stuff disappears with the flashlight crowd (guys with season passes or who ride in with a dealer friend).* The early birds don't always get the worm though; every once in a while, a dealer will put stuff out just before the show opens. Or right after it opens, as they're still unpacking their vehicle. I found some great Atlas war books that way once. At the time they were only worth $5 to 10, but I saw them just as the lady was putting them out, and many of my fellow collectors/rivals had already made their early-bird rounds. Funny, it was all war except a bunch of later issues of Mr. District Attorney. * Many years ago, I saw a local dealer/picker leaving a show with a railroad cart overflowing with killer paper, just as it was opening, and there were stacks of shudder pulps like Terror Tales mixed in with Harrison mags like Titter and Wink. And this is a guy who never bulks stuff out or passes on his good fortune. I can attest faithfully that such a sight will leave you a bit deflated as you start your day at the flea...

Many of the regular dealers were absent. Most of the regulars were the retail guys, with critically-priced man-cave items. Just like your trade stimulator guy, you're not going to make a score with them. The pickers I have success with most often were missing, but it's early in the season. A few of the bigger cleanout guys were there with their big gaylord pallet boxes that they basically dump on the ground. It sure draws a crowd, but the good stuff never makes it to the pavement, as you well know, and I have a pretty generous definition when it comes to the "good stuff." I figured it would be slim pickings, but it was an unseasonably nice day and I just wanted to be out and about. I mean, after I figure in the admission and my gas, nevermind my time, I could've bought a few Dell giants and the Howdy from MyComicShop and probably have broken even, but what's the fun in that??

Sshhh... You wouldn't want everyone to find out where to buy dog rawhides and 3 for $10 sunglasses, now would you??

First flea market for me in over a year. This is one of the Chicago suburb’s longer-running shows. It’s sad to see all the engraved rocks, gutter guard and bath-fitter booths where there used to be antiques, but I did manage to find a handful of cool comics sensibly priced. I was a little dismayed that my bulk candy guy wasn’t there, however. Next time, hopefully.

Take at 20% off -

Take

Take this and Atom the Cat 9

At 2.5, that FF 6 is one heck of a nice presenting copy!! GLWTS!

Take at 25% off

This is such a cool splash!! Thanks for posting it. I can never get enough of these well-rendered GA splashes.

Take

Take Superboy 63 and 67 at 10% off - Thanks!

I definitely see where you're coming from. The concern for me is, at my level of sales, it simply isn't worth selling if I am to be arbitrarily defined as a business rather than a hobby. Trust me, I spend way more on my stuff than I've ever sold. The value-added has come primarily from work, and those dollars have been taxed, and more than once in most cases. It just isn't worth sifting through thousands of eBay end-of-auction notices from twenty years ago or making some reasonable estimate of cost that can be challenged by the aforementioned agency with windbreakers and assault weapons on a silver age Blackhawk that I sold for eight dollars. Add to that my accountant now has to file a separate Schedule C so that I can take my due deductions, thereby statistically increasing my chances of a sour tryst with that same aforementioned agency. As I originally stated, for me, it's not worth the hassle. It's more about the cavernous lack of return on my time invested than me skating around paying taxes. And consider for a moment, a simplified example: let us say I still have that Blackhawk from when I was a kid. What is it worth $10? Maybe I paid twelve cents, but I can't prove it, so as mentioned above, maybe I forego the exposure by claiming a reasonable estimate of cost. More than likely, I paid a buck or two for it at a show. Same thing - not a lot of local cons in 1978 were handing out receipts, and I know the flea markets weren't. So I have this ten dollar Blackhawk now I scan and list and package and trudge off to the post office and sell for maybe full price - ten bucks. Well, at my effective tax rate (not marginal!) I am to pay almost three dollars in federal taxes alone. Okay, cool, I fancy myself a patriot so I send off the check in April (or estimated payments throughout the year, even more work!). Now, as I am prone to doing, I buy another comic; yet, I only have seven dollars left. That's cool: maybe I can fill a hole in my bronze age Power Man run. Once I've read them and decide like Sea Devils that is wasn't the best-written run ever, maybe I decide to sell it. Again, scan, post, package, ship. Sweet, seven bucks to buy another book! Not so fast, you say - I have to pay $2 again in taxes, unless I keep those immaculate records. Records, mind you, that better hold up under scrutiny. Don't forget: windbreakers and assault weapons. At some point all the books have to appreciate dramatically just to beat the time I'm investing just so I can read comics and enjoy the pleasure of thumbing thru these old keepsakes. Otherwise, I'm just working to lose money.

Isn't the only real tolerance the ability to tolerate viewpoints other than your own? That sensible and decent people far and near might come to a problem with a different set of experiences and opinions, and that the best answers to our problems usually lie somewhere in-between?? I don't know why that seems to have become such a distasteful notion... You know, the puppeteers who knowingly and callously cast us as opponents and galvanize us into diametrically-opposed factions overwhelmingly do so simply to consolidate and fortify their own petty power structures. Have so many good people ever been so set upon as pawns as they are today??