Randall Ries

I agree. When I began collecting again, it was a new world in collecting for me. In fact, the very 1st book I bought upon return was a Batman #9. An 8.0 beauty. When it arrived in the mail, I took it out of the box and saw it was in a plastic holder. I thought it was a shipping container! Well, how do I get the book out. I got hold of it and was about to pull the thing apart at the seams and something in my brain said "Wait. WAIT! Maybe it's SUPPOSED to be like this". All this was at the dawn of the internet, really. I ordered the book using a clients computer. I had no idea about CBCS, PGX or CGC. ANYHOO. As I went along, I started becoming aware of centering more than page quality. I don't have a huge collection compared to others. Although if you believed my wife, you might think I have jammed every square inch of our house with comic books. Page quality (to me) doesn't matter all that much unless they are brown. CR/OW is ok. O/W is ok. Ideally I prefer Ow/WP quality. That at least reflects the books history and age. Seems "reasonable", you know? White pages almost seem like fakery to me. Centering is much more important to me now. When I went to buy a Bat 234, I wanted one perfectly centered. I wanted one that included the entire "The RETURN of TWO-FACE" banner. THAT was hard to find. Found a nice 9.0. Then was told "Yah, but that's MISCUT!" Maybe to them. To me, the spam strip wrapped perfectly down the spine and the entire banner meant more artwork. Same with Green Lantern/Green Arrow 87. Had to have the entirety of GL's foot. The vast majority have the foot cut in varying degrees of severity. That's a really tough find as well. I believe centering to be more important than page quality for my collection. I have books I need to replace now because of it. Just wasn't thinking at first.

Haha. Reminded me of Lisa Loeb. This guy caught a magical performance on his phone. Dig it:

No. Never heard of pink. Was that legit? Like they printed on pink paper for Jo-Jo's benefit or the possible female reader back then?

JJL nailed the fast talking career girl. "A MUNN-SAY GUHHL!" .

My Batman 251 is a CGC 9.0 with o/w pages. It's a sweet book. Whoever buys it will want the book. I have books with all page quality except brown. Cream to o/w through white. At this point, I'm collecting covers. Can't read them. Plus graders muff the grades. Who's to say they haven't muffed the page quality? At some point. all books will have brown pages. Have to figure a HUGE amount of book grades are no longer accurate. At least concerning page quality. Maybe grades should lose their license after a certain amount of time. To renew the grade, they must be sent back in and regraded concerning page quality. That'll frick them out.

Don't look at it like "TWO WHOLE MONTHS NOW!" Try to look at like like "ONLY 10 SHORT MONTHS TO GO!"

Haha! "Waring Hudsucker was never an easy man to figure out. He built this company with his bare hands, every step he took was a step up, except of course this last one."

Nice book! 9.2

Yeah, I captured the wrong photo. LOL! I meant to grab the other one.

A meme that is quickly wearing out its welcome:

Possibly my favorite Coen Bros. movie. Fight on, dear old Muncie.

Awesome. Saved her from possible PTSD although she may never have known and only had "suspicions". 6 of us guys were driving around in a van hammered and with one of our female friends. She was blasted as well and decided she wanted all 6 of us and took her shirt and bra off and said "Come'n GIT me, boys!" One of us said quietly "1st one who does the van gets pulled over and they get their kicked on the spot. Clear?" Yeah, it didn't really need to be said, but it was "clear." The funnier part was she got upset when we politely refused and tried to change the subject by encouraging her to put her clothes back on. I hate people who prey on the vulnerable. HATE. THEM. Many times, we blame peripherals like drugs or alcohol for terrible behavior. "Oh, I was DRUNK. Oh, I was really BAKED." I haven't had a drink since 1999. That isn't a boast but a fact and a decision. I can't stand drunks. Either gender. Not as the persons they ARE but the way they are when they are hammered. Men tend to get violent and women overly sexual. To me, it's obnoxious and a nuisance. Getting hit on by a drunk woman is no fun at all. I rebuffed them all as gently as possible, then hoped they would change the subject when I did. When they DIDN'T and insisted, they were every bit as abusive as men can be. "Wuzzuhmadder? You doan lie...lie..like wimmin?" "WYNNOT? Y' thinkyer...BEDDERN me?" "Here. HERE! I'm gonnner stan here'n POKE you in the CHEST every thirdWERD and look at you lazyeyed! HaHA! I derrno if it'ssah Cores LIGHT talkin' but yer the UGlIEST manneye sink I everSAW! HehhehHAHAHAHA! Just kedden. What? Y' thinkyer...BEDDERN me?" Back then, I'd much rather have gotten into a fight with a man than deal with some female cocked on Tequila. They either got REALLY amorous or REALLY violent. There didn't seem to be any middle ground. Being around drunks really got on my nerves "allahsuttin'", so, I stopped altogether. That has the benefit of losing a whole lot of people in our lives that like to get wasted all the time. Life begins to get more peaceful. Drugs were next. Sitting next to the guy tripping and having him snivel for 6 hours "I keep forgetting to BREATHE! HELP! I'm gonna DIE" gets old as well. I guess I finally grew up.

Yeah, well the persons house we were in wasn't prison and he should have known better. He lost his compass in prison, apparently. None of us had to care, though. Cross a line like that and you are no longer on the Christmas card list.

Yeah some do. If they've been inside long enough. An environment they have some control over. He didn't go back, AFAIK. But man. Pity the people he finally got in with subsequently. Who knows? He became someone else's issue, I imagine. he eventually faded away. Just one of those people you hope you never have to run into by accident. One of those people in the store you hope you see first before they see you. Worth abandoning a half cart of groceries over. Just GTFO of the store and go to another store.

Some people just DO it to you, you know? He was always likely an animal. Prison just finally justified it. Yeah. Funny as a crutch, Laughyboy.

It's like a slap in the face. Really brings that "Man, you think you KNOW somebody", right? We had a friend who was always goofing around and he finally did something REALLY stupid and ended up in prison (not jail) for 5 years. He was a joker. Hilarious, really. Life of the party. When he returned from prison, he was much the same. Glad to be out to be sure. We got hammered together, all of us, over the following weekend. It was good to see him again and all of us together again. ONE of us got to his limit and drunk, passed out cold on the floor. Jokerman thought that was typical. "He never COULD drink, could he? HARHARHARHAAARRRR! HEY! Let's grease him up and have a go at him!" Dead silence in the room. High and drunk as we were. Sudden silence. "WHAT?" "HuhhuhhuhYEAH! NO BIGGIE! No wimmin here anyway! LET'S ROLL HIM OVER, GREASE HIM UP AND GO FOR IT! NOTHIN' TO IT! HE WON'T EVEN KNOW!" Ehhhhhhh. No. Dude was dead serious. After a small pause, some bigger (larger) people than me went over and stood over our passed out friend. Then, the rest of us. Jokerboy was told he was no longer welcome and maybe he needed to go. No maybe about it. So, he tried fluffing it off "AW! I wuz only KIDDIN'!" and so forth. But we saw it in his face and heard it in his voice. So, he left. He tried getting hold of different members of our troupe in the following week. None of us wanted to have anything to do with him anymore. Whatever he had gotten into in prison certainly wasn't what we were into on the face of it. Raping an unconscious friend was WAAAAY off the menu. He had to go. We all got to avoid him because back then, it wasn't all about cell phones and ignoring calls and texts. It was pretending we weren't home when he pulled in the driveway. Or telling him it was done and listening to "AW! I was only KIDDIN'! You KNOW ME!" Bad people gots to go if you are a half way decent person.

Right? It's supernatural. I appreciate your response. It is better than the other infantile responses.

Yeah, that was my first test myself. Then, it started getting weird so I had to go do something else. "I wonder what a bison would feel like if I licked it? Huh. I already know! IMAGINE THAT! Ok. I wonder what a lactating sugar cane toad would.....No. Not going there. This will only go to a bad place."

"Yes, I'd like to place an order? Uh-huh. Yes. The whole page. That's correct. I said the whole page. What? Well, you just never MIND what that blue flash was a second ago." An IH #4 for $1.50. One dollar and fifty cents. Same with FF #2. Spider-Man's #5-7 @.75 ea.

It taught me the same and how to take care of what I had. Wasn't a sure thing we would be getting more. Comics and Wacky Packages were huge in the early 1970's. MAN I LOVED Wacky Packages as well as comics. I think about buying completed, vintage sets from EBay frequently. Boy, I sure loved those things. Yes. I remember helping elderly neighbors clear their land with brush cutters and hand saws. Hot, hard, heavy work. I got the work ethic from that. But the elderly were CHEAP M effers back then. "Here you go! Pay day! A shiny new QUARTER for 5 hours of dragging brush, cutting trees, rolling rocks and heatstroke! Don't spend it all at ONCE! Put it in the BANK!" Even the mosquitoes stabbing me with their plague inducing proboscis died of dehydration. Seriously. A quarter or a Kennedy half dollar if they were feeling generous. I took that from elderly employers. My younger brother did not. Elderly neighbor pulled that on him on a hot day and when he returned for lunch, he was pissed. Hot, red faced, dehydrated and pissed off. At 10 years old. He just sat there eating his sandwich and didn't say a word. Went back for second shift and when he got handed .50 cents, he said "thanks" and when the dude turned his back, my brother swiped his check book and walked a mile to the country store to buy cigars. Store owner ratted him out, obviously. I thought it was a riot as an 11 year old and certainly justifiable. My father however? He did not. Or maybe he did, but it sure didn't seem like it. My brother got his butt flattened. We all did. I guess my father was putting some whippings in the bank for all of us. Back then, we were TOLD to go next door and apologize and give our pay BACK and have the neighbor call to tell my father everything went according to his orders. He didn't EFF around. A LOT of parents didn't back then. Bad day at Black Rock. Then, get driven to the country store and apologize to THAT owner for trying to push off stolen checks from the poor elderly neighbor who basically was running a back yard sweat shop. Yeah. We learned the value of money. We also learned employers will hose you if they can.

Man, that's right! I forgot about that. Had to scratch up bottles and cans just to afford the catalog, then wait for that to show up. Then do some more digging just to order the one book we could afford. I'd LIKE to say it built character but all it did was set me up to be pissed off about everything for the rest of my life. LOL!

Those were the days, my friend. We thought they would never end.

It's not a horror story by any means. The color breaking dingo lower on the spine is a concern because it gets into the white border as well. I would guess 8.5 overall. Get it graded or keep it raw, still a great book and is still withing reach of most average collectors like myself. No to hijack, but I have been collecting DC, signed facsimile editions. Here's the latest one I got. It's only pea under the mattress for me is Green Arrow's dialogue was changed from the original. Seems to me the barcode would be enough of a difference but I guess not. Still a shiny thing this magpie can squirrel away.