Randall Ries

On 1/29/2022 at 1:38 AM, NP_Gresham said:

In my opinion WP is over-rated, but ‘my opinion’ matters not when the books go to market. I am a believer in WP and centering now

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.

On 1/28/2022 at 10:58 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

You would be riding that like a peloton..

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

On 1/28/2022 at 10:44 PM, Bird said:

do you have any of the pink?

http://www.comiclink.com/img/comics/scans/RAD74A1C2007928_144348.jpg

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?

On 1/28/2022 at 9:18 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Silly as it was .

I liked it. 

Did they over estimate how well it would be received?

Well...

Still I enjoyed it.

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!"

On 1/28/2022 at 8:56 PM, kav said:

and what happened?  we got this very thread.

On 1/28/2022 at 8:54 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

I found it  funny you pulled Chris Hansen. 

Just have a seat....

 

 

Ok now back to the mail room. 

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

On 1/28/2022 at 8:43 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

My gif that he originally quoted  was also from the Hudsucker Proxy.. 

I like a lot of the Cohen Brothers  Films. 

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

A meme that is quickly wearing out its welcome:

On 1/28/2022 at 12:41 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

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

On 1/28/2022 at 12:15 AM, jcjames said:

Similar thing happened to me in college - was at a party, guys and girls and lots of drinking. Lots. And one of the girls went upstairs and passed out on a bed. When a few of us went looking for her, we found her laying face-down on a bed, passed out. One of the guys wanted to "have a go" with her too, we all hustled his drunkass out of there pretty quick. Some people are just like that. 

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.

On 1/27/2022 at 11:50 PM, kav said:

He probably thought to himself "Man those stick in the muds dont know how to have a good time-this is just what guys do when someone passes out! (or gets knocked out-or held down-in prison).

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. 

On 1/27/2022 at 9:57 PM, kav said:

one thing abt ppl been in prison-they tend to go right back in again.  It's on their menu or something.

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.

On 1/27/2022 at 10:27 PM, kav said:

I bet if you thought he was joking and said ok he would have greased him up and started having a go and when you yanked him off in horror he would have said "I was just kidding!".

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.

On 1/27/2022 at 6:17 PM, Buzzetta said:

Okay... this is what I wanted to reply to the thread as it was locked after he got all butthurt refusing to believe that "guilt by association" is a good thing or whatever he said.  

I had a former friend that did some pretty horrible things when an African American family moved across the street from him.  Originally he denied it but eventually he fessed up when his own mother yelled at him for doing what he did.  We were in our late 20's at the time when this happened.  He decided it would be a good idea to leave discriminatory notes on their garage and car.  Someone like that, many of us decided to distance ourselves from.   

When I say, "he who lies down with dogs, gets up with fleas" that is true.  Hanging around someone like this validates that behavior.  You don't get to say, "He is a horrible person and a pretty big racist, but I will be damned if he isn't a fun guy to have in a fantasy football league."

Sometimes you have to leave the trash at the curb. 

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.

On 1/27/2022 at 5:43 PM, kav said:

the tongue thing is eerie.  it works for any surface.  wtf.

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

On 1/27/2022 at 5:29 PM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

Imagining now...

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."

On 1/27/2022 at 12:02 AM, BlowUpTheMoon said:

"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.

On 1/26/2022 at 3:19 PM, Robot Man said:

I could barely afford the catalog. That was like 20 newstand comics at the time! 

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!

On 1/26/2022 at 11:41 AM, Robot Man said:

I bought my MAD #1 from Howard when I was 13. It was the one book I wanted the most. I waited every day for that package to arrive. My first experience of mail order. 

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

On 1/26/2022 at 12:41 PM, comicginger1789 said:

that top left corner I agree, its a degrading factor

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.