AndyFish

Take

I'd say it's THE show for buying comics-- and I do a lot of these. A ton of the big dealers and some smaller ones with amazing Pre-Code and Gold and Silver comics, BUT, and this is a big one, you have to get there early before the dealers buy from each other. I'm talking figure out a way to help out at a booth so you can get exhibitor passes and then be on the floor Wednesday and Thursday before the show opens. Long before. If you're not so worried about deals and you just want selection, this is still a great show.

The Kirby signature looks legit to me.

Welcome to the boards, you've already gotten a lot of great advice, but here are some thoughts; 1- It can take YEARS to learn how to properly grade and even then it's subjective. But when you're talking some of the books at this value level accurate or at least honest grading is going to be essential. With little grading experience there is no way I'd go the eBay route. 2- The whole thing comes down to how fast do you want to move these? If your wife is complaining about them taking up space ask her if she'd be as upset if these were boxes of Tesla stock-- because that's what you're sitting on. Buy a used Overstreet guide off eBay from say 15 years ago or so and then buy a new one and show her the data. Today's $15k collection COULD be worth $50-$60k in that many years. It's ESSENTIAL that you get these all bagged and boarded. I'd go with Mylar sleeves for everything. It's more expensive but you won't have to change them out as often. NO jamming books into these bags or sleeves, there are multiple sizes-- get the right ones-- Super Gold, Gold, Silver, Modern, Current, etc. Hot Flips is on the boards and they have all of this. 3- If you want to sell quickly and not get screwed, I reach out to Bob, Dale, Ted at Superworldcomics and Gary Dolgoff for quotes. Most of these guys will travel to you (I KNOW Ted will) and they are honest and reputable. Good luck!

Or on the back cover-- although I will sell extras as I upgrade, for the most part I'm just a collector and I don't see comics as an investment-- I use the stock market for that-- so a small tear on the back cover of an otherwise beautiful book is a win for me.

Great piece-- a shame it's tax season.

Appearance all the way-- a great looking 8.5 trumps a lousy 9.8 in my book.

Great topic-- first, the OP seems like a good guy from what he's written but I'm with the artist for declining the phone call. Phone calls are a pain in the -- now I've got to take notes to remember what we talked about rather than just pull up an email when I need a reminder. I'm also extremely busy and I barely have time to chat with a friend. I don't know who you were working with or what they charged but the few times I do them I don't charge enough to warrant more time and aggravation-- and I also hate to be micro managed whether it be from a regular person or an art director. As for meeting your heroes, wow I wish the world of comic art was a better place interaction wise but there have been a lot of standouts. I've met and worked with Adam West who was a tremendous part of my growing up-- and he was an absolutely gentleman and an amazing client. Jack Kirby and I got to be chummy and at one of the conventions we were doing together he and I were in the middle of a conversation when Mary Hart from Entertainment Tonight (or whatever that show was called) walks up with her camera crew and says "Mister Kirby-- do you have a minute..." and she starts talking. I step back assuming Jack was going to do an interview with the but he puts his hand up and says "Do you know my friend, Andy Fish? He's an artist, and he's currently working on this great book." And he holds it up to her-- I was beyond touched. Mike Kaluta was and is a tremendously fun guy--- so too were Bernie Wrightson, Carmine Infantino, and Jerry Robinson. Julius Schwartz was kind of a jerk but in a just busting you kid kind of way. Archie Goodwin gave me my first pro assignment. I met Rick Hoberg and Gil Gerard at my hotel doing a con in Washington last year-- two guys who's work I loved as a kid-- if you could have gone back in time and told me one day I'd be talking to Buck Rogers I would have probably stood there in shock. Lee Majors and William Shatner, great great guys. Shatner and I talked about the stock market-- I made a bundle buying PRICELINE stock because I used it and he was the spokesman. But on the other hand, there are a LOT of guys who just seem to be too big for their own britches, plain social misfits or outright sociopaths. One of them, who is mentioned in this very thread above, was also someone who's work I really liked. I ran into him at a show we were both guests at, introduce myself and tell him one of the reasons I'm working full time in comics is because I was inspired by his work. He looks me up and down and says "Yeah so? Have you bought anything from my table?" and he walks away. There's a certain "legend" who sits at his multiple table setup at shows and basically imparts wisdom on us peasants from his place on high. He's convinced the work he's doing today is the most brilliant thing out there when the reality is it's laughably bad. So sometimes meeting your heroes is not a good idea. I know I was nervous the first time I met Adam West because his reputation was that he was moody to fans, and there was some merit to that because hanging out with him at some shows I'd see it-- but I also saw people asking him questions like "how did you know what to put in your utility belt every week?" which would just make him roll his eyes at his manager Fred.

Yup, the biggest thing is learn how to grade, one man's NM can be another man's VF so don't rely on someone else's grading alone. As for buying, in the category you're collecting, despite being poor (as your name implies) I'd only buy NM-NM+. I can understand not being able to afford a NM copy of a gold or silver age book and settling for mid or low grade, but anything Bronze should be at least VF and anything modern NM unless you're just looking for reader copies. The $20 you spend on a VF copy of a more recent book that is $40 in mint would be better saved until you find that higher grade. When I was a kid in the early to mid 1970s I would buy Silver Age Batman's at a Flea Market every Sunday-- they were $1-$2 a copy and in at least VF shape-- I remember an older collector looking at me and laughing that I was wasting my money buying junk-- that only Silver Keys and Golden Age Comics were worth buying. So I don't ever discourage someone collecting an age that I have no interest in.

I'd second the opinions here but I'd suggest ONLY sold listings on eBay are a valid indicator of value. Way too many folks overprice books at BINs that never sell.

I think its more important to change out your bags every few years f you're using the basic junk ones. Those breakdown. There are a couple of dealers I buy from every year whose bags are so soft and yellow it's kind of gross. The books are always fine but that can't be good for the books to sit in them for too long. I use Mylites and I store about 40% of my personal collection of books in old Canada Dry crates-- they are wood and hold the books nicely. The rest of my collection is in short comic boxes for neatness. Detergent boxes are crazy solid boxes I'd just make sure there is no residue in them-- those bottles leak sometimes.

I think its great you guys do this and it's fun to see the mystery boxes. I have to take a second to say that Greggy especially is one of the kindest most generous people I've ever met. He helped me out getting a Spider-Man car for a sick kid in my parish at SDCC last year and his parents and I are extremely grateful to him.

I can get behind no variants and no 2nd printings, but no digital and no TPB plus a limit of 1 per customer in a base of 20 stores cuts a huge % of your potential customers out. The math above sums it up too, you’ve got a loss leader strategy in place and unless you have deep pockets it’s not sustainable. Still, impressive creator list and Valiant did some good titles back in the day. I wish them well but I think they’re making some big mistakes.

I don’t care about any of these movies but if they cast Jim as Mr Fantastic I think that’d be great~. Step two is to do justice to The Thing, but I’d be in for Jim.

Does not looked trimmed to me and I've owned about a dozen of these over the years.

If you use your actual name on message boards two things happen; 1- You never forget your user name and 2- You never say anything in a forum you wouldn't say in public because you have nothing to hide behind. Just my

Incredibly complicated but remember this when determining "value"-- it's completely set by the owner of the piece, end of story. It doesn't matter if you the buyer (or even you and every other buyer) thinks the price is outrageous-- the price that the owner will sell at is set by them because you're talking about one of a kind products. This includes pencils, whether traditional or blue line and inks directly on them or light boxed. There is ONE of these. For me, inks that are lightboxed present a dual level of collectibility because having the inked and PUBLISHED version of a page or cover displayed next to the original pencils is a sight to be seen.

Well this is not entirely accurate-- I've often gotten permission from publishers to sell prints of my own work that I've done for them, there's never been an issue and most are surprised and happy I even ask. If you're talking people like the guy at every show with the 30 foot wall of headshots he does of every character from every publisher, yes indeed he's violating the trademark of those characters. I doubt he's gotten permission or licensed those images. At a con last year (and I don't remember which show it was) there was a guy selling prints and they were really bad quality-- movie posters, comic pinups, etc-- I come to a Batman '66 image that I did and I tell the dealer I like the work, he tells me he's friends with the artist and he sells the print for him-- I ask him the artists name and he mumbles some name but when I point out the signature and tell him it's me he gets all sheepish and tells me I can have it, or any of his other bootleg prints. I tell the promoter-- the guy is set up the next day but he's gone the day after. Unfortunately, there's not much to do, but as fans just remember when you buy these things cheaper than what the artist is selling them for you are likely buying a bootleg.

Of course it's still the first appearance-- its the first appearance of a particular character in a title regardless of the degree of printing.

I can't speak for Kitson, but in my case it's so that my incredibly messy thumbnails are cleaned up. We do this digitally now for both books we're working on to show proofs to the writer and the editor of the initial layouts.

It looks like it might be a shadow study-- we used to do the same thing before Photoshop -- a smaller sketch of a page done on vellum on which we block in large black areas-- the smaller size is similar to the effect you get when you squint at a page to see if it "reads" correctly.

+1 for more photos. Tough to tell but from what's shown it looks trimmed to me.

"In the manner of" was designed to protect a seller who was unsure of the provenance of an item, but of course scammers latched onto it. There is a pretty well known Big Two artist who passed away a few years ago and left behind a large amount of both his own originals and a pile of sketches from other notable artists. His wife was telling me that at shows he would often trade sketches with artists he liked. I was present at a couple of shows and saw this happen first hand with two artists who I really like and admire. None of these have any kind of COAs of course and there are a good percentage from big name artists. She's finally thinking about moving some of these items at various auctions and her attorney advised her to use "in the manner of" for the other artist pieces but I bristled at the mention of it purely because of the sour note these thieves have caused the term. I think she'd be better served selling the non-husband originals in bulk to a reputable art dealer than dealing with individual buyers. For her husband's originals-- and I'll tell you there are THOUSANDS of pages-- they take up an entire room-- she can't flood the market because it will devalue his work, I think her best bet there would be to assemble complete books and then sell them that way. -- am I wrong in this thinking?

Well you're in luck because a company is putting out a 16x20 calendar with detachable pages; KIRBY BLACK LIGHT CALENDAR Pre Order

The only way I'd get a signed book slabbed is if it was witnessed. GLOD is almost PLOD