Robot Man

I also got the Popeye one but forgot it in the photo. There is a list on line. My store gets them all but orders less of the ones they think people don’t want. My store is great. Within reason you can get one of anything you want. I always buy some stuff. This time a bunch of supplies on sale. I must have somehow missed Godzilla. It was a little crazy.

Took my 2 grandaughters. They had a blast. They are pouring over their stash now. Did you miss the Atlas one? I didn’t see the Godzilla at my store. Here is what I snagged…

If you haven’t already, hit your local comic store and pick up this free one. Great contents!

As a kid, we got back issues by trading with our friends. Money was almost never exchanged. But comics had value. You had to trade several Harvey’s or Charltons to get a Spiderman or Batman. They were all basically worthless but popularity held the cards. A lot of times older kids would give us their comics. My uncle gave me his ECs. Me and my brother would pull our wagon down the streets ringing doorbells and asking for them. They would often be given to us for the asking or in exchange for cutting lawns. There were no comic stores but we got adept at hitting used book stores for nickle priced comics. The same with garage sales and later flea markets. Then came mail order and early small comic shows and the floodgates opened. And with that prices started to rise. The rest is history…

Love the later Lubbers Wings issues. My favorite part of the run. Turned a lot of average war covers into va va voom!

Bailey really ran the gamut genre wise. Personally, I prefer his horror and More Fun work. Yes, I am a sicko. But his romance stuff is also pretty unique. You just know who did it at a glance.

Cheating again. Just got my first CGC pulp submission. Does it really matter in a slab? What would this go for if it were a comic? Last Green Lama issue.

Cheating a bit here. This isn’t a comic. But very cool none the less. Paid $10. What would this go for if it were a comic? Never thought I would say this. But after over 50 years collecting comics, I either have, or have had, or not going to get the rest of what I still want. Seems like I have pretty much seen everything and am mostly just upgrading books now. Yeah, I still seek out some stuff and buy them when I see them. But my comic buying has slowed down considerably. I have always bought pulps when I ran into them, but was never a big focus. There are SO many great ones and they have really ignited that spirit “of discovery” in me again. They have brought me back to the days in comics when everything was new. At the end of the day, comics and pulps are really the same to cover collectors especially in a slab.

Nice! There seem to be a good amount of devil covers out there to hunt down. A recent pickup got me. That darn devil always seems to be smiling…

I saw that one. Nice score! Skeleton covers on pulps are on fire!

Love that cover. My second favorite Super Science just behind this one.

Got my second submission. Very happy with it. Also came back a bit better than I expected. Got it from Dave Smith years ago. My best grade Yakima. How often do you see white pages on a pulp? This one also moves around in the slab due to the thickness. I contacted CGC and they noted that the process is new and they are working out the kinks. I suggested putting the thinner ones in a comic slab.

Got a couple cheap “women in peril” covers yesterday. Just can’t go wrong with Belarski covers!

Take it

An early photo of Leonard Brown with a recent “buy”. Yes, people coveted and paid up for Big Little Book back then. A photo of Malcolm Willitts pulling out unbagged, high grade Batmans out of the vault. Collectors was located in an out of business bank building. And a business card circa 1962 for Richard and Leonard before they opened the store and were combing the Long Beach area buying up old comics and selling them word of mouth. I got the card from Leonard. Notice he crossed out Richard’s info so I would deal directly with him.

There is a big difference between people “buying and keeping” comics as opposed to people “collecting” and actively seeking out certian books and runs and actually paying well for them. As a kid, I remember lots of used book stores that in addition to books bought and sold back issue magazines and comics usually at a discount to original cover prices. I remember buying GA comics (when I found them) for the same prices at comics that were a year old at the time. Collector’s Book store was one of the first speciality shops that catered to actual collectors who were willing to pay serious (at the time) money for old comics. They had an emense stock much more than anywhere else. The mail order part came later as the actual collector market progressed. The first comic I ever paid more than cover price for was a MAD #9 that I paid $3. for down the block at Cherokee Books. It was a LOT of money for a very young kid at the time. But I had never seen MAD comic book that old. That was my “gateway drug” to collecting and paying up for comics. I actively was seeking them out to try and collect the entire run. Collector Books was pretty high priced at the time and usually ran kids like me out. I bought more at Cherokee and Bond Street Books around the corner.

I recently received my first pulp submission. Very happy with the process. I did notice that although the pulp does not move side to side, it does flop a bit top to bottom due to the thickness of the case and the thickness of the pulp. My question is, is it possible to request a comic case instead of a pulp case to midigate this problem if the pulp would fit better? Thanks!

Yep. He, along with Leonard Brown and Malcolm Willitts, opened one of the first collector stores with a focus on comics in the LA area in the mid 1960’s. His focus was early Disney and humor comics as well as Platinium era books especially Yellow Kid and Buster Brown material. A heck of a passionate collector and great guy.

I wonder the same thing when I see low grade common average cheap GA books.

My weirdest job (and I’ve had a few) was in the late ‘60’s. I spent the summer at a friend’s parent’s house in Lake Tahoe. We both got a job from 11pm-8am (yes, graveyard shift) at the morgue. Our job was to wash up bodies. Put on a mask and rubber gloves, pull out the drawers and sponge bath dead folks. Was a bit creepy at first but we got over it pretty quick. The advantages were, we could have long hair and were pretty much unsupervised. There was often not a lot of work so we could burn a joint and play cards and listen to any music we wanted. Our hours were great because we could have most of the day and evenings off and didn’t work weekends. Also, where most kids were working in fast food or gas stations for $2-4 an hour we made $8. an hour. A lot of money for teenagers.

“Ground Advantage” seems that ever since this was instated, packages are moving slower with spotty tracking. In all fairness, I have received several before their estimated delivery date as well. Priority Mail seems pretty stable at 2-3 days though. On a local level, I have had the same carrier for a couple years. I buddied up with him and trained him to stash my packages in a spot where someone walking by couldn’t see. But I have had several new carriers in the past couple of months who just dump them on the front porch…

Just a few motorcycles