Robot Man

Got my last pulp back from my 3/24 submission at WonderCon.
Am actually a little disapointed with this one. My favorite romance pulp and a top 10 favorite pulp in my collection. Apparently, I missed “very slight rust on staples”. Thought they were a bit harsh on overhang tears as well. The few tiny tears on this one look to be bindery flaws not due to handling. I had it pegged at 8.0.
Also notes on the label. I had asked for a Halloween cover mention but that seems to be important to me than most folks. Also, it is a writer file copy. Bought it from David T Alexander and had paperwork with it. Seems, they are being pretty tough on things like this.
A pleasant suprise though. It came in a thinner slab like a comic slab instead of the very thick one my first pulp came in. Much snugger and a perfect fit. Also takes up a lot less storage space. I mentioned it to Matt and he agreed and said they are still working things out.
Still looks nice and I am considering a few more before a lot of pulps surge more in price and up the submission costs. 
 

I bought this over four years ago, so I paid less than the 4.5 copy just went for. 
 

Overstreet is just what it says it is, a “Guide”. Prices in it are low or actually high. A lot of stuff is actually worth a lot less. A yearly printed guide is impossible to keep up with an ever changing market. I use one a couple years old as a starting point. There is, however nothing better to quickly garner information other than prices.
To a smart comic buyer, it is just one tool. Internet sales, GPA, auction sites and of course right here on the boards are more accurate in real time. A smart comic buyer uses ALL of these resources to assign values.
I am old enough to remember before there was an internet and even an Overstreet Guide. The true Wild West. Sometimes, when buying books, I just use my gut and what stuff is just worth to me. My gut is rarely wrong.

Thanks Ray. I await this with baited breath. Over the years there have been so many feeble attempts at bringing back EC. Some better than others. I have bought very few new books in the past 20 years but will trek to my local store for this one. I hope I am not disappointed. And 8 covers? What a stupid money grab. I will just begrudgingly, plop down my five bucks for the standard issue and cross my fingers…

IIRC, I decided to collect the Four Color run circa early 2009. It helped that I had found a honey hole that had a good portion of the run in the back of the shop and I could buy them in buckets so long as I took the time to dig through the completely disorganized backstock.
Along the way, I started to track my progress. I gave myself 10 years to complete the set and occasionally took snapshots of my progress.
Here's an early one from February 2010. Thanks to the honey hole, I was past 50% completion that early on.

Fast forward to May 2018, pre-COVID, and I tracked pretty well with my original goal -

Here's where I am at today, well past the 10 years original goal, May 2024, with many completed "100's" (in red) and several just one issue away from completion and still chipping at the run. I'll say that there were some years in there where I probably did not add much, if anything, to the run, my attention elswhere. The quest goes on

I've been collecting since the mid-70s and I've seen more Mariana Trenches than islands. But the trench is not really a bottom, it's a plateau. 
We are still on a post-Covid boom plateau. Holding the plateau, or even exploring a little lower is fine.
What I think is most problematic is the fake videos (many unverifiable) which skew pricing higher or lower just to get views and establish a social media presence, like guys who post about their 50 cent or 1 dollar flea market grabs and such, for books that have been running 5-20 dollars for decades. DECADES. Most of them are lying. I could make a video today, rip out 40 books from my collection, film myself walking around a mill building with antique shops or a run-down LCS and say I paid $1 for $10-30 dollar books, and it would immediately get 10x more views than being honest. Especially if you know how to push the video so that the algo feeds it to audiences. 
Another problem is the abandonment of Overstreet Guide, by the younger and newer fans. Comic books are not stocks or crypto in the sense that their prices are not constantly updated. Dealers who contribute to Overstreet made it the go-to since the hobby found its investment foothold because they are the only reliable guide. That is the real market not the aberrations high or low that are fed into the online aggregators that represent less than 10% of the actual market. I don't mean you pay Overstreet prices, or demand them. The rule for LCS was to pay 40% of list, often less for undesirable stock if you don't need it, but that was before prices went nuts, now, it's lower, because of all the modern garbage that is glutting us. 
Unfortunately, Overstreet itself was impacted by the skewing going on because of the Covid boom, because it really happened. As I said, we're in the post-Covid bust which will take at least the rest of this year, and likely would be another year more. It's ok. What's not ok is the flippers and pumpers whom we don't even want in the hobby at all. Let them move on, the pain is worth it. Them unloading and dumb dealers selling on WhatNot auctions where you can't even SEE the BOOK for more than a second and have 3 seconds to decide, you either take advantage of that, or ignore it. They are going to run out of inventory soon. I use a 20-year old Overstreet and Lone Star/MCS for price discovery, and I'm fine. 
 

Thanks Ray. I await this with baited breath. Over the years there have been so many feeble attempts at bringing back EC. Some better than others. I have bought very few new books in the past 20 years but will trek to my local store for this one. I hope I am not disappointed. And 8 covers? What a stupid money grab. I will just begrudgingly, plop down my five bucks for the standard issue and cross my fingers…

I carry one double sided sheet. I put it in my shirt pocket. I can pull it out and check quickly. I don’t have to pull out my phone, open an app, scroll through it or worry about a connection.
I also wear a watch. Just look quickly at my wrist. Don’t have to pull out my phone and turn it on.
I am also full computer literate. I use complicated programs like InDesign and Photoshop fluently every day.
I like to marry the past with the present when it works to my favor.
And I love those guys that walk up to my booth with a notebook want list. It usually means I will make more money and get rid of a lot of run books…

Here it is! The complete Fawcett Captain Marvel Adventures #22-#46, 25 issues, all CGC graded, that featured the first and longest serialized story arc in comic book history-“The Monster Society Of Evil” that ran from 1943-1945. 
Of special note almost one fifth of the run are pedigree books. #24 is a Crowley Copy, #33 is a Promise Collection, #34 is a Davis Crippen (“D” Copy), and the #38 is a Rockford. Also of interest, #40 is a double cover and #27 and #44 are from the Harlan Ellison collection.
"The Monster Society of Evil" was published in 25 chapters in Fawcett Comics' Captain Marvel Adventures comic book. Its serialized format was inspired by the success of the live-action serial adaptation of the Captain Marvel strip, Adventures of Captain Marvel, by Republic Pictures in 1941. Chapter One of "The Monster Society of Evil" in Captain Marvel Adventures #22 (1943) depicted Captain Marvel learning that a criminal genius known only as "Mister Mind" - and only heard as a voice over a radio receiver - had gathered many of Marvel's other rogues - including Captain Nazi, Doctor Sivana, Ibac, Nippo, Mister Banjo, and more - to form "The Monster Society of Evil". After a brief appearance in issue #26, the mastermind Mister Mind is eventually revealed in Captain Marvel Adventures #27 to be a cartoonish alien worm with spectacles and a talkbox around his neck to amplify his voice.
"The Monster Society of Evil" serial concluded with Captain Marvel Adventures #46 (1945), in which Mind is finally captured, tried, and executed.
As the first and longest serialized story arc in comic book history, "The Monster Society of Evil" was hailed as a milestone of the Golden Age of Comics. 
 

Long story on this one. I submitted it to CGC back in 2015 with a large bunch of other Golden Age when I was selling a fair bit of what I had left of Golden Age comics. They put the wrong label on it (for the Charlton U.S. Marines) and I never got around to sending it back in for correction until this month. And my wife says I'm a procrastinator    Anyway I'm gad I didn't since this book is so wicked and I probably would have sold it back then. It's kinda big so they put it in a magazine holder.

I collect some GA runs. I have a small want list. Books like Schomburg Nedor WWII for example. They can get expensive and I want to make sure I don’t pay up for dupes. To be honest, I already have quite a few and a lot have a similar look.
It is a small piece of paper I keep in my wallet. It is printed from a digital file. I find it convenient. As much as I live in the present, often things from the past just work better.
Carburators, vinyl records and tube amps just haven’t been improved enough from me to abandon them completely.
And, yeah, I’m a geezer and have no problem with it. 

My first comics were late ‘50’s early ‘60’s DC war. My dad bought them and gave them to me after he read them along with Batman & Detectives. I loved the stories and art by Kubert & Heath. They also had continuing stories with characters that appeared in every issue. They still stand up well. Later I graduated to the Enemy Ace and the Unknown Soldier. Excellent reads.
Also of note, are the Revolutionary War tales of Tomahawk. The last couple years of Star Spangled are great cover to cover reads.

Nice grab! Such a rare and classic book I know how much Rick loves it! Will be a long time before you see another…

I collect some GA runs. I have a small want list. Books like Schomburg Nedor WWII for example. They can get expensive and I want to make sure I don’t pay up for dupes. To be honest, I already have quite a few and a lot have a similar look.
It is a small piece of paper I keep in my wallet. It is printed from a digital file. I find it convenient. As much as I live in the present, often things from the past just work better.
Carburators, vinyl records and tube amps just haven’t been improved enough from me to abandon them completely.
And, yeah, I’m a geezer and have no problem with it. 

Got an awsome EC today from a great boardie. I never knew there were Al Williamson file copies. I love personal file copies from creators especially EC folks. These boards are the best place around to find books sometimes. 

I collect some GA runs. I have a small want list. Books like Schomburg Nedor WWII for example. They can get expensive and I want to make sure I don’t pay up for dupes. To be honest, I already have quite a few and a lot have a similar look.
It is a small piece of paper I keep in my wallet. It is printed from a digital file. I find it convenient. As much as I live in the present, often things from the past just work better.
Carburators, vinyl records and tube amps just haven’t been improved enough from me to abandon them completely.
And, yeah, I’m a geezer and have no problem with it. 

I recognize her     She's a toughie!

 
There were a bunch of those Postcard books back in the 90's. I have "Love Was Cheap and Life Was High" buried somewhere, one of my sisters gave it to me for Christmas back then

My first purchase in awhile.
 

Got an awsome EC today from a great boardie. I never knew there were Al Williamson file copies. I love personal file copies from creators especially EC folks. These boards are the best place around to find books sometimes. 

Roger was one of the earliest EC super collectors. He was in the right place at the right time to hook up with the right people. Probably one of the best EC collections. I can’t even imagine what all he was able to collect. And a heck of a great guy. He is missed by all of us Ghoulantics…