Cocomonkey

Aaaah so many great donations to choose from this year...argh! Form submitted, although I immediately forgot what I actually ranked in what order upon submitting it, naturally. Not sure if I'll be around for a live pick, but who knows. Yay!

I can definitely attest to this one. Last year I think I was third from the bottom on the list, and ended up with like, my #1 and #4 choices or something like that. Granted, I ranked my form knowing I was going to be at the bottom, but still, hehe.

Dang, totally lost track of things and missed this when it happened (then went away for a few days). Oh well!

The ability to mark a forum as read is gone...all you can do now is mark the entire site as read

I...for the life of me can't figure out something to send, so put me down for a $35 Amazon gift card. But it can only be used for toilet paper, because we all know that'll go back to being more valuable than comic books as the pandemic continues through the winter! (Not really. Too much 90s drek that can substitute for toilet paper in a jiffy...)

Congrats to the winners, and thanks Buzzetta for the great contest!!! Surprised I got within a half-grade of so many of them...exact middle of the spreadsheet, woo!

Received my gift (or I think I did, as I wasn't expecting anything else to be arriving)! Even though it's Hanukkah right now, since I'm already doing a gift exchange for that with the in-laws, I figure I'll keep this one until Christmas to give myself something to look forward to at the end of the month Super excited to open it, though!

Let me throw in my (likely horrible) guesses, after checking to make sure they haven't already been submitted... Book 1 - 8.0 Book 2 - 3.0 Book 3 - 4.0 Book 4 - 6.5 Book 5 - 5.0 Book 6 - 7.5 Book 7 - 3.5

I've been reading through the Witcher books...currently on I think 4? (Tower of the Swallows) So far, I'm finding them kind of...meh. They're interesting, but not really enough to make me want to keep reading and see what happens next, but at the same time, they aren't bad enough to push me to stop. Just like, solid middle of the road. Eh, I'll finish them, then I have Ready Player 2, Dawnshard, and Rhythm of War waiting.

Got my gift all packed up and ready to ship, which will be some time this week!

Count me in! Raffle item to come once I figure it out...

Not my win, but I was tracking this, and was shocked at the final hammer price. Is this an aberration, or has this suddenly started jumping up in price? $8,500 before the premium. https://comics.ha.com/itm/silver-age-1956-1969-/x-men-1-marvel-1963-cgc-vg-40-off-white-pages/a/122045-13494.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

After taking off last year, I'm back for this year...let's do it!

Definitely happy with my focus. I pick up random other books if I like the characters and can find a decent low-grade copy of their first appearance (especially X-related chars), but otherwise, my main focus is completing a full run of Uncanny X-Men (in decent-to-me grades), and at this point, I'm around 75-80%, just missing big chunks of the 2-110 range and maybe 12-15 books from 200-600. And I grab other random X-related titles, but still, UXM is it for me. It wasn't my first comic (that was a Marvel Masterworks #1 with AF15 and ASM 1-10), but it's definitely the title I latched on to the most as a kid when I started collecting.

Ahha...I'd tried searching, but didn't see these, I really need to tweak my search settings, I think...I've seen the more modern ones, the ones that look like standard vending machines, filled with comics, but hadn't seen an older one like this from the 60s before. I wonder what they go for?

I saw this posted to r/comicbooks over on Reddit...has anyone ever seen something like this before, or have any information on it (or have one that's been restored)? Looks like it would be an amazing way to display books...

When my wife and I moved into our new apartment a couple years ago, I finally decided (read: was given permission) to hang some things...I just could never really settle on what. I had a few things for sure I wanted hanging, but otherwise, not much of a plan. Well, over time, some more stuff got accrued, and a nice little theme emerged. The Zero Hour books were always on my list to put up (they're part of a set for the whole LS, but these had the best sketches...the lanterns got smaller as the series progressed and there was less and less negative space, until the last issue or two just had signatures), then after getting the Grell GA books from Blastaar in the Christmas raffle (thanks again!), I had a plan in place. Got myself the Neal Adams profile sketch to tie them together, and boom, finally got around to hanging it all. The fact that they're all on a green wall (which isn't coming out as well in the pictures) is just an unexpected bonus, haha! And still plenty of wall space to add things in the future! These join the Spider Jerusalem sketch and Neal Adams Cyclops profile I already had hanging in the hallway outside that room...

Wow, very nice haul! I love the art in those old materials...I have the core books from AD&D, but have always been on the lookout for others.

I liked the three of them on Discovery and am looking forward to this to that extent, but I'm a little worried that CBS may be over-saturating the market on ST shows now (Picard, Discovery, Lower Decks, and now Strange New Worlds)...and also, I'm past tired of prequel shows. They can't break the boundaries too much, because their big-picture future has already been established...I was so glad when Discovery changed its setting for Season 3. Even given how little of Pike's tenure has been set as canon, there's only so far they can go with new technologies and new aliens and new conflicts. They can introduce some new aliens, or the first contact with later-established aliens, but still, things can't go too far from what the situation was like at the start of TOS, especially if this is set less than a decade before then. I want to know where things went after Voyager got home, what new technologies may exist at the dawn of the 25th century...settings where they can do anything to expand the universe, basically. Oh well.

Have you found the missing 20?

I saw the first two scans and thought, "Oh man, is 9.4 considered a mid-grade now?! on a cracker!"

After doing a few puzzles with my wife (and still in the middle of a nice 2,000-piece space-themed one), I have my next shelter-in-place project lined up! Took advantage of the Star Wars day sales/offers over the weekend to get the Death Star II Battle set for free...

It amuses me so much that this is a question that can be asked, and somehow seems like a totally normal thing...

Since NYC went into shelter-in-place, I've finished The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern and Collapsing Fire/The Last Emperox from John Scalzi. Now I'm reading The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor (of Welcome to Night Vale). I have a request out for a galley ebook of the next Murderbot book that I'm hoping gets approved, but hasn't gotten approved or denied yet. Not sure what I'll dive into after Faceless Old Woman, if I haven't gotten access to the Murderbot book. Maybe the Roger Rabbit trilogy that's been sitting on my shelf for a bit, and then back into my Michael Moorcock Complete Read-Through that I paused about 45% of the way in...

Congrats @Azkaban!!! Wow, I think I had my best performance in the consolation round than in any round I can remember for a while with 2 bullseyes...I definitely also fell in the "8.0" trap on that last book! And that Omac looked like it was in better condition than the MSHSW, but oh well...