chromium

Jebus 10 years...:( In 2009 Nik invited me to his place in Boston, he still had a European soul and we had always gotten along well on the boards, so in July 2009 I finally flew to the US, had a BBQ with his wife and kids and a bunch of boardies that were from the area but also Doc Watson and Arex that drove for 8 hours to get there. The next day we all spent geeking out over books in Nik's basement, where he had something that looked like a stripper pole installed, I still don't know what it was and I seem to remember someone walking into it, which had Nik laughing so hard I remember he drove like a madman when he took us all down-town for Oysters, scared the bejeebus out of me, I only have this very badly lit pic of that restaurant...all boardies, I'm not naming names, you all know who you are. So many great things happened that weekend, I met boardies I had known for years (online) for the first time and most of them became very good friends. I'll always remember Nik with a smile and remember a lot of his stories, he would get so animated while telling them and then after he got it all out he was the sweetest guy you could imagine. I got back to Belgium around the 20th and received a PM that Nik had been hospitalised a day or so after I came back...and alas he passed away a few days later. Rest in peace buddy, You were quite the character, the world is a poorer place without you.

The new website looks spiffy.

per pm

No customs fees, as like you said the art stays in the EU, but we pay 21% tax on everything bar the essentials, except electricity which is also 21%. Water is still 6%

Lies ! Blatant Lies ! I work 20 hours a week (average is 41, but I'm a fast worker) and get 15 weeks of vacation, retirement age has been raised from 58 to 67 though and medical house-calls have gone up to €8 ! Also...it rains a lot over here.

Absurdly, for me in Europe it makes more sense to buy from the US heritage auctions. The Heritage European auction really know how to squeeze the lemon : 25% commission + 21% tax means that a 10K piece would end up costing you close to 15K.

I saw the first Iron Man movie in 2008 the day it was released (about 3 days prior to the US release date), uncommonly for me I spotted an Easter egg... Captain America's shield tucked away in Tony Stark's lab. I turned to my wife and said "OMG, they are going to make a Captain America movie". When we got home I got on the internet and started looking for decently priced copies of Avengers #4, hit all the major dealer sites, ebay etc..even bought one off the boards. Sure it was already a key, but prices were very reasonable That week I bought 8 or 9 copies(it's been over 10 years, I forget). Held on to them and sold them about two years later for a tidy profit, kept two copies, a 6.0 and an 8.0 which I basically got for free after all the wheeling and dealing. So yes, it happens sometimes.

Nah, I knew what was coming....17 years ago

Especially after he made it clear she should get back to the KITCHEN before they miss her, you know the place where they handle and prepare food.

100% published art, 90% of the art I own or owned, the original artist passed away before I ever owned the piece, all the other art was done before I started collecting (2002). Except for one piece, the only piece I bought straight from the artist, without it even being for sale. I read the book, saw the page and e-mailed the artist. He told me it wasn't really for sale, but thought that the piece belonged more with me than with him; so he sold it to me. The artist is Peter Bagge and this piece was such a bolt out of the blue that I just had to have it.

There are about 80 million French speakers in Europe, and about 23 million Dutch speakers. Plus Robbedoes was never very successfully in Holland (where 75% of the Dutch speakers live) but Spirou was as popular in France as it was in Belgium. Even hard-core Flemish and Dutch vintage comic book collectors collect Spirou over Robbedoes oddly enough.

Prices have been creeping up for the past three years or so, if you go by pages that sold within the last year, I think this page is almost what you are describing... scenery and no notable characters. This is a page from The Third Wish story from 2002 and sold for $1,920.00. I think you will hard pressed to find a published Mignola page for under two grand...or maybe a page from his final stories, where he used sparse backgrounds and much less black (ink) and of course no dialogue.

It depends on the time period...if it's early Mignola with some significant other characters it would sell for more than later (non text balloon) pages with just Hellboy and nothing much else.

I've used egg white to reattach them, ten years later, still on and no side effects. I figure if it was good enough during the Renaissance for sticking gold leaf to surfaces, it's good enough for me.

Step back and observe the feeding frenzy when a major key comes to market in the original, 1st generation label. Not only is it widely believed that old label comic books were graded stricter than today. Also, since CGC didn’t offer pressing and cleaning services back when, there is a very good chance that comics found within old label slabs most likely did not undergo the procedure, so buyers see them as great pressing candidates! Mind you comics were pressed pre-CGC, even dating back to the days of Pop Hollinger but it was much, much more niche.

The Smurfs stories are pretty funny and actually kinda irreverent for their day.

Nice ! If you need another #1071 CGC 6.0 OW/W and a #1072 CGC 7.5 OW/W let me know

I contacted them about 4-5 weeks ago with all the info I had on the various printings, so maybe they actually took notice of it

There is a Swiss version (in French as well) But these are indistinguishable (AFAIK) from the French editions. Both French and Belgian Spirou were printed at the same time, just like the Marvel cents and pence editions. The Belgian edition is considered the original edition as they were "first off the press" and Spirou is/was a Belgian comic anthology magazine, so the French version could be considered a "price variant" The Belgian edition is easily recognisable as it has a small cut-out stamp on the bottom of the back cover among other small differences, but the collectable stamp (called a "point Spirou or timbre Spirou)is the easiest to spot. There were more French issues than Belgian issues printed, not only because France is 18X bigger than Belgium, but also because roughly half of the issues printed in Belgium were Dutch language (Robbedoes) and the other half French language (Spirou)

$31K for the Wood page...pretty healthy

I sold most of my Mignola art but held on to a few pieces and bought another one in 2018. I prefer the pre-2003 stuff, as I think that's where Mignola is at his Gothic best, plus I don't really dig the art where there are no more text-balloons as Mignola went digital. The one I bought last year I entered in the Lowry showdown and this is how I feel about it : Hellboy Conqueror Worm #3 P23...The Attack of the killer B-characters - Mike Mignola I've been lucky to acquire a fair deal of Mignola Hellboy pages, but this time I bought one without Hellboy ! "Infidel !" I hear you cry, but come on, if Hellboy was on this page as well it would explode. The Story is called "Conqueror Worm" and there he is in all his slimy g(l)ory in panel 1. But Mignola gives us even more..there he is as well...the original jar-head Herman von Klempt himself (past and future !) But the crowning glory must be a rare appearance of probably Mignola's greatest creation (and the reason I went hog wild to buy this page)...the Superior Specimen of the Simian Species...the all-conquering Kriegaffe. If DC had put War Apes instead of Monkeys on all those 60's cover I bet their circulation would have been even higher.

I think we never will be sure...maybe it's not a bad thing, adds to the mystery When I went to DC to have a look at the pages not too long after they were donated, I asked Sarah Duke, the curator if it was Marie Severin. Her name had popped up in the boards and i was also in the camp of the believers due to her ongoing ties to Ditko. I got more convinced once I was there because of the fact there are (were) only a few Marvel comic pages in the Library and some of them were drawn by Marie no Kirby, no Buscema, but a couple of Marie Severin Silver Age pages. So I figured Marie donated them together with the Ditko pages... But the lady told me she couldn't deny or confirm if it was Marie and to the best of her knowledge Marie had never donated any art to the museum... But my fellow collectors with me thought she was blowing smoke up our arses.

Without any problem, I'm from Belgium and got a card way back in 2010 to go and see the AF 15 art. Takes about 15 mins to make/get the card. When you schedule an appointment, they ask you to come 15-30 minutes early so you can get registered.

Daredevil 1, 1st 17 open Daredevil 1 - 11 Thor 1, 1st 18 open Journey Into Mystery 83 - 100 per pm.

Cool, a universal auction tracker could come in very handy.