IngelsFan

Combat has some great art, inside and out. Issue #24 even has Sam Glanzman's first USS Stevens cover, 3 years before the series would start at DC.

Gabe, that's a stunning array of both guns and comics. It would be a tough call to pick a favorite from either wall!

I love Fight Comics 31! I had a mid grade copy awhile ago but traded it for some PCH. I do have War Fury #1, as well as Terrific Comics #4 and Wings Comics #17, both of which are pretty gory and underrated IMHO. But hands down, Fight 31 is the top of the war-gore heap.

THIS is the way I like to start the weekend, by getting these two (and a couple of others) in the mail:

Great color on this one-a real beauty!

Gino-that Marvel Mystery 46...awesome! I love how even before "horror" was a separate genre in comics, there were horror elements in a lot of the superhero books. That zombie Hitler with a skeleton army really does the trick-nice looking copy.

BB-I don't even have the words....I'll just go with WOW!

Jayman, the interior is all text, and the most disjointed writing style I've seen published. There aren't many paragraphs, just a wall of sentences.

This one is more along the lines of Pre-Pre-Code Horror. I like how it shows that not much has changed in the 114 years since it was published: skeletons and skulls will always be cool.

For DC war we almost need to redefine the term "high grade". Once I completed my runs of the Big5, I started working on getting specific issues in high grade. There are a lot that are impossible to find above a vf. I also collect PCH and as tough as that genre is, at least there are high grade pedigrees to make me happy (between Gaines and Harvey file copies, River City, etc). For DC war it's what, Salida? There just aren't huge high grade runs out there. I have a hit list of a handful of books I started looking for pretty intensely last year, and I've found a lot more of the PCH in grade than I have DC war. For instance, try finding a vf or better SSWS 90, or really ANY dino issue below 100. Last I checked the highest in the census for 90 was an 8.0.

Great score Mr. Ill-that Thing 12 looks awesome! I'm looking forward to seeing what else you post from this find.

Wow! That ST 28 looks amazing! Congrats on a great book.

While we are posting MAs, here's mine:

That CoC23 is sharp! I love the details Avison used-the pile of skulls in the background, one ghoul stealing her watch. His style is loose, but it works.

War Fury was a difficult run to put together. That and the Farrell war books were fun to complete. Congrats on picking up a nice copy.

Grader's notes? I have to pay for those, correct? I've never done that but after your post I looked on the CGC website and it looks like there is a fee? Now I'm curious too. It looks stunning in person. I was thinking they might have graded it lower because it isn't a pedigree. The fact that it isn't from a pedigree collection or a file copy makes it even cooler to me, because it means that someone took very good care of it for 62 years. I find that simply amazing.

This is one of the 9.0 comics I picked up recently. This one is in my top 5 for Harvey horror, and each copy this year has been better than the last. This was after trying all year last year to find ANY decent copy (feast or famine, right?). The other is Chamber of Chills 13, another one of my favorite Harveys. I haven't gotten a decent pic yet but will post as soon as it arrives. Both of these are underrated IMHO. The ToT 16 gets overshadowed by the 15, but I actually prefer it. For the Harvey horror runs it seems like there were a few flashes of incredible creativity on covers, and great interiors consistently, but the majority of their covers are pretty tame.

Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to pricing high grade PCH? I've picked up 2 9.0 copies of really great covers, and while I gladly paid over guide on one, I got the other one under guide (also very happily!). I know when I was actively pursuing pre-hero DC a lot of dealers would quote the guide multiple that they wanted; is there a similar kind of thing with PCH? I know it's a bit of a noob question but I'm still fairly freshly back in the comic book market...

Very impressive. The only thing better than EC comics is getting more EC comics! I bought 4 my first time and have been hooked ever since (and that was in 1985).

Hey Andy- Very cool contest. I voted for the ones I didn't like, and it was a struggle finding 33. Too many awesome covers already have votes against them (seriously, how can anyone NOT like GIC 74 and SSWS 88!?!) Will you be posting each round here or should I bookmark the main voting thread?

The Witches Tales cover was pasted over with a very average looking guy. I like the original image much better. My ToT16 cover has a paste over on the face of the guy being held underwater by the zombie, but since it was done back in 1954 I've been hesitant to remove it, especially since there is no guarantee it would be a better image that the awesome one already there. I've been trying to locate the original to the Adv Into Darkness cover for about 5 years, but haven't been able to even get confirmation that the image used by Eclispse was original art or a proof (as is the case with the Witches Tales cover).

I thought about starting a new topic, but these will probably be appreciated here more. These are a couple of unpublished PCH covers and one that was altered before publishing. Does anyone have any other examples?

This one is heading my way; I like that the subject matter could have easily been used for a post code DC sci-if cover, but the artist here (any ideas who? GCD was no help) makes it creepy...

Love that Operation Peril issue AtlasFan! It looks like a precursor to DC's dinosaur run on Star Spangled War Stories. Dinos vs GI's is always a win.

Agreed on the 84 as well. For Rocks, the toughest in grade for me were 83, 84 and 88. 112 is tough in nice shape because of the black cover, and 115 for the same reason with the blue area on the upper part of the cover-I see a lot with color breaks and that blue really makes them stand out.