eschnit

Lily Renee passed away 3 days after this topic was created, ironic.  She was fantastic.

On 3/31/2023 at 2:06 PM, woowoo said:

The Tec 27 did not have the label fantast collection and was never mentioned buy the seller in all his visits everywhere. That being said I don't believe the 27 was from the fantast collection.

Thank you.  I referenced previously that I thought it might be based on an interview I saw, and it was confirmed by a boardie that I know is informed on everything GA Batman.  That said, you could certainly be right.  The interview refers to the Superman 1 7.0, and the first appearance of Batman.  But he may have meant the Batman 1.

…boardie mentioned that he spoke with Heritage to confirm.

On 3/30/2023 at 3:07 PM, lou_fine said:

As I had stated when I saw the placement of the Bat 1 8.0 copy into the same auction after a Bat 1 was already in there............clearly a "dumb as nails" placement move by Heritage to put 2 copies so close together in grade into the amauction as that will only end up hurting the final uaction result for both copies.    

Although the 7.0 Bat 1 underpeformed, it certainly looks like the 8.0 Bat 1 also underperformed to a huge degree.  Especially since CC was able to auctioned off an equivalent 8.0 graded copy for over $1.2M back in 2021 which was then followed up by the Larson 8.0 graded copy selling for $1.476M at Golding later that year, with this same Larson 8.0 copy then supposedly receiving a buyout offer of $2M on Rally Road back in January of this year.    

I can see this as a tough situation that an auction house like Heritage would have experience with, and have to have a plan of what to do if/when.  I don’t know all of the details.  But the 7.0 was in previews before the 8.0 came along.  The 8.0 was from the Fanfast collection from Detroit, which may have been as big of a find as the Promise Collection.  The Tec 27 was from the same collection.  If part of that collection comes to your doorstep, you need to thread the needle where both conisgnors are happy.  What you can’t do is alienate the whale, while also not treating the consignor of the 7.0 like they’re not valued.  If it were me, I’d probably make both consignors aware, and offer both the alternative of being in the following signature auction 3 months later.  Inform consignor #2, the 8.0 upfront, offer placement of their copy in either.  Then inform the 7.0, and perhaps offer some concession to the 7.0 of a percent take or placement later.  In the end, there’s no perfect answer.  Supply and demand, but supply is what it is.   What they couldn’t do is turn down either book.

I guess the Detective 27 is from this collection.  Might qualify as a pedigree down the road if so?

On 11/17/2022 at 1:43 PM, Professor K said:

 

Exceptional work, thank you for sharing this with us.  

On 11/16/2022 at 2:09 PM, 10centcomics said:

I was tempted to bid on the low grade (CGC 1.0) Suspense Comics 3 coming up in this week's Heritage Signature Auction. As I was poking around for historical prices paid for the book, I noticed that the same book (in a different holder by a competitor grading company) was sold by HA in 2017. Back then, the book was marked as incomplete, missing the final 4 pages. There is no such mention of missing pages in the 2020 grader notes (https://www.cgccomics.com/certlookup/2139877002/) for the recent listing.

Link to 2022 Signature Auction: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/suspense-comics-3-continental-magazines-1944-cgc-fr-10-light-tan-to-off-white-pages/a/7283-93084.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

Link to 2017 Sale: https://comics.ha.com/itm/golden-age-1938-1955-/suspense-comics-3-incomplete-continental-magazines-1944-cbcs-pr-05-cream-to-off-white-pages/a/7158-91111.s?ic4=GalleryView-Thumbnail-071515

What's going on here? I don't think it was originally mistakenly graded by the other company. Nor do I think one of the owners magically stumbled upon the 4 missing pages and added them back to the book. It's possible the most current grading missed married pages but that seems unlikely based on how easy it is to identify married pages (misaligned staples, in consistent tanning, different cuts of paper, etc.) I took a closer look at the high-res scans and I think it's obvious the cover is the same based on the major chipping, the "a" pencil mark, and the ink stain on the top right corner. However, if you look at what's visible of the the interior pages from the cover scan, this does not appear to be the same interior book. The tanning of the pages are different but that could just be the scanner. More telling is the top right page corners: for the 2017 listing, those corners are flaked off whereas they look sharp in the 2022 listing. The center staple also appears to be positioned differently.

It seems the cover from the 2017 book was married to a different coverless (but otherwise complete) copy and this went undetected. I could see how a married split cover would be harder to detect than a married page, especially given all the chipping defects and spine damage. If I understand correctly, CGC doesn't use green qualified labels for low-grade books. But if the cover is indeed married, shouldn't this be disclosed in the grader notes and does it still belong in a blue holder? 

Would love to get thoughts and comments from the community here. Thanks!

Great job!  

On 10/12/2022 at 1:05 PM, Gotham Kid said:

This is one of the nicest 1.5s I have ever seen

Anyone aware of a high grade copy of this book anywhere on the planet?  I believe the highest graded is an 8.0, then a 7.0.  But my guess is one or more of the forever raw collections out there has a minty copy

On 10/23/2021 at 3:45 PM, Professor K said:

Again I'm posting two in a row. Sorry for the clutter. I need to start using that multi-quote option more.

I did not know this. I always thought the graders notes , well let me start over. I always thought that the final grade a book gets was the average grade given by three graders, each of which had no clue what grade the other two deemed it worthy of. So I guess I just assumed that graders notes were a combination of all defects found by all three graders. 

If what you say is true, that the three graders (assuming 3 graders actually grade each book) are permitted to see/read what defects the other graders found, that would kind of defeat the purpose of the three grader system. I'm so confused

 

My understanding of their grading process is they have three graders that give it a grade and not defects, but there is one primary grader that assigns a final grade.  He/she doesn’t average anything.  The final grader chooses the number.

Can’t go wrong with Mr. Baker

On 10/16/2021 at 10:23 PM, bronze johnny said:

Sorry if I lost you. Baker and Kamen were contemporaries. I was thinking of Brenda Starr 14, Kamen’s classic Jo Jo Comics and Blue Beetle covers when writing that. Agree with you that Baker is the preeminent dude and he’s what this thread is about. 

 

I get it.  I was needling a little, didn’t take the time to read that others had already.  I don’t think you even intended it exactly as it’s written.  Kamen was prolific.  And yeah, they knew each other.  Much of their art is similar enough to where they can be mistaken for the other.  CGC gets their slabs wrong consistently, attributing certain covers to one when it’s the other.  And in some cases, nobody knows which of the two it was.  To your point, much of Baker’s best was the St. John books in the early 50s.  The cover that I’m most curious about is Jo-Jo 25.  If I didn’t know the history and was purely guessing based on other work, I would guess Phantom Lady 17 was Jack Kamen and Jo-Jo 25 Baker.  Kamen was very good.  Thanks for the thread.

Of note, the covers HG Peter did in the early 40s of Wonder Woman were anything but attractive.  Something changed in the late 40s   About 5 years after she was introduced, she was being drawn much better in every aspect.  I guess a lot changed during that time.  The war had ended among other things.  There were damsels in distress drawn “pretty” among many publishers, Fiction House being an obvious one.  Pulps too.  Comment from an earlier post, Tiger Girl is a good example of a well drawn woman, not in distress, and likely similar to what Baker would have done with Wonder Woman or perhaps Supergirl (blonde).  Can’t remember her name, but Seven Seas Island girl and Phantom Lady are good examples of what we might have expected from Baker with Wonder Woman.  She was drawn well  consistently by 1950.  Catwoman suffered the same.  It took some time before she was drawn well for whatever reason.  

On 10/16/2021 at 6:08 PM, jimbo_7071 said:

Of course I respect your opinion—as I respect all differing opinions—but even among the other artists who drew for EC (as Kamen occasionally did), Al Feldstein, Wally Wood, and Graham Ingels were all several orders of magnitude better at producing GGA than Kamen.

Dan Zolnerowich, Alex Schomburg, and Maurice Whitman all produced better GGA than Kamen ever thought about producing.

Kamen wouldn't even make my top twenty. His female figures only had two facial expressions:

1) angrily constipated and 2) a look of surprise and confusion as if someone had just poked them in the butthole with popsicle.

I agree

On 10/16/2021 at 3:12 PM, bronze johnny said:

I once asked what Mac Raboy’s Superman would look like if he had drawn the Man of Steel in a comic book. In that spirit, I’ve wondered what Matt Baker would have done with Wonder Woman and Supergirl - the latter was introduced several months before Baker passed away. There’s no question as to Baker’s incredible talent as an artist and other than Jack Kamen, the greatest Good Girl Artist in the history of the medium. Only now are a number of collectors beginning to learn just how incredible Baker was at drawing women.
Another interesting fact is that Baker shares a place along side artists like Biro in that their art is synonymous with the publisher they worked for. Think Lev Gleason and Biro’s art immediately comes to mind. The same is true for St. John and Baker’s art. Baker’s greatest period as an artist occurred while working for St. John Publication and Biro’s art defines Lev Gleason Publication.

Baker also was the first African-American artist to achieve a level of artistic success never before experienced by those who came before him. Baker’s influence is seen in those who came later including the legendary Dave Stevens, and today among artists like Adam Hughes.

Still, with the incredible work Baker did before his time at St. John Publication and the corpus of his art working on the westerns, romance, and war comics for Archer St. John, he never got to draw the most popular super-heroines probably because he passed away at a young age. The DC Silver Age had begun in 1956 with revamped superheroes and new concepts. Unfortunately, Baker was ill by the time the Flash got his own comic book and Supergirl was introduced in 1959. Interestingly, Raboy passed away at a relatively young age of 53, which might also be a reason for his never giving us Superman. These brilliant artists never got to draw the most significant superheroes of their time and I imagine their work on them would be amazing.

Since this thread is focused on Baker, I ask this question:

Imagine what Matt Baker’s Wonder Woman and Supergirl would look like?

-John

Bro, you lost me with one comment.  Baker was not the Greatest Good Girl Artist in the history of the medium other than Jack Kamen.  He was better than Jack Kamen.  Jack Kamen would have told you he was better than Jack Kamen.   You’re not wondering how Jack Kamen would have drawn Wonder Woman or Supergirl.  That’s not an accident.  Nobody collects Kamen.  Baker is the preeminent dude.  Not the other way around.

On 10/11/2021 at 3:42 PM, Dr. Love said:

I was thinking about Kamen particularly.  There is no comparable swiper for the males, but in contradiction to what I said earlier, probably not that it couldn't be done - more like who would bother.

I think we may agree on this.  Baker was freelance.  If memory serves, his early work was Fiction House, mostly uncredited, and not covers, or at least not complete covers.  And Fox.  Fight Comics, Phantom Lady, Jo-Jo, etc.  And then whomever the publisher of Seven Seas was.  Kamen and Baker knew each other, worked together.  Many were inspired by, and mimicked Baker.  Kamen particularly, and on Fox and Fiction House, their art is so similar, you can’t really tell them apart.  This was circa late 40s.  
 

St. John was mostly early 50s.  These books are so distinctly Baker, there is no one else many of them could possibly be.  Cinderella Love 25 couldn’t possibly be anyone else.  Giant Comics Edition 12 and 15, True Love Pictorials, Pictorial Romances, Teenage Romances and Temptations, Authentic Police Cases, Canteen Kate, Flamingo.  The women are unmistakable.  Kamen could draw Phantom Lady all day, and you couldn’t tell them apart.  Or if you could, you found some small tell.  They’re virtually identical.  Seven Seas, I’d guess Kamen could come close, but couldn’t copy completely.  But the St. John Bakers is what makes Baker special in my opinion.  Phantom Lady and Seven Seas, and others came first.  That matters.  But the craftsmanship from later Baker is Schomburg or Frazetta in its unique quality of a preeminent artist that no one compares to.  In my opinion, that is what makes Baker singularly special.  And it’s the women, not the men.  Are the men distinct?  I don’t know, probably.  But it’s the way he drew women for St. John that is his standout quality above the rest.

On 10/11/2021 at 10:44 AM, Dr. Love said:

cop yes, thug no.  It's far easier to copy Baker's women, almost impossible to copy his men.  That's the tell.

I've always liked the Baker cover to Blue Ribbon 2, but I didn't go for it this particular copy this time for the same reasons I haven't gone for this copy in the past - the distributor's huge pencil mark and especially because the interior art is not Baker and not good

I have a different tell.  Many of the women he draws, their faces.  I can’t tell 100% every Baker from every non-Baker, but there are 100+ Bakers where the rendering  of the woman’s face is unmistakable.  It’s as clear as the way Frazetta drew a woman’s body.  Probably more so.  Not all women, not Fox.  St. John in particular.  I’d guess if I didn’t know the catalog, I could guess perfectly whether it’s Baker or not, if there’s a woman’s face on the cover. I’ve never seen anyone else draw them remotely similar.  Feldstein was closest, but not close. Kamen could mimic Baker and/or Vice-versa on a lot of stuff, but not St. John books.  Those are all unmistakable. 

On 10/10/2021 at 1:11 PM, RareHighGrade said:

Is this a Baker cover?  It looks like it, but he's not credited on the CGC label.

 

There’s no chance that’s not Baker.  It couldn’t be anyone else.

On 10/5/2021 at 9:35 PM, szav said:

Yeah, I continue to point it out when I see it because I'd rather not see CGC ruin their brand, but I do feel like the grading in general has not improved with the successive waves of Promise books, and people are perhaps kind of getting numb to it or just accepting it.

I'm all good with just buying the book and not the grade, but when I see a newly graded 9.0 that looks good for the grade, I begin to wonder what sort of interior defects it has that I can't see...but of course I never crack books, so....  Anyway, my confidence in CGC is going down a bit over the last few months.  I may need to become one of those people that only buys books that were graded during certain date ranges.

I don’t know how many books they grade on a daily/weekly/monthly basis.  I’m sure they grade many many times more modern books than Gold.  Perhaps 5,000 books is a big overwhelming wave of GA over  a short time, in relatively high grade, and they don’t know how to handle it.

On 10/5/2021 at 6:56 PM, szav said:

Well.... with all that grumbling about lax/easy grading on the Promise Collection books, particularly in the 9.2+ range, CGC could have handled it a number of ways such as:

Plan A - Ignore it

Plan B- Grade Promise books tighter so people stop complaining

Plan C- Gift grades for all new submissions so that Promise Books can no longer be accused of being graded more easily than other books

These are nice books but seeing them given 9.4s kinda takes the shine off what it means for a GA book to get a 9.4.

Can I crack this book and ask for it to be regraded by the same grader that graded those two books.  I don’t expect a 9.9 or anything.  9:8 is all I’m asking for. Top left corner knocks it down from a 10 to a 9.9, maybe 9.8

On 10/5/2021 at 6:56 PM, szav said:

Well.... with all that grumbling about lax/easy grading on the Promise Collection books, particularly in the 9.2+ range, CGC could have handled it a number of ways such as:

Plan A - Ignore it

Plan B- Grade Promise books tighter so people stop complaining

Plan C- Gift grades for all new submissions so that Promise Books can no longer be accused of being graded more easily than other books

These are nice books but seeing them given 9.4s kinda takes the shine off what it means for a GA book to get a 9.4.

There’s sometimes a fine line between knit-picking and an actual issue.  This isn’t anywhere near fine line.  Those books are pretty, but those flaws definitely knock a book down to lower than a 9.4, even if the books are perfect otherwise.  It’s probably okay for quality control to be imperfect for a short time, but they better fix it quickly.

CBCS doesn’t suck.  CGC has brand name recognition for a reason.  But if they’re going to mail it in, there is an alternative.  It’s like Coke introduced New Coke.  If they don’t go back to the same level of quality grading they had before, Pepsi is waiting in the wings.  I wonder what the issue is.  Covid?  There’s something way off.  I’ve never seen them anywhere near this inconsistent.

Great book for Baker fans.  I’ll have to revisit for that interview...