worldsbestcomics

Trust me. Crain is worth the wait. I have waited for a year between books from him back when he wasn't doing commissions and those books were worth it. I know his wait time is a bit longer now than it was a few months ago since he has started doing his own book but it isn't too long and he has been cranking out some crazy good stuff.

Is that a color break right about captain america's ear? Yeah, but it doesn't matter because it doesn't count against the grade on this issue. It's supposed to be there. It is a defect and does count against the grade.

When will you hear about your Wolverine 35 submissions?

(thumbs u

This will be my new avatar!

This should be greggy's new avatar...

This thread obviously took a lot of time and work. Thank you Flee and Watson. I belly laughed and I smiled and then I almost shot coffee out my nose. I couldn't stop smiling and chuckling. I have never enjoyed a thread more.

Best thread ever. Please tell me there will be greggy

Awesome Winnipeg Ka-Zar run.

The world's best Wolverine collection I am primarily a bronze-age collector with a focus on X-Men and Amazing Spider-Man. But, I recently decided to take a break from my X-Men 94-143 run and put together a Wolverine 1-189 run. The idea was suggested to me by a buddy, Dennis Houser who decided to part with his extraordinary collection (#2 on the Registry). Nobody has completed a 9.8 run of Wolverine 1-189 yet. In fact, when I looked at the census numbers I was astonished to find that 14 different issues had no 9.8 copies at all and 16 others had just one copy. That seems surprising for such a popular character/title. And it means that the only way to complete a 9.8 run will be to find high-grade raw copies for submission. I have a complete run of raw books that were hand-picked by me fresh from my LCS when they were first released so I began submitting the issues that I knew Dennis did not have in his collection. I pulled out all the copies that I thought were 9.8. Those 60 books were sent to CGC for grading and 46 came back 9.8 including 7 of the 14 issues which previously had no 9.8 copies and 9 of the 16 which had previously had just one 9.8 copy. Then, I relied on help from some of the friends that I have met on the CGC Boards to find raw copies of the remaining issues. Thank you DarthDiesel, PresidentDennis and BronzeBruce. Not only was I able to find six of the remaining seven issues for which there had previously been no 9.8s, but I was able to find several of the variants, alternate covers and second prints. It was shortly after this that I noticed that some of the Wolverine artists were scheduled to come to Emerald City Comicon. I thought, "Hey, I'll get them to sign their books." And then something clicked in my brain. "What if I got every book in the entire run signed?" That was a goal that made me smile. And so I listed out every issue on a spreadsheet and noted who did the cover art and interior art and who wrote the story. Now, I look for them every year at Emerald City Comicon and I keep an eye out for other rare signing opportunities. Meeting the artists has been a lot of fun. Marc Silvestri and Humberto Ramos were both super cool guys. I really liked Erik Larsen and Terry and Rachel Dodson. I also decided to keep up with the ongoing Wolverine books and Beachbum has really helped me out there. I don't know if I will get all of them signed. The 1-189 run won an award from CGC for Best Copper Age set in 2012. They did point out (mock?) my inability to find a 9.8 copy of issue 35 in their comments. There is a whole thread on the CGC boards about the quest to find a 9.8 copy of issue 35 and why it has been so difficult. Joeypost turned up the first 9.8 copy of Wolverine 35. He found the raw copy in a store in Charlotte and offered it to me first. You can't put a run like this together without a lot of help. I can't tell you how many people told me that they were looking for a 9.8 copy of issue 35 to help me out. That comraderie has been a big part of the fun with putting this run together. Now that I have a 9.8 copy of 35, I need to see if I can get CGC to update their comments about the Registry Award :-) To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

Joey described the details of the books flaws to me when he first got it and he nailed it, "It's an ugly 9.8." He discussed the book with the CGC graders and they described it to him exactly the same way they described a similar book to me many years ago. "9.8 doesn't mean no flaws. In this case the only flaw is a couple of the bindery tears common to this issue. The tears in this copy are the least we've seen and the rest of the book is structurally mint. So, it is 9.8." I have a personal bias against spine stress and these bindery tears look so much like spine stress that I can fully understand why someone would look at this book and not think it is 9.8.

Here it is.

It is very hard to distinguish between these bindery tears and spine ticks or stress marks. If they are in the UPC box area, they are almost certainly bindery tears. To confirm this, you have to open the book and carefully look at them from the inside of the front cover. You will be able to see that they actually go through the paper. I did open the book to be sure. Inside cover was fine. Its just the 2 lines on the outside. I looked on the outside at first until I read another post saying the same thing as you, so I opened it up and it was not a tear through I can take pictures if you want. Scan on the outside front cover and take a pic with my digi cam up close of the inside front cover. There is no need to send pictures. All the ones I've seen that looked like spine stress in the UPC box were tears. Maybe yours is different. Even if the rest of the book is mint, it would get a 9.6 at best.

It is very hard to distinguish between these bindery tears and spine ticks or stress marks. If they are in the UPC box area, they are almost certainly bindery tears. To confirm this, you have to open the book and carefully look at them from the inside of the front cover. You will be able to see that they actually go through the paper.

Worldsbestcomics mows lawns? Be willing to do more than the next guy. That's one of my mottos (thumbs u

Probably 9.2-9.4 depending on the rest of the book. Those tears are both about as big as the those tears get.

I just got this back from CGC.

There are so many things both right and wrong about this picture...

Congratulations, Joey.

Very nice work on the Doomsday Andy. It is cool to see the progression from pencils thru preliminaries to the final inked pice.

I scored one of my Duck grails last night on Heritage. I have been wanting to get high-grade copies of the Duck books from the month I was born and this is the first. It is the highest graded copy (tied with one other) and best of all it is signed by Carl.

This one is currently at CGC

He still has the website. He put his commission page on hold until he gets caught up on all his requests. But, he says you can still email him and put "Commissions 2012" in the subject line and he will respond.

Back cover eh? Yes, it is the back cover to the variant edition of Ultimate Spider-Man 100. When will someone think to do a blank black sketch cover?

I love all the great Carnage books people have been getting. Here is mine.