Readcomix

I would love to have beers with you and hear these stories! I was not there; I'm just looking back at the brochure. How cool that must have been.

Smashing through to splashing through

I once posted this for the Bronze guys when they were talking about the trio of Catholic one-shots from Marvel (John Paul II, St Francis, Mother Theresa) and got told it was creepy...

Without regard to ranking, 11 books have been named thus far in the thread if I have counted correctly: Action 1, Tec 27, Supes, Bats, Cap, Marvel, AF15, AA16, Fantastic 3, Suspense 3, All-Star 8. Are the "right" 10 in those 11? If no, who is in? Who is out? I guess that all comes ahead of ranking. That's all rhetorical as yet; would need to think on my own answers. Pep 22 comes to mind for me. of course, we usually correlate biggest with price tag, but if we look at impact upon the hobby and its creators through the years, it's easy to take many of those grails off the list in favor of much "cheaper" books such as CDNP22 or Mad 1 and All-Star 3.

Geez, Lou...I'm being a bit silly Point is, then or now, Black Terror #1 looks like the Mediterranean Ave of this Monopoly board. That said, some of those books are basically kinda flat at best, considering the 22 years (Tec 225, World's Best #1). But obviously more than not would be considered bargains today.

Congrats! I'm happy for you and truly heart warmed to read a thread that to my mind is what this board is about at its best! And I agree with many of you; with all due respect to Spidey and to hell with current valuations, (the hobby is only about value as long as it's about more than value), FF#1 is the Moby of comics!

In this scenario where we are at the window at the horse track placing our bets, I agree with Lou_fine's argument. But if you tell me I'm outliving all you guys in my mostly 50+ collector cohort by a freakishly long time, I get unsure. This is really a commentary on my part about the uncertain future of the hobby based on the expensive niche status of new comics today. (Not a thread jack, hear me out.) To Lou's point, sophisticated collectors are made, not born. I can look back at myself as a little kid in the early 70's and see the machinery that made these books (and so many others, like all of you, I'm sure) aspirational for me. For us, it goes beyond the first hero appearances. But barring a scenario where young dealers and others foster that mindset, I'd have to fall back on Suspense #3 as the one of the pair more likely to land in the "classic American pop culture" camp and hold value even if comics become a quaint memory in the past. This book, like a Cap 46, has a crossover appeal that a museum curator could appreciate. I would worry that absent a pipeline for sophisticated collectors into the future, a Fantastic #3 has the greater chance of being too esoteric. Heck, a book like AA16 could easily suffer that fate under this scenario. But it is a specific scenario, and not a guarantee, of course. Just my 2-cent view of the long term, and I'd like to be wrong about my underlying theory, but that probably starts with a change in the new comics marketplace.

Skull to she-skull

Thanks. That's what I thought. And I have no problem with it. He's a competitor, he bet on himself, essentially (as a manager). Who cares? But cheating in all its various forms is clearly okay. Keep pro baseball, it makes me feel like a sucker.

I think it's supposed to be Silver only, but that was like Blutarsky in Animal House! Don't stop him, he's on a roll!

I always wondered, though, I did not see it clarified...not that I looked hard....but I think it's relevant. Did he ever bet against his own team? That of course implies throwing, which I would not believe of him, unless told otherwise. If he only bet on his own team, who gives a rat's ? Don't race horse owners bet on their own horse? I think juiced balls and steroided freaks did a lot more to ruin the game for me (not to mention a strike that gave us a year without a World Series. That opened my eyes. I cannot unsee. I was done.)

The Black Terror #1 still looks like a bargain at $600....

Ki-gor to Hector

Thanks Straw!

I heard it in the '70s, just not from day one. I simply mean there's a time when books were coming out without the era being labeled. (Kind of like how some folks are saying, hey what era are today's books? We can't still be in the modern era. To my mind, nothing since Copper and the birth of independents needs or warrants an era label. They're just current books at the time. Heck, Dave Sim and the Pinis may even argue about when independents were born.) I go back to I can call it atomic or 50's; I don't think it's essential to have a label that encompasses every period. That said, the 50's and 70's are very important timespans in comics history, with the 70's in some ways bringing back elements of the 50's, just as the SA brought back elements of the GA in a broad sense (the superhero milieu).

That's beautiful; even allowing for different tastes (your trash is someone's treasure, etc) the exuberance was irrational.

Four at zoo to number four, off to war

Straw, Just PayPal, or are money orders and/or checks acceptable?

That's a new one on me! Cool cover! Western explicit violence not quite as common as the crime/horror variety.

Pre-Internet, checks and money order were the mail order options. Fortunately, this is a self-policing community that also does a great job of blowing the whistle on eBay scammers. I would think (barring the usual lists that most sellers caveat) that the actual burn rate on here is pretty low. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the regulars and semi-regulars seem a pretty affable bunch. I haven't been here long, but my first sale (through the let's get married thread) was via personal check, and I even sent it out before the check hit in that case, frankly, because I felt comfortable with the buyer and their reputation in the hobby. Unless one is selling absolute whales, I don't see a lot of risk as scammers know they will be outed loudly and quickly. So now the scammer is down to one and done, so it better be a doozy to be worth it, no? I'm sure many on here have met in person already and are fine transacting big books at a distance via check. Barring that, I can see wanting a measure of peace of mind in a first-time big book deal with someone you don't know. But the camaraderie that underlies these boards also makes establishing that friendship part of the fun. If I transact a big book with someone on here. I'd certainly reach out via PM to determine logistics to see if in-person over coffee would be possible. Am I crazy?

Hood by Wood to he-man by Kurtzman

GLWTS! I'm curious myself to see if the virtual dollar box can thrive on the boards...cool idea....hopefully, I'm boosting this thread by pointing out that the cover above is made quite disturbing by Robin's bare foot....weird....

I don't get too bent out of shape about it either way. Sure, atom age better describes post-war thru at least mid-50's (though arguably the hallmarks of silver age storytelling don't really come along until FF#1; much of the DC hero revival stuff has no new tone to it to speak of) but arbitrary cut offs don't neatly describe every book in a given year. For example, Adventure Comics from 1946 reads more GA than Atomic in its substance. People love to quibble about this stuff, and it's interesting, but comics evolution is more of a continuum, it seems to me. Then again, growing up in the '70s, before it was declared the Bronze Age, it didn't strike me as necessary to have an Age label to encompass every year of comic history. WWII was Golden, Silver was the hero revival. The interim and the new stuff were cool and different on their own, absent a label.

War to war to...war III