Get Marwood & I

@APDallas The House of Yang #2 that I posted above is cover dated October 1975, so Charlton (as usual) seems to have got in first. Of the Charlton books cover dated 10/75, the book also has the joint earliest 'on sale date' (July 3rd) so technically could be the joint first barcoded comic that you are looking for (tied with Billy The Kid #114).

We can at least be hopeful. Would a Bobby Ewing style removal of the last incarnation be too much to hope for do you think? Straight back to Capaldi, letting go, and straight into the new one with some witty exclamation as to how bad dreams can be if you eat cheese before regenerating or something.

Charlton was October 1975.

I think a small premium is reasonable, yes, where there is no obvious demand. You're not going to go all Milehigh on us though, are you, and price newsstands 8,000 times higher are you? That killed my Spidey completism stone dead.

I think you're right Gary, the alignment between the two does suggest one stamp. I can see the covers being run through a second machine of some sort once the mistake had been identified.

I know Paul, I'm only joshing mate. It gives me no pleasure, to post something like that. I resolved to stop talking about Doctor Who some time back. Well, the current incarnation at least. And my instinct is to be positive, if I can, in all walks of life. As the Doctor himself would be, despite the odd blow up. Don't like something? Move on. But I just can't get over how bad it is, and what has been done to something that has always held a special place in my heart. I see that snippet, and it offends me. Sometimes, all your learning, all your wisdom, all your finesse, all your good nature, it just desserts you and all you can do is shout "Bloody.......BOO!" OK, I'm over it.

American word for wee removal from CGC

British taking from me.

Drat. I was aiming for full blown disdain.

This short clip of the Whitterer trying to get our attention in between BBC programmes is galactically awful isn't it. There it is again, that soulless bland face with its total lack of character and depth, its miserable inability to convey history, spouting bland human sounding warnings for us to 'get ready' or something in that usual 'talk breathlessly fast' manner in the hope of appearing remotely interesting. Doctor Who does not panic. Doctor Who, generally, laughs in the face of adversity. Were Matt Smith to recite that same meagre list of foes he would end with a squeal of delight. Capaldi would shrug and say "So?" whilst finishing a plate of sushi. Jodie panics and rushes about breathlessly. The Whitterer does not have one scintilla of a clue who Doctor Who is. The clown that writes the words for her does not either, evidently, and does not have one ounce of flair or originality in his tired verbal repertoire. "Doctor, we need you!" spouts the former comedian in the background, momentarily breaking away from pressing buttons furiously on the TARDIS console and managing in the process to convey an as equally unsatisfying opening statement for his character as his flustering saviour managed in her opening speech some years earlier. No. No, not at all 'brilliant', I'm sorry to say. But utter, contemptible, balderdash.

Well said. Nostalgia plays a big part in these things I find, the recollection of happy times when we weren't bogged down with all those adult pressures to come. Comics and Doctor Who have similarities in as much as they were both so different back then to what they are now. You can have great stuff now though I think, the best even, as Capaldi has proven in my mind. Tom Baker is the Doctor for many of a certain age and that seven year stint left a big impression on me. He is the best of the first wave by a country mile. But Peter Capaldi is the Doctor.

Don't forget Catweazle

No, alas, it wasn't Daphne. I don't collect them anymore, the Marvel UKPVs, unless there is something unique about them or they're going so cheap it would be criminal to leave them. There's a discussion, I think, about whether these books should be called UKPVs and included in the figures. A bit like the Australian copies with 'official' AUS stickers on them, due, presumably, to someone forgetting to run off the printed AUS copy. Is a book with a cents price, later run over (by hand, given the movement?) with a UK price a UKPV? Is that not the same concept as a stamped copy? Or is the intent the salient point? As Daniel Kaffee once said, there's an argument to be made, either way, I suspect. And I know what you mean about the one-bid-go-do-something-else-get-sidetracked-forget-about-auction losses too. They're annoying, aren't they.

I applaud the sentiment Ganni, but the reality is that his name rarely features in any lists discussing the greatest. His work is underrated, I think, especially in respect of how he used the real world as his backdrop, but for me his legacy is just that he was doing Spidey when it mattered the most to me, and in a manner that perfectly suited the medium as it was, at its very best time. Comics today are technically superior in almost every respect. But they lack charm. They lack innocence. They lack consistency. And with their relentless reboots, variants, title over production, high cover prices and lack of high street availability, they have become virtually uncollectable. We lived through the golden age though, didn't we.

That's about the best way to determine scarcity - a thorough assessment of copies available / sold through the majority of accessible channels. This argument often comes up when discussing later newsstand copies. There is a fierce critique from some of any attempt to put a figure on the newsstand to direct ratio, but the salient point is that, in many cases, some books are next to impossible to find. That doesn't mean that they do not exist in significant numbers, squirrelled away in collections, just that you may struggle if you decide to try and buy one. If I may ask, with no snark intended, do you price any in stock books that you have assessed with their comparative scarcity in mind, regardless of perceived desirability?

Marvel is pretty much the only game in town for most UKPV collectors it seems, yes. I love a Charlton dupe for the same reason - you rarely find two issues the same. Love em...

Cheers Mike. As a further side note, I have close to a 100 post research thread pre-written on Charlton comics in the UK covering 1958 to the company's demise in 1986. Hundreds of comic images within them - some real crackers that I know you will love, certainly within the 58-65 cover date window. I can't get admin's attention though, on a key requirement, so may give up now and start my own blog, as many others have done. I'll let you know if I go down that road. Thanks again for the kind words which, today, I needed.

Personally, I think scarcity has to be linked to desirability for it to hold any widespread collector interest. I own hundreds of UK Price Variant copies of US original comics which are the only copies I have ever seen. But no one else collects them, or is interested in them, so it sort of doesn't matter in the wider context. The calculations are there to be researched, sure, but what is the point if the books in question hold little to no collector interest? I'm noticing more and more sellers in the UK who are listing books at crazy, plucked out of the air prices, just because they are perceived to be scarce. They are trying to force high prices on books that have limited appeal and, therefore, would likely go for much less in an auction environment with a handful of interested parties competing. So I think you have to balance any work that you do on scarcity with a recognition of desirability, otherwise you produce a body of work that no one is interested in reading.

OK, left a bit... ...bit more... ....now right just a touch... ....fire!

Entirely in keeping with the spirit of the thread title

Told you he knew his stuff Colour variant.....

Ganni knows his stuff. He badged it an Andu key issue. Maybe there's something we're missing Reggie. Or he was taking the mickey. I don't like Milgrom's art. Lifeless, pedestrian and completely unremarkable. I've no idea why he got to work on Spidey. And the spilt Parker/Spidey face used to get on my nerves. Like we had to be reminded.

Did you post the wrong book Ganni, bearing in mind the thread title? Each to his own, but I've always intensely disliked that cover. Blue zig zag jumper indeed.....