Get Marwood & I

Yup. Just something I'd heard Aman. No records of these things alas.

Indeed. The link above doesn't work for me, perhaps thanfully, but like you I often ponder what could have been. Star Wars - in its original state - has always had something about it, something epic. The characters, names, settings - the whole thing is a once in a lifetime inspiration. It's part of the world, part of our fabric. So to see how it is handled today is such a shame. It's such a shame that the combined genius of the human race, with all that it now has at it's disposal from a film making perspective, can't contrive to add something to the original idea that actually blows people away. See also 'current Doctor Who'.

APV+

What he said.

I spent a lot of my time looking at blue, The colour of my room and my mood: Blue on the walls, blue out of my mouth; The sort of blue between clouds, when the sun comes out, The sort of blue in those eyes you get hung up about. When that feeling of meaninglessness sets in, Go blowing my mind on God: The light in the dark, with the neon arms, The meek He seeks, the beast He calms, The head of the good soul department. I see myself suddenly On the piano, as a melody. My terrible fear of dying No longer plays with me, for now I know that I'm needed For the symphony.

Same here. The old legs aint what they used to be though, so I'm sure one of these days she'll catch me up and stop me buying it.

Show me your back cover Jim.

Can we see the back cover? That's usually the give away, if it has full colour.

That's one of the theories that has been touted regarding the Marvel Australian Price Variants Aman, that they were run off first so they could get them on the boat for the long ship ahead (3 month cover difference between US and AUS copies).

Never mind all that KirbyJack, where do the disabled park?

....hiding in plain site Aman To be fair, I've always said these (and all UK Price Variants) were printed in the US. I wasn't there personally to witness it of course, but the clues are there. The question that has vexed everyone is in what order the books were printed, first, last or in the middle. I think I've more or less illustrated across my threads that the order differed by book, publisher and whether the moon was in the fourth quarter. I also feel that I have proven that very few collectors care either way.

Not a bad result for an ASM splash page with no Spidey in it. I wonder what Ross would make of some of the prices his work goes for nowadays... I wouldn't mind betting he'd have an expression a bit like this... "How much!"

I give names to inanimate objects too Maurice. My spade is called Doug.

WYATT EARP, FRONT EAR MARSHAL PART DEUX! "That's 'Frontier' pal, Frontier" "Ease off that scatter-gun, Earp. You've nabbed your last outlaw!" "Oh Barney, come on!" "What Dave, what?" "Nabbed? Nabbed! What are you, f five or something!" "What's wrong with 'nabbed'?" "We're supposed to be hardened f outlaws Barney. Hardened f outlaws don't go around saying things like f nabbed!" "Dagnabbit Dave, you are one queer sort I'm tellin ya" "Nabbed......" WYATT EARP, FRONT EAR MARSHAL PART DEUX! "I said 'Frontier'. Do you want a smack in the teeth, or what?"

Every body Kon-ga, every body Kon-ga! Every body Kon-ga, Kon-ga, hey, Kon-ga! (We apologise for the state of the Konga #10 shown. We hope to provide a better condition Konga #10 as soon as possible, and hope that the current tatty copy has not spoilt your enjoyment of it's existence confirmation)

OK, last AUS post for today (hooray you cry!) I've done a full first review of the spreadsheet and marked those books that I feel are obvious non-APV contenders accordingly. In doing so I found a few calculation errors. The new figures are: 1,264 confirmed APVs 103 titles with one or more APV confirmed 1,699 actual issues in the date window (down from 1,701) 1,562 expected APV issues remaining following the first 'almost certain there will be no APV' pass I believe the actual APV figure will still be significantly below 1,562, as it still includes the other 44 April 1994 books and a whole host of other scenarios where it is more likely than not that missing issues are missing by design. So I'm going to give it another good while yet, to see what comes up, before I start knocking those off the list. Here's one further example of books that may not exist. Incredible Hulk has confirmed APVs for numbers 374 to 412. Every book has turned up in the first wave except #413 which, of course, is one of our absent April 1994 books. If we look at the second wave, only one book has surfaced - the last one, #447 (of which there are two versions incidentally): It is quite common for a title with many first wave APVs to have no second wave books. So if it wasn't for #447, I would mark all ten books as 'NOAUS'. But as long as this one exists, the other 9 may: They probably don't, but it's too early I feel to make that call. We'll see. As it did with the missing ASM books, time will tell. See ya next time for more 'Adventures in Tedium'

X-Force #2 clearly had a few production issues. Aside of the assumed failure to print APV copies, hence the stickered version here (nice shot)... ....and here (whoops, missed): ... every copy of the US Direct Edition has the remnants of the US Newsstand copy's 'cc 01766' Curtis Circulation code showing behind the UK 65p price: What a muck up!

I would say no Masterlogan, as they can be replicated by anyone with a decent printer. For me, for a comic to be called a price variant it has to have a printed difference and, of course, be printed at the same time as the home original. A Mark JeweIers Insert copy for example isn't really a variant of the non-insert copy, as the insert can be removed or (if you're very skilful) added. Likewise a sticker can be removed or added. It's great background information though, and helps to explain why some actual printed APVs don't (currently!) exist.

I suspect Plasma Gasification may be involved too... @bc

Cheers Ben - and it also explains why the stickers look so damn official!