jimbo_7071

I believe that this is a Cape Cod book; I think some of them have aD rather than ND.

This is my one and only Cosmic Aeroplane.

What is that kid planning to do to those enemy leaders? The look on his face is downright disturbing. From a boy in a green top and a red hat to a girl in a red top and a green hat . . .

Yellow-orange flying saucer to yellow-orange flying saucers...

Devil in Petticoats to Daredevil in the corner . . .

Fiend chasing a damsel to fiend materializing from out of a fire to scare a damsel...

Perspective of an unseen cop with one hand showing to perspective of an unseen creep with two hands showing.

Painted cover to painted cover. (I don't even have this one in hand yet!)

That's a pretty bad tear. I'd say 3.0 at the highest.

There could be an older original owner who has a long-forgotten collection in the bottom of a steamer trunk, underneath some boxes of Red Rose Tea trading cards, but I doubt there are many older original owners out there who are still active in the hobby in any way.

The Metro/CC archives are not complete--I know that because some books that I've watched or bid on are not in there--but it may be scarce. Then again, it may just be that the guide value is too low for people to bother slabbing it.

Archie 50 is OK, but it's never been on my want list. It's kind of bland. There are quite a few Archie/Pep/Laugh covers that I like better (including a few by Montana, although I generally prefer Vigoda's work). As for Ginger 4, Ginger's pose might be classic, but the artwork is just average. I'd take a Katy Keene 62 over either of the aforementioned books any day of the week.

Subby strangling a Japanese soldier to Cat-man strangling a Nazi leader.

Locked behind a freezer door to backed up against an apartment door.

Aside from Yosemite Sam, you have Porky Pig's stutter; Elmer Fudd's speech impediment; Bugs Bunny's tag line, "What a maroon!"; Daffy Duck's homicidal rantings; and Wylie Coyote's planting of roadside bombs. Warner Brothers probably wants to steer clear of the potential PR minefield. (They've already taken some heat for "Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs," after all.) The situation seems similar to the way Disney has suppressed "Song of the South," which is quite inoffensive, especially compared to some of the Warner Bros.' material. ETA: I almost forgot about Pepe LePew, the Harvey Weinstein of the cartoon world.

Japanese flag on the globe to Japanese flag on the wall... ETA: I can't say I remember seeing the Taiwanese flag on any covers besides that America's Best.

Warner Brothers could revive Bugs and the gang, but it seems like the company has made a strategic decision to let the Looney Tunes characters fade into oblivion, possibly because many of the old cartoons are politically incorrect by today's standards.

There may be too many to list, unfortunately. I sometimes mention comic strip or cartoon characters to my students and am met with blank stares. Most of them have never heard of Popeye, Felix the Cat, Woody Woodpecker, etc. But here's my final answer: the other day I mentioned Bugs Bunny to a group of students, and only one of them was familiar with that character.

Cake to cake...

It was apparent around the time of the Cole Schave thread that CCS had amped up the heat and/or humidity in order to reduce cycle time. That made cover shrinkage worse, but there were signs of it on books even before that. If you can see newsprint all the way up the right edge of a book, then it may well have suffered some cover shrinkage (although it isn't a certainty).

Giveaway featuring a little boy to giveaway featuring someone who wishes he were a little boy...

Yes, but you often have new collectors (and collectors who are returning to the hobby after many years) who don't figure out the rules until after they've been taken to the cleaners and paid stratospheric prices for over-pressed Frankenbooks sitting in 9.8 holders. Even without the pressing angle, grading is just too subjective to justify the higher prices that 9.8s command. The 9.8 Vancouver Namora 1 convinced me of that years ago. It appears to be lower grade than the few 9.4s that I own. (And doesn't the Allentown 9.8 Cap 1 have cream-to-off-white pages????) There is so much overlap between grading increments that the buying of 9.8s at sky-high prices is usually a way of saying, "Look at me. My copy is nicer than yours. My copy is the highest graded copy in existence. I must be one of the most special people in existence." To me, a 9.8 is worth slightly more than a 9.4 or 9.6, which is why I'm unlikely to ever own one (unless it's an issue that no one else wants or a file copy that's common in high grade). Bidding against the sort of people who measure their self worth by a number on the corner of a comic book holder is sort of a fool's errand, anyway. There's almost no limit to what some people will be willing to spend in order to prove to themselves that they're special.

Yes, and CGC overlooks pressing-related damage, like stress around the staples and shrunken covers, and gives books higher grades even when they look worse. Even before the CPR craze, though, you had guys who would submit the same book over and over again until it got a gift grade.

That may be, but none of them have very exciting offerings compared to what was typical a few years ago. The only book that caught my eye in the HA auction was the Larson Marvel Mystery no. 8, and then I took a closer look and saw the rust on the staple.