jimbo_7071

You'd better put an asterisk next to that PL 17! Some of us aren't convinced that Matt Baker had a hand in that cover. Others think that he did the face and maybe the hair but nothing else.

I meant to bid on a couple of the romance books in that auction but completely forgot about it. They have too many auctions now; it's impossible to keep track of all of them.

Dude with mustache in bondage to dude with whiskers in bondage.

Large cheese wheels to small cheese wheel.

The collectors outside looked from original owner to pedigree, and from pedigree to original owner, and from original owner to pedigree again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Some are nicer than others, however. They've been out of Edgar's basement longer than they were in it, and not all of them have been taken care of properly. Some of the Cheslers have been peed on by cats; some of the Fiction Houses allegedly spent a year or two baking in a shed down in Texas; many books have amateur glue and color touch; etc. Unfortunately some of them were actually ruined when the basement at Greg Manning auctions flooded. I have not been able to find out which ones. I did send Bill Hughes an e-mail (many years after the fact) to see whether he remembered, but he didn't. (Does anyone here?)

My best estimate would be about one third of the universal price—so around $1,333 if $4K is a good number. A low-grade book might get 50% of the universal price, but I don't think that a 7.5 would. A much scarcer book might. That heavy of a punishment might not seem to make a lot of sense—which is why some people are removing resto, getting a lower grade, and still turning a profit—but the hobby hates PLODS.

Regardless of the ped status of a book, a glaring erasure on a book looks worse than the writing that was erased. It sounds like a good story; I'll have read more about it. I can understand the appeal to collectors who might have met Lamont or who were actively collecting when Lamont was located. I was probably on a long break from the hobby at that time.

It's sad to think about, but I guess it's to be expected with the passage of time when you consider that a lot of these guys got started around the same time—as the hobby was really taking off—and are in the same age range. I'm glad that some of them have shared stories here on the boards and elsewhere. I took a ten year break from the hobby and came back in 2012 to learn that some guys whose names I recognized had passed on (Bruce Hamilton, Jerry Weist, Harry Thomas, who discovered the Cookevile collection . . . probably some others who aren't coming to mind immediately). I can't help but wonder how many guys whose names or handles I recognize would be gone if I were to take that 10-year break now and come back in 2033. Sadly, I fear it would be quite a few.

I didn't know him, but I remember when @jbcomicbox used to post on the boards regularly. It's sad to hear.

To me, it just made E.C.s a slightly lower priority because they're that much easier to find in high grade. I'd still like to pick up some high-grade copies of my favorite issues. If I see a book that's a little tougher to find in grade, then I'll usually go after that one instead.

I put page quality, freshness, and eye appeal above grade regardless of whether a book is a pedigree. Many pedigree copies have all of those things going for them and would win out for that reason, not just because of a pedigree designation. For any given book, all existing copies were all produced around the same time in the same bindery. Who cares whose basement a particular copy sat in? The Church and San Francisco books are often among the nicest, freshest copies, but I'm not sure I understand the appeal of the Larson books. Even if you can overlook the writing on the cover as a "pedigree marking," most of the ones that I've seen appear to have foxing or rust on the staples or both.

You wimped out!

Busting through a window to fight Nazis to same.

Hot diggety dog! Any predictions on the hammer price, gang? This has been on my want list since that time in Vegas when I came to in a bathtub full of ice and found out that one of mine had been stolen. I wish you luck, but you'll have to outbid me and all of the foodies.

That tape pull is tiny and wouldn't have pulled it all the way down to 5.0 from a high grade. It must have been factored in to the grade, but in that mid-grade range, I doubt whether that defect took it down more than one increment. The graders probably saw it as a 5.5 absent that tape pull.

Can you tell for certain that it is a tape pull and not a printing defect? Can you clearly see that there's paper loss? If so, then that is a huge whiff on the part of the CGC graders.

The grade looks a bit low, so it could just be that a non-pedigree comic sold through the same shop happened to survive. I don't know whether a comprehensive list of Bethlehem books exists.

All movie genres go through phases, according to film historian Christian Metz: Experimental Stage Classical Stage Parody Stage Deconstruction Stage I think that we've been in the parody stage for a while, but Marvel and D.C. are still attempting to make "classical" superhero movies, which people are starting to find boring or passé. Kick-A, Shazam!, and Guardians of the Galaxy all had strong parody elements. The deconstruction stage occurs when a genre merges with other genres, but I'm not sure how that would work with superhero movies (which already include crime, sci fi, and action elements). I guess you could have a superhero rom-com or a superhero musical. These stages could probably start over again with a new generation, but only after a break of a decade or two, so I doubt that comic books will get the massive bumps during the next ten years that they've enjoyed over the past ten years. You may see fewer superhero movies during the coming years, or you may see a steady stream of lower-budget superhero movies. The studios will continue to try to tweak the formula in order to sustain interest, but they will struggle.

I think you can post them if you crop out the label.

It's possible; there's a certain mystique around Mile High copies that transcends grade and even eye appeal.

I got this one back from CGC recently. The pages were close to white except for some tanning on the top edge; I guess that top edge was enough for the C/OW designation.

"No one" may have been hyperbole—(please don't tell me you're 63 or 64)—but I don't think that the character resonates much with younger collectors. I really can't predict what any book will sell for at auction on a given day; I've been surprised many times. But I'd see it as a risky investment at $20K—potentially hard to move a few years down the road as older collectors exit the hobby.

The Golden Age was all about superheroes, and Baker was a little too late to the party. He didn't have many superhero covers, and the ones that he did have were primarily GGA covers. I think of Baker as primarily a romance/GGA artist. He'd get my vote as the best Atom-Age artist. Schomburg had versatility in terms of the style of his covers: early, gothic pulp-like covers; dynamic super-hero covers, including many WWII covers; and later airbrushed sci-fi covers and more whimsical, post-war superhero covers.

I've been a Baker fan for years, but I had to vote for Schomburg in light of his versatility. Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman were interesting choices for the list; I can think of several artists I would have placed ahead of them (Ingels, Zolnerowich, Whitman, Flessel . . . Everett was already mentioned . . . probably several others as well).