the blob

I got into these during the pandemic (2020), but within a tight price, of course, so I never could get a 1st print #1 or FQ 1 within budget.

On 3/2/2023 at 7:10 PM, BanjerD said:

Not everyone is interested in slabbing or selling but some EQ fans are very serious about "collecting"

(not mine BTW)

Hoarding !

I have a question, looking at my 25 jokers up there, do folks think the white backgrounds on some are ok or should I re-work them to have background colors or something like on some of them? I am a little torn and it is always a weird one going back to a painting 3 years later. My goal all along was to mount these on a larger backing and have a really big painting, so from that perspective it feels like a lot of white. 

On 9/15/2023 at 11:03 AM, Robot Man said:

Seems like for the longest time, Archie and Romance books were deemed “girl” books and were about as desirable as Classics Ill, run of the mill humor and westerns. Other than the very early Archie ones, pretty cheap and easy to get. I think the upswing in desirability was not due to tv shows or movies but due to people discovering how fun many were and very underpriced. 10 and 12 cent issues fly out of my shoe boxes briskly at shows at decent prices. I often re price them up a bit due to the fact that they have pretty much dried up out “in the wild” and get very little push back. 

I have been buying them for a long time so long as they were cheap. During the pandemic I definitely bid on some higher priced ($50-100) type archies as well as 10 cent cover price cheaper book lots and won and I bought a pretty nice stack of 10 cent cover price archies from mycomicshop, almost all under $10 each at the time.  I just like the corny covers and admittedly read them sometimes in the 70s when i had nothing else. There does seem to be a big price difference between 10 and 12 cent cover unless the 12 center is a great gag/innuendo cover. And I guess that's true for a lot of books. My friend who owned a shop loved 60s - 70s archies because he could buy them for next to nothing at shows, etc. and he would make them $2-3 in his shop (1990s) and while the comic guys didn't buy them, women who wandered into the shop would  -- either just checking out his store or with his kids, he only had a few regular female customers -- and he'd sell them out fast.  So are you selling them at more general collectible shows, not comic shows? 

I think those sorts of books while maybe they got aided by bidding/shopping boredom during the pandemic (heck I decided at one point to chase 40/50s archies, though generally not at that price point), they were not really part of the hot book/key books/movie/tv hype type buying that climaxed during the pandemic. Frankly I am dubious that the Riverdale show really had any impact, maybe Sabrina did on the Sabrina books a little, folks buying those old Archies had probably been collecting a while or had some emotional connection to it

On 9/14/2023 at 11:07 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

Lol I'm pitiful 😭

Just keep working at it, maybe do something other than line drawing. Ever try pastels? You can actually smooth them out with a brush and turpentine and it is like oil paint except dries a lot faster.

On 9/14/2023 at 11:03 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

If you read correctly I DID SAY it WASNT thrown together, and that it had its fluidity

I tried to draw something to post in the thread but ruined it inking 😂

Believe it or not every stroke of those two was very intentional, these were a little bit more expressionist

On 9/12/2023 at 5:12 PM, the blob said:

Wow, I cannot believe nobody has posted since June. I thought this place was full of aspiring artists, not just 9.8 chasers?

Anyway, I painted a bit while incapacitated with my achilles near the beach, here are few. The second one was painted the long way, but I kind of like it this way with the figure sort of laying down.

 

 

One of these days I'd like to take a water color course. My technique is self taught and a little lacking as I basically paint the same way I would with oils or acrylics. Would help on the figurative stuff I think. The beach scene was a little bit of experimenting for me, maybe a little folk art feel. My teen liked the other one, of course, Lucifer and such

On 9/14/2023 at 6:09 PM, the blob said:

I have seen mile high chuck set up at one show in NYC. I've seen him wander around buying lots of times, but at this show he had a small table set up as his base of operations probably so he had a place to stash stuff he bought, but it looked like he was selling a collection he had probably just bought locally and I think he decided he'd try to sell off some of it rather than drag it back home. Very pleasant guy one on one as I was chatting with him while my kid and his friend rummaged. And shockingly enough, the books were quite reasonable as he just put everything out for $2 or $3 a pop and had not gone through them very carefully. Pulled  ton of 10 cent cover price books. I have actually bought mail order from him many times. You do need to hunt to find a deal though and the last time I did was early covid. 

 

Hah, just looked on the website for a book a did a little spec on Fugitoid 1, when I think he had NM copies for $8 and I bought a bunch. $83 now!!! Even with a 50% off sale..

On 9/14/2023 at 10:38 AM, Robot Man said:

 

I have seen mile high chuck set up at one show in NYC. I've seen him wander around buying lots of times, but at this show he had a small table set up as his base of operations probably so he had a place to stash stuff he bought, but it looked like he was selling a collection he had probably just bought locally and I think he decided he'd try to sell off some of it rather than drag it back home. Very pleasant guy one on one as I was chatting with him while my kid and his friend rummaged. And shockingly enough, the books were quite reasonable as he just put everything out for $2 or $3 a pop and had not gone through them very carefully. Pulled  ton of 10 cent cover price books. I have actually bought mail order from him many times. You do need to hunt to find a deal though and the last time I did was early covid. 

People come across a pile of comics. They look up their ASM 135 and see it is worth $____, but in 9.8. They decide that, of course, their copy is a 9.8 (and then several other books). They don't have a clue about grading and get back a bunch of 5.0s. tah dah. 

On 9/12/2023 at 4:31 PM, harvust said:

 

Great example and thanks for the feedback!

I guess now all that's left is to do the math and see if it makes more sense to sell the 7.0 as is and try to buy in to a 9+ or just spend the $65 to turn the one in hand right back around.

Thanks for all the great info everyone!

I suspect that RMA pressed that book himself, which is why he posted it?

Not that you don't have the best dollar books, but just to confirm, you are the only dealer and then there are a ton of artists, etc.?

On 9/13/2023 at 4:26 PM, TheNero said:

 

Upcoming NYCC Realm of X 1 Variant 
How can you not get fatigued with slapping old variant covers on newer books that have nothing to do with the book inside just to charge $30 

That is a cool cover at least

On 9/14/2023 at 4:04 PM, NoMan said:

it's a joke. I bought 50 of them upon release falling for the hype (hey I was 12 or so) I bagged and boarded them all, making notations about some sort of color/printing errors on each copy. 

And you had 35 years after that to buy more copies at the same price...

On 9/11/2023 at 2:52 PM, NoMan said:

Umm, my friend paid $20 each for them. Do you see them selling for over 20$?

that is cray, what we he/she/you thinking? 

On 9/14/2023 at 3:20 PM, MAR1979 said:

Yep There were sales reported of Eternals #1 for #3k.  9.8 She-hulk #1 direct sale hit $1800 at comiclink.  As I do not sell comics, I no longer pay for GPA (only did very briefly to check it out) and do not use go-collect but I'm sure some here can pull the data.

While it wont show on GPA etc I was at NYCC2021 and witnessed first hand 2 different Moe Ron's who paid $2000 for Direct Sale copies of ASM 361.  Was at one those tables with a black tablecloth laid down and bright portable lighting and their only stock was current hots that were way way over priced. I said to one of the folks just as he was counting his cash for purchasing the 361 and mentioned he could get it oneBay as buy-it-now  for $1200 (which was still way high BTW), He told me I was wrong and that must be some other book...So perhaps the rubes deserve what they get!!!! 

FF48 regardless of where it was at in 2005 has been a key in one form or another for decades, not clear on how it factors into my statements or was the point that the film kick started it? I think that woudl have occurred with the first Surfer app by this time anyhow   But yeah the book WAS undervalued for a long time.

 

All of those books except Eternals 1 were keys or semi keys too.  My point is that FF 48 is now 10X+ as much as its initial movie bump had it at. That might be true (or almost true) for some real SA keys now vs. 2005/2006, but not so much for a lot of semi-keys and such. 

On 9/14/2023 at 1:20 PM, MAR1979 said:

my comment in no way referred to Silvers or Books that were already establish 60's and 70s keys. but yeah there are always outliers but for every one of them there are a dozen or more rubes who purchased Eternals #1 at  $2500-3000, She-Hulk #1 at $1500-2000, ASM361 at $1000-$1500 or even ASM194 at $5000+

P.S. Most mid grade 60's Marvels were middling prior the the marvel film era starting in 2008.

And most of them still are midling. FF 48 was, for a long time, a book that sold for well under guide. At one time I owned like 6 copies. I was buying them for $30-50 when they were $150 in guide, but stopped because if I ever tried to sell them I could only get $30-50 so I stopped buying the book. When FF 2 was coming out those copies were suddenly selling for guide or a little more and I unloaded them like a hot potato. Oddly enough, while the movie was a bust FF 48 kept on going up and up.

Outside of ASM 194, which is also pushed by black cover issues and she hasn't been in a movie yet, although we know that will happen one day, you are looking at absolute peaks on those books (and when was Eternals 1 $3000? Is that the variant or just some crazy outlier? Ditto She Hulk 1, was that really the going rate for a 9.8? I might have been on comics vacation that week.) Those books popped pretty quickly but there were definitely stages where there had clearly been a bump due to TV/movie rumors/schedules and then a second bump into the stratosphere in the period right before the movie/show, and then a dive, pandemic madness books for sure. But if you bought any of them during the initial bump I still think you're ok.

Spotlight 5. Went up for the first movie a lot because it was a dead book before, how has that done since 2007? i guess these are bronze books, maybe don't count. Ditto Iron Man 1 and FF 48 were not super expensive books prior to the movies, took a bump then, but I am pretty sure FF 48 has done very well since it went from a mid-grade $50 book to $150 (when I sold my copies) in 2005/6.

On 9/13/2023 at 10:34 PM, MAR1979 said:

That's different from paying the going rate when a book is Hot or rumor in full force. You tactic is bargain-hunting which seems sounds, unlike paying full FMV/FMV+ after book has sublimated.

yeah, but there are definitely stages to these things. folks here thought it was insane when WD #1 hit $100 or so, I think that was around the time of the show. I guess that's one example, although it had been growing for a bit. It definitely wasn't popped at $1500-2000+ when the show aired, that took a bit to happen. But then again, how many things had the staying power of WD? Cult following for a decade. If you had bought hulk 181 at the x-men 1 hype price i think you did pretty well even compared to the market for other keys. 

On 8/10/2023 at 4:07 PM, MAR1979 said:

Outside of the pandemic bubble. I do wonder how many times buying books based on rumor or when hot has actually paid off over long term. 

Many carpetbagging flippers and speculators have taken their leave of Comic Books but some will always be around. No wrong way to collect but ain't seeing any upside to buying a book when hot or on rumor other than the occasional outlier.

FOMO or whatever it was called prior to that term being coined is a human weakness thus an integral part of most Cons and rip-off schemes. Say NO GO to FOMO!

 

 

I dunno about long term, but this was going on well before the pandemic bubble. Probably starting around 2012 I was making $100-200 a week just running around shops buying stuff off the rack that had gotten hot, hunting cheap-o boxes and what not primarily based on books that had some sort of rumor going on. It was a good 8-10 years of "what dollar box book will be $20 tomorrow." I paid for most of a family vacation to Europe in 2013 with Image #1s and buying any Walking Dead issue under 100 I could get my hands on for $1-3 when shops weren't even thinking issue 58 or whatever would be worth anything.

I never understood variants where the variant cover was not as good as the regular cover. I see a lot of variants done by pretty average artists, and I don't want to be judgy, there's a lot of people who get the work done, etc. and visually tell a good story. The WD interior art was nothing special an artistic perspective, but it worked. 

But yeah, something like the LSH 23 supergirl cover, I get. Iconic, gorgeous, etc. 

On 6/18/2023 at 2:06 AM, Otter1775 said:

Good morning fellow collectors, just got back yesterday from CGC:

 

How much does Hughes charge for the SS? 

On 10/3/2017 at 4:52 PM, MrBedrock said:

Just back from CGC...

 

Wow, but I want a back cover scan!