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That's a seriously sweet wall of books!

Oh right, my mistake, ComicMarketStreet's variant! Was ComicXposure the ones that had the polybagged Venom Dell'Otto's that had the big production issues?

I pre-ordered that Edge of Venomverse cover (B&W) 9.8 CGC SS with Natali from ComicExposure, really like it. Only discovered Natali's work on these boards, but am a huge fan! Love how her cover is the only Venomized variants I've seen of a female character where they still look sexy and "female", rather than overly "Venom-y" haha!

Yah, that makes sense. UX160 was first appearance of adult Illyana as herself (and the parens "(Magik)" is just to specify who she ends up becoming), where as NM14 is first appearance of adult Illyana as Magik.

I'm also an e.gerber man, Mylites2 Standard (most of my books are copper / modern), with Fullback Standard. I don't buy that many books (pull list has around 3-4 titles per month) so I don't really care too much about the value of the book, I'm putting everything in Mylite2+Fullback. At $35 for a combo-pack of 50 (mylars + fb's) from Amazon, that's $0.70 per set. Small price to pay when you're paying $3 or $4 for the book already. Different strokes for different folks!

Anyone know the difference between this book and Uncanny X-men #160? CGC notes for UX160 = "1st appearance adult Illyana (Magik)", and NM14 = "1st Illyana Rasputin as Magik"... UX160 is August 1982 NM14 is April 1984

Generally agree if your books aren't worth the shipping, probably not worth slabbing. That being said, I've slabbed a few borderline books purely for personal collection purposes (display, longevity, etc.) so there are some reasons. If you only have a few books (and thus not worth getting a CGC account) check out Paradise Comics (midtown Toronto, near Yonge and Lawrence). They charge the CGC fees (pass-through, including US$5 per invoice) and then C$8 per book for round-trip shipping. They slab lots of books regularly so they're sending books out at least once a month (twice a month during Con season). They're great guys and will help you with everything. This way you don't have to worry about packing your books properly into boxes, shipping, customs, etc.

That's awesome! Love the additional instructions on which color marker to sign with! Are you planning on sending around the non-SS at the same time as the SS for the MegaCon books? (so still a few weeks away given the SS have to be slabbed)? Or will you be sending the non-SS earlier? BTW, for the Venom #150 B/W's, did you get any extra signed by Mattina for SS? (I got just a B/W 9.8 Fast-tracked blue label, but if you got any extra SS, could I pay the difference and make mine an upgraded SS B/W 9.8?) No worries if not, but figured no harm in asking!

That was an interesting read - thanks for posting. Very good to know for future reference.

I have the first printing, and it's red. The "brightness" of that red I'm sure varies quite a bit based on how it was kept, fading etc. 2nd printing is Gold as you mentioned. There was no other "in-between" cover.

Haha, I think it looks great. Tough to draw a "venomized" female and have her still look good! Most of the others (Mattina's MJ or X-23 for example below), they look more Venom than woman - I like this cover a lot more!

I bought the Torque cover on Wed at my LCS - stopped by today as I was in the area, and they still had 6 or 7 copies left.

That's pretty cool - and you got that slabbed? Did CGC let you include whatever title you want? Could be a fun memento to have

I don't sell on Ebay, only buy, so am fortunate to not have to see these... but how "outrageous" are these low-ball offers? I've had good experience doing offers - I offer a fair amount (usually 10-15% below their ask), although of course this is fairly dependent on how they originally priced it. Generally, I'm using past sold Ebay listings as a guide (don't currently have a GPA subscription), and my first offer tends to be towards the low-end of that range. I think at most, I've had 2 counter-offers (and that's when I felt their original ask was well above-market). By far the majority of the time, I offer, they counter-offer once, and I accept. Ebay is great when both parties are well-informed, and reasonable. As a buyer, I generally avoid sellers who are way over-pricing, basically looking for a "sucker" or someone who isn't really doing much research on current fair market value. I don't begrudge those sellers (hey, every now and then there's a buyer who needs something urgently and will hit the bid), but just personally, I don't really bother offering.

Congrats Dre! Happy to hear - I'm guessing this isn't your first? Wife and I had our first (daughter) last year, she just turned 1 last month. "The days are long but the years are short!"

This week, a new teaser out that shows 3/4 of the cover. Shows the 2 claws coming out of her left hand - I like that it will be clear and obvious it's X-23 on the cover (who is going to be the main character of Issue #1). I've always thought it a bit strange that some of the variant covers in the past include characters that have very little to do with the issue's actual story!

Agreed - was thinking about getting one of the many store variants, but decided to just buy regular Torque cover from my LCS and read for the story. Was a great read - wanted more! Got faked out when the remaining 6-7 pages weren't story, but behind-the-scenes process! (Haha which was interesting in its own right). Late to the game on God Country, but probably going to pickup the trade in Aug. The year of Donny Cates!

Rich - are the Babyteeth #1 ComicXposure variants (Elias Chatzoudis cover) still available (9.8 SS with Donny Cates and Elias Chatzoudis sigs) from your May thread? Cheers

Wow! Amazing - I'm especially pumped for Artgerm, got a couple variants of his I'd love to get SS'd!

Thanks for this - pulled the trigger on 2 comics - 1 slabbed and 1 raw, got it right above the $75 minimum! Fairly new to Ebay buying, but it's great you can use the cart to buy from more than 1 seller in a "combined single PayPal" transaction to use these coupons! Cheers

Congrats on the book, and the grade! Quick question, so you can get signed books pressed after they're already signed? If so, in order to keep the yellow label, I assume you have to use CCS for the pressing, in which case, you can keep the yellow label yes? Thanks

Definitely some interesting points made here. I understand the argument that "what we do with our signed comics" is none of the creator's business (ie. whether we slab or not), but I think the person who brought up the analogous situation with professional athletes and "fans" getting things signed made a good point that can help provide perspective: - Athletes used to sign for free - balls, shirts, bats, cards, whatever - after a game, at their hotel, they did it happily as they understood "fans are what makes the entertainment system go, and if not directly, indirectly are why athletes get paid such big bucks" (not dissimilar to comic creators - at the end of the day, it's fans buying books that help make a creator successful) - There's always been a sports memorabilia market, and ones with autographs often (but not always) tended to sell for more - Memorabilia "professionals" and speculators saw that demand, and $ signs, and over time started lining up with 10s/100s of items. Athletes see (and hear) how much these signed items get sold for, and begin to get soured on the prospect of signing things (primarily for these "pros" / speculators, but even for regular fans (especially if you're not a kid!)). They either start charging for it, or they stop doing it altogether - Is it the any of the athlete's business what we do with our signed items? (especially if we've paid for it)? You could argue technically no, but I can see why the athlete got soured on the whole process - "professionals" are making money off of their signatures, which is a bit of different proposition than when they were just signing for fans As someone else mentioned, this is playing out in the comic / collectible market (maybe 5-10yrs behind what happened in sports). A facilitator (or other "professional") brings in 10s/100s of books to be signed (all with windowed bags), and to the creator, this just seems like a flipper / speculator, and that sours the creator on wanting to sign (either for free, or for the same price as their "true fans"). The comic market though has the ease of witnessed slabbing, which unfortunately creators have associated with these flippers / speculators. Convincing creators that they shouldn't care about what happens to their signed items afterwards may have some merit, but looking at it from their perspective, I can see being a tougher sell (I see the argument from both sides). The more important thing here I think, to keep "fans" who want CGC SS from being penalized and lumped into the same camp as "professional flippers / speculators", is to help creators realize that a LOT of "real fans" want their sigs witnessed and slabbed!

Awesome, thanks for confirming and for the heads up. Picked up a signed and graded color version - I'm probably one of the few that don't like the virgin covers that much!

Do you know for sure if the graded versions are guaranteed 9.8? I don't see that written explicitly... they say that for the graded options, they offer "9.8 quality copies" in signed and unsigned. I think that's what they mean (and the example photos show them slabbed in 9.8 cases), but never ordered from CMS before so not sure...

That's a good point... if you ever need to get it reholdered, you're SOL. Didn't think about that, though that being said, I think that was probably a unique case where someone's handling it continuously getting it signed by many cast members. In my use case, it's more for 1-2 sigs (so wouldn't be handling that much), and again only for books I already have blue-label slabs of. I know this isn't applicable to many people's SS use cases, but just occurred to me as I think about attending cons where price for witnessed sigs is considerably more than unwitnessed, and I already books slabbed blue label. If that trend continues (and if "backlash" against SS from creators a la Starlin continues), I could see myself considering getting certain slabs signed in more situations. Of course, there'll always be a place for yellow label in my collection (ie. especially for my high-grade raw books getting signed, to me it's a no-brainer).