Von Cichlid

What a truly magnificent comic. There is no two ways about it. A grail for any collection.

I bought a pretty nice Iron Fist 14 for that price a while back and that is what got be back into collecting. So, that would be my choice.

I have this one laminated hanging in my garage along with that classic Wolverine one.

I'm partial to the Marvel Preview 2 but either one would be great. Actually, my 2nd choice would be a really nice Mini-Series 1 if you don't have that one already.

I've figured it out: Jean is mentally lifting the swing that beast is attacking from! Look at her eyes!

For silver age books, high grade is synonymous with "fresh." They can even have small nicks and a few creases maybe. As long as the paper quality is great and there is no tanning and the smell is good, I would call an older book high grade if it had that fresh look. Mid-grade is what you have when a book has good eye appeal, but the wear of time has definitely begun to show. It might be the book just doesn't feel tight anymore or that the spine is fuzzy or that the book feels loose around the staples. A mid grade book looks decent but the newness of it has long been gone. Low grade is when I am cool to have it in my collection, but there are flaws that really make the copy not desirable. Soiling, water damage, mildew smell, stains, and oxidation are the things that really pit a book it that category for me. For copper age and up, it seems that > 8.5 is high grade, and every thing else is varying levels of low grade.

A year ago I traded my ASM 300 for a nice looking ASM 28. My logic was I had seen more 300's around and that I would be able to replace it whenever I got a little cash. That turned out to be a pretty huge blunder. Around that same time I did that with my NM 98 for a really nice Iron Fist 14 for the same reason. Although I still like what I have, both the 300 and the 98 show zero signs of ever becoming "reasonably priced" despite the high volume of copies out there. Luckily, I held on to my NM 87.

Well, it was the pre-Image era where all of the great copper artists were still with Marvel. You had Silvestri/Lee X-Men, Mcfarlane/Larsen ASM, Liefeld New Mutants, Whilce Portacio Punisher, Ron Lim Silver Surfer, a very palatable JR jr on Daredevil, Jim Lee Punisher War Journal, I always liked Sal Buscema Spectacular Spiderman, Ron Frenz was enjoyable on Thor, and some very underrated John Buscema work on the Wolverine 2nd series. John Byrne was looking decent on Namor and Valentino was good on the Guardians. Mark Texeria was just getting started on Ghost Rider. Even Classic X-Men was giving us some great Lightle covers and John Bolton backups. (I guess I'm including 1990 in that era of greatness too.) I even thought Saviuk Web of Spiderman was decent. Man, looking at all those names makes me realize how distinct all the artistic styles were during that time. Nobody was really copying anyone else and every one was doing their thing. Even though the print runs were high, one could hardly call any of that drek. It really was the best era for Marvel if you consider quality as a whole. As a kid, only the Avengers and FF titles were lame at the time. For me, the drek era began after the original artists left Marvel, and all you had left were the Liefield imitators and every thing else went anime.

Not early 90's, but I remember PWJ 6 and 7 and the Longshot mini-series being wall books when I was young. I still pick those up whenever I see them cheap.

How could I have forgotten this one! This was actually a limited edition version of the album. Really very heavy stuff for the time period. I am surprised Marvel went along with it.

Simon Bisley artwork on this one:

Ok, so the Mephisto was a little goofy (and the fact that there were 15 issues in that story line didn't help), but his Typhoid Mary run was great. In particular, I loved his Punisher from 257 and the man w/o fear miniseries. Interestingly enough, JR jr's Warzone Punisher looked way different and I did not like it. It is like his nose was mashed flat or something. To me, it was that series when he began his decline.

I think JR jr and Larsen get treated a little unfairly. Both artists had a highly consistent style and a strong sense of craft IMO. I think it is interesting the person who pointed out that JR jr went from being inspired by his father to Frank Miller. The Miller comparison I agree with because his angular style did come after the DKR mini series. However, I always thought early JR jr was more inspired by the very underrated Paul Smith. Check the transition in Uncanny X-men around 176 to confirm this. JR jr was at his best when he did his run on Daredevil I think. That may be nostalgia though, as that was my first exposure to his art. On Larsen, I can see how people might be put off by some of his eccentricities. But, there is no denying how much Bagley's art borrowed from Larsen's when that transition occurred. It kind of makes me wonder if Marvel at the times of those transitions told JR jr and Bagley to draw like Smith and Larsen in order to shock the fans less.

All of his positive feedback is for really cheap items and from the same "buyers." His negative feedback is from really expensive stuff. What a POS.

I loved these issues so much as a kid. So realistic and believable. For the DD 257, although the Punisher was my favorite of the two by far, I respected that the writers had Daredevil beat him rather easily.

My favorite is this one. It looks like he stole that one off of one of the Starjammers or something.

When looking for a nice copy of X-Men 101 on ebay, I noticed on many that the "Marvel Comics Group" bar is not parallel to the top edge of the cover. The Daredevil 158 I have has the same problem as well. Interestingly enough, these things never bothered me as a young collector before the days of the internet. I was just happy to pick up a copy however I could. It is only with the wide range of options that I have to choose from now that stuff like that becomes a concern.

I agree. Usually the power of the image on his works hits you almost instantly. On that one you really have to struggle to see what is going on.

Conan was bred with the finest stock. Over time, his victories could not easily be counted. Gotta be Conan.

Sorry, it was late at night and I was rambling. What I meant was is that only the theater stands to lose money in the transaction between the production company and the theater. The production company's investment in the film and the need to recoup that money was outside of the theater-production company relationship in my mind.

So you are saying that production companies pay theaters to air their movies? I was always under the impression that theaters pay the movie makers for the privilege of airing their movie. Think about it. If a theater doesn't have any movies to show, who would go to that theater? It seems to me the theater should be the ones doing the paying. Edit: I just looked it up. Production companies lease the movie to a theater. In return, a theater gets to keep a small percentage of the ticket sales. So, a production company never puts any money up front for a theater to air their movie. But, as you said, the theater is certainly not airing the movie for free, it is just that in this scenario, only the theater has the chance of losing money. The worst that can happen to the production company is that they don't make any money on their investment.

Of the 200 or so SA issues I own, the average grade is probably a 5.0. I love them all though. The only thing that matters to me is that the paper quality is decent and the books look good in a mylite2. Color breaking creases and small tears are OK. The only thing I hate is when the inside cover is so tanned that even opening and closing the cover makes me nervous as to whether or not the book will split. I have been burned on ebay a few times already with books like that. Seeing the front and back cover of a book is not enough. From now on I try to only bid on books where the seller is thoughtful enough to take a picture of the book with the front page opened up.

That's awesome. I've only gotten back into comic collecting in the last year and if somebody offered me an equivalent value trade for SA / BA books for my music I would probably take it. My wife and 9/14 year old daughters aren't too fond of my music tastes either (that is probably a good thing) so I can't listen to it a whole lot anyway. Plus, the older I get the more and more I just prefer silence.

I still have an Anthrax "Fistful of Metal" record from that label with the 3.99 price tag still on it. Got it at a place called Musik Hut (which specialized in metal / extreme metal) in Fayetteville NC. I was in the Army at the time and every payday I would take 25% of my earnings (I lived in the barracks so I had no expenses) and buy CD's, cassettes, and albums. The CD's were all new so they were still $15 or so, but the LP's and cassettes were $2 to $6 for the most part, and we are talking good, now vintage, albums here. I bought a lot of it, but still I wish I had a time machine so I could go back and see what I may have overlooked. It's funny because at this time (mid to late nineties), the metal scene was totally dead here in the US, and many, many good albums (mainly form the European scene) could be had for dirt cheap prices.