Von Cichlid

I spent those same years buying up thrash, death, and black metal CD's, records, and cassettes, much of my collection being from the late 80's to the mid nineties. As a matter of fact, music is what I focused on when I finally stopped buying comics the first time around '94 or so. Buying SA and BA keys with that money would have been the better investment for sure*, but I am happy to say that I could easily sell the majority of my metal albums for multiples of what I paid for them initially. Although comics have a much larger fanbase, many of the early extreme metal albums I have are very rare and exceedingly hard to come by. We are talking albums where a few thousand copies were the most that were made. MP3's and youtube downloading have hurt their value for sure, but luckily many metalheads still place value on album artwork and owning the physical product. *For comparison, I bought an ASM 129 and IH 181 in 1999 (around the nadir of the comic industry) for 350 dollars total in about 7.5 condition each.

Sometimes it's as if they are really large trading cards that I like to open up and smell. The fact that the stories don't move me near as much as they did when I was a kid is just a part of growing up. There simply isn't any comic as good as A Song of Ice and Fire or other great literature. That's OK though. I still appreciate them now, just for different reasons. There is nothing like soaking up the look and feel of a fresh plump non-pressed SA book with a great color strike and supple paper quality. I picked up a raw high grade FF 30 today for that very reason. Not a story I'm interested in or a key issue by any stretch, but it was just so well preserved and at a reasonable price so I had to have it. Essentially, I can appreciate the beauty and quality of that book in a way that a young kid buying for the first time never could, much like a young kid who read that story right when it was picked up off a newsstand appreciated it in a way I never will be able to.

Do you count this one as copper? This is an overlooked one you never see mentioned. It's right on the edge of that 1990 cut-off . Also, I always hated that some of his best work was wasted on Mojo and the X-Babies. I wonder if that was his preference or the editor's.

You gotta include Iron Man 128. Also, is the 282 and 266 Bronze Age?

Awesome book, but I never understood the whole "The Molten Man Regrets!" thing. I guess I just need to read the issue, but what an odd caption.

Now I got an awesome money making idea: "Condoms with Full-Back Support" This might come in handy for some of the older guys.

I am not kidding that I thought the exact same thing. Like, it was the first thing I thought. Weird...

Just got this in the mail yesterday. Is this also the first ever appearance of "Wolverine" hair? If not, then what is?

Ok I'll do that. I read up until around 100 or so but at about that time I had just finished HS and had gotten into partying, women, etc so comics were the last thing on my mind. I have only really gotten serious about collecting again in the past year- but all I am buying is bronze and silver and copper that I finally can get now since I have more buying power than when I was 13. But, I do still read most of what I buy so if you say they are good I'll give them a shot.

^ Those Romita covers are gorgeous (39 and 48 in particular) but I think your being unfair to the unique tone that Ditko had. Kirby had a very finished style (with the right inker) and his characters were thick and heroic, his covers were as dynamic as it ever got, and Kirby was very consistent. John Romita continued that tradition. They were total professionals. However, it was Ditko's vision that really separated Spiderman from the rest of the Marvel Universe. With Ditko Spiderman you didn't get the heroic and dynamic vibes as much as you got this mysterious and otherworldly vibe. There was some inconsistencies (like the akward #15), but covers like 14 were pure magic. The sometimes lanky and quirky postures he gave to the character really made him look Spidery, for the lack of a better word.

I've never tried it myself because I never liked the art. My X-men\Wolverine collection ends at 304 and 75 respectively for two reasons. 1. No more for adamantium Wolverine... bone claws... no way! That revelation ruined my favorite issue of all time (Wolverine 10). 2. I never could hack the manga style artwork. Adam Kubert and Joe M. were two perfectly serviceable/borderline-fantastic artists until that influence took over. I know that doesn't represent the real thing, but the negative association is still there. Also, my favorite villain Sabretooth just looked like a clown in those issues. Compare this to the classiness of the 212/213, 221/222, and Wolverine 10, or even Iron Fist 14 version of the character. It's probably just personal taste, but to me it just not the same.

That #31 cover is one of my favorites. I think of it as a silver age version of Detective 31. While the 'Tec 31 is primitive, it set the tone for Batman's character and it was just so emblematic for Bob Kane's vision of that character. Same can be said for the ASM 31. It is very primitive, but that is its charm. You will never see another cover like it. Its design sticks with you as well. Plus, it puts off perfectly Ditko's vibe that he established. His Spiderman looked mysterious with his squinty eyes and his quirky postures. I like much of Romita, but his main contribution to the art in the Marvel universe was that he established a "meat and potatoes/ house style." Aside from obvious greats like 39, 50, and maybe a few others, nothing he did impacted me in the way much of Ditko's pieces did. Romita never had anything as awkward looking as that 1st Kraven cover because his house style was so consistent, but, at least for me, he just didn't make the covers that captured my imagination like most all of Ditko's did. (Speaking of awesome Ditko, any fans of his X Men interpretation in TOS 49? That is interesting to me in that it is his only work for that group.)

Well, at least we know where Humberto Ramos got his early inspiration from.

Dang, Hulk looks like he just had a stroke.

I was looking for some Vault of Horror's and I came across those listings as well.

The store definitely looked old school, with the wall books and the rows of long boxes. Out of the two in my city one is still in that vein while the other has hardly any back issues and is 75% action figures with the other 25% being TPB's.

Man I feel you. Sometimes I wish I could trade my really detailed and fairly extensive knowledge of comics and heavy metal (and to a lesser extent football and aquariums) into knowledge about math and the physical sciences (how I actually earn money). If I could trade the countless hours spent pondering and researching those things into time spent seriously studying the latter, then I easily would have invented something or would be a leader in the academic field. I would probably have a lot more savings to. Oh well. Having 8 long boxes of really good comics and around 2500 really collectible metal albums is still a lot better than having spent the money on gambling or drugs. That is what I tell my wife, anyway.

On the ones I have they exhibit that "waviness" on the top of the book that many marvels with that type of paper did. My Classic X-Men from around 41-50 have the same problem. I wonder if that is what is holding them back.

I would third that JIM 89 but I don't own it. That, like the ASM 28, really needs to be higher grade for its gentle beauty to really shine, and finding an affordable JIM 89 that is high grade is no easy task. Some, like the Avengers 4, can be in a lower grade and still look really good. I think the reason is that on the Avengers 4 the coolness comes from the composition and lines, whereas on the other two the beauty comes from the colors and hues. My addition to the thread: The best early silver-age artist is Jack Kirby, with Ditko being second due to more limited output (His Spiderman I actually like better than anything by Kirby). However, Wally Wood, if he had been more productive, could have made it a three way battle. He reminds me of Paul Smith in that his lines are very clean and how everything looks carefully planned. His DD run was really special. In an alternate universe I would have loved to see a WW run on X-Men starting at issue 20 to about the late 40's or so. His style would have really fit that book and elevated, imo, what was a pretty lackluster series (minus a few bright spots here and there).

I don't know. This all sounds fishy to me. How does somebody have something worth potentially 200 grand and their not willing to spend 10% (20 thousand dollars!!1) to hire a few muldoons to organize that 100 longbox collection to maximize revenue. That's not just clueless about the comic market, that is clueless about money and allocation of resources in general. Hell, for that price I am sure there would be quite a few knowledgeable collectors willing to donate a week off to the task.

I just got that TTA 48 off ebay about a month ago. Ant-Man has to be the least intimidating super hero ever. In that issue he almost drowns in a kitchen sink. In the 39 I have he is confined to a water fountain in some park (That is an excellent Kirby cover btw). It seems that in each case he would have been better off just being regular old Hank Pym.

Blob and yourself must have come from a different era than me I guess. When I was first into comics from the late 80's to around 94 or so nearly everything revolved around the X-Men. The three friends I had that were serious fans knew all about the bronze to copper age X-Men universe, the characters origins, etc. Even the two LCS owners that I visit with since I got back into the hobby about 6 months ago are able to reminisce with me about those issues. How do you not remember Nightcrawler almost being burned at a stake in Germany or Storm flying around naked in Kenya, Wolverine resigning by slicing his CO's tie, and Colossus smashing that tractor when Professor X recruited them? These were the origins of characters that were the focal point of the Marvel Universe for over a decade. Maybe I am wrong in projecting what I consider to be key eras in the comic universe onto everyone else. Like I say, I've only been back into the hobby about half a year and the friends I used to collect with moved on long ago. The only people I have to discuss this stuff with are the LCS owners and they are roughly the same age as me. There is a convention in my city coming this fall. I will probably get a better feel for the industry if I attend that.

The only thing that scares me for the future is that there doesn't seem to be nearly as many people buying the new as much as it seems people are buying the old. A truly healthy industry would be one like in the late 80's (when I got hooked as a kid) when people were buying up the new and the back issue market existed because people genuinely cared what had transpired before. For example, if you were a DD fan in that time period and you took a liking to Bullseye and had heard the hype of how good the Miller issues were, you would have to drop the 30 or so dollars for the 168 and less for the others if you wanted to read for yourself to find out how good those issues were. I remember mowing lawns with my buddy to get the money for those issues to do just that. He and I spent hard earned money to acquire those issues and as soon as we got them the first thing on our mind was: 1. Reading to see what happened. We soaked in the art and read intensely and analyzed the stories. Many times that just fueled the addiction to acquire and read more. 2. As we had spent what was large money to us, we took care of our new purchases, handling them carefully and putting them in the bag after each reading. But the thought of "flipping" the issue was the last thing on our mind at the time of purchase. We were just happy to own the thing. Furthermore, neither one of us could have differentiated between a 9.0 and a 9.4. If it looked nice, we bought it. To illustrate what I am trying to say, consider Giant Size X-Men 1 vs Batman Adventures 12. The former went through multiple reprints that sold well simply because people wanted to read that book. I am not too knowledgeable on the latter, but I'd reckon that the vast majority of the owners of that book did not read a single page. It's value consists of it being a relatively rare first app, and little more. To test this hypothesis, give a random old school fan a quiz on the plot of Giant Size X-Men 1. Many would pass it with flying colors. Do the same for Batman Adventures 12 or a Hulk 271, and you are not getting that result even if the quiz is given to the owners of the book. I don't mean to come across too negative. I love the interest this hobby is getting and I love the fact that something I love is considered valuable by so many. I just wish that there was potential NEW value being made today, like in the late 80's, versus the conviction I feel that anything that will ever be valuable both monetarily and intrinsically has already been made.

Spoiler due to image being huge. There are so many early awesome Kirby and Ditko covers that it would be easier for me to post in a thread about covers I don't like as there wouldn't be as many to choose from. I have to go with Thor 126. One look at this one and you know what you are getting. The story does not disappoint either. It is not as wordy as many Silver Age stories and the action and layouts are so good that even the Colleta inks don't bother me.