Von Cichlid

A seller just put a graded 5.0 on ebay for a 3-Day!?! auction. It had a starting bid of $399 and I was hoping against hope no one would notice and then I would've jumped on it. No such luck as there is a day and a half left and it is already past $500. It will be interesting to see what this goes for as compared to a graded 5.0 181. http://www.ebay.com/itm/132204827481?_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

The best analogy I can think of is this: Swamp Thing is a money maker along the same lines as Conan the Barbarian is a money maker. (I'll attribute Conan to Marvel comics). There are three Conan movies (1 very good one) and the beginning of Conan's main series is very highly regarded much like the beginning of the Swamp Thing series. Both 1st appearances also came out at about the same time as well. There really are a lot of parallels here. With this being said, the value of that House of Secrets 92 should be in the same tier as that 1st Conan. Instead you have it being on the same tier as a 181, and that is the remarkable thing. As famous a creation as Swamp Thing is, he is not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of DC comics like Wolverine is when thinking of Marvel. The additional factors have to be scarcity and that cover. There are about 40 Conan #1's on ebay atm, but only 10 or so 92's. Also, as good as the Conan #1 cover is, it is definitely comic book art firmly in the vein of its time period. That 92 cover is beyond simply being labeled as good early 70's comic art.

Just picked up this one today. I had originally intended to get a #11 the shop had had for the last 6 months but sure enough they sold it to an out of towner who was visiting for his daughters graduation. No big deal though as this issue was definitely a close second on my list.

I actually enjoy most of all of Liefield's pre-Image / X-Force work, my favorite being that What If Wolverine was an agent of SHEILD issue. His covers and pinups were great and I enjoyed his take on established characters. In that piece at least he is using his lines relatively sparingly. It wasn't until X-Force that all his faces began to look like they belonged to 80 year olds. Another interesting thing is the thighs. Look how thin they all are! I wonder why he had that aesthetic in that picture but went to such an opposite extreme later on. It is still very anatomically weird, but it is much more pleasing to me than the tree trunks he gave everyone shortly thereafter.

I think it has the same thing going for it as Batman 227, Amazing Spiderman 28, and Journey into Mystery 89, but to even a much larger extent. All four books are gorgeous in a very delicate way that makes having a high grade essential for their beauty to really shine.

Some Mignola work I adore is the covers to Detective 583, Alpha Flight 33 and 34, Punisher 6, and the Death in the Family stuff. In my opinion he fell victim to the same thing that Art Adams, JR JR, Frank Miller, and Byrne succumbed to. Their art just became way too stylized and increasingly they tried to reinforce their particular style rather than simply drawing something that looks awesome. In effect, their art became too simplistic, barren (cartoony?) as opposed to their earlier work which adhered to more objective and universal (realistic?) standards of beauty. That is at least the case on the first three. In Byrne's case his work just got sloppy. Maybe the absence of the awesome Terry Austin inks was more to blame for that. Again, this is all just my opinion. I still like much of the work that JR JR and Adams do (but not Miller). It is just that sometimes I wish that they could channel some of the qualities of their earlier, more busy work.

I didn't know Claremont wrote those. I do remember Firelord being in a little of 106, that must've been the Cockrum drawn portion. I have the 106 but I'm missing the 110 from my run. I'll have to read it in my omnibus hardback when I get the chance.

I think it was a couple of filler issues like 106 and 110. Those weren't drawn by Cockrum or Byrne, and I don't believe hey had Claremont writing either. Their stories broke from the current story lines as well. One issue was about some villain named Warhawk and I couldn't tell you what the other issue was about. The skipping of 141 and 142 was more suspicious to me because those certainly weren't filler. For instance, the end of 140 has Blob breaking out of prison.

^ He probably meant the 2nd work on X-Men. I remember some earlier Alpha Flight issues he did and of course you had those PWJ's as well. Lee's work on that back up story is great though. The X-Men 248 was pretty good but right there is really when Lee hit his X-Men style that he was known for imo. One could argue that PWJ 6 and 7 was were he found it as well. I still can't say I have ever seen a better looking Wolverine than on those three issues. Different maybe, but not better.

That series is almost single-handily responsible for making me a comic fanatic at the end of the 80's / beginning of the 90's when I first got into them. While the Uncanny X-Men of the era were still decent with the Jim Lee and Silvestri art they were nothing compared to the Byrne/Austin magic that was in those issues. The Art Adams covers were always amazing and many of the John Bolton backups were good as well. Steve Lightle's Dark Phoenix Saga covers were amazing too, in particular that issue 39 and 40-43 as well. I always wondered why they skipped 141 and 142 in the reprints. It was probably because that square bound reprint came out at around the same time. I liked the Mignola covers also but they were definitely a step down from the Adams / Lightle runs.

I just bought a Secret Wars 1-12 bundle the other week which I finished reading a few nights ago and geez that was tough to make it through. Maybe if I would have read one issue a month over the span of a year as originally intended it would have been more bearable. I enjoyed the Zeck artwork but I can safely say I am never reading that again. On the other hand, I have also got a few older PWJ's and regular series issues to complete my runs and I must say that those were very readable and very plausible as far as comics go. In particular I liked the Bushwacker story from PWJ 12 and 13 and I love the regular series issues 8, 9, and 10 (I also like DD 257 as well.). There was a lot of nostalgia involved for me in those issues and I am happy to say that, at least to me, those stories have aged very well. The next thing I am going to buy is that Marvel Premiere 2 where it has the origin of the Punisher in it. I am really wanting to read that one. Is there anyone who can vouch for it being good or not?

After reading some of my buddies comics I got these two from a local Waldenbooks when I was 10 years old. (These are not the actual issues) I lived in that small town of around 30,000 for another year and when I was 11 my family moved to a larger town of around 200,000 people. It was then that I saw my first actual comic shop. I talked my dad into taking me there and my mind was blown with the selection of back issues they had. I was in heaven due to the fact that everything was seemingly at my fingertips. Unfortunately, I also learned about the importance of condition and the fact that back issues were no longer cover price in the same trip. Me and my buddy probably had a couple hundred comics between us in the year that we bought together and in that small town there was not a poly-bag or backing board to be found. We just bought and read. Anyways, the first comic I grabbed was a Wolverine number 1. My dad and I took it to the counter in its bag and board to pay for it. I still remember how pissed my dad was when the owner of the store said 20 dollars! He could not reconcile that with the fact that the price on the cover said $1.50. Begrudgingly my dad paid for the book but then he told me we were never going back because we were just ripped off. (Money was tight for us in those days and the thought of paying 20 dollars for a comic was inconceivable.) I remember how bad it felt to see all those books I wanted and not having any means to get them. I learned later that they would offer trade. So on a future trip I brought my books in to trade and that is when I learned the heartbreaking truth that my books were worthless due to condition. That is a whole other story though.

The only artist from the copper age I like better than Zeck is Arthur Adams. His run on Classic X-Men makes up the earliest comic memories I have. It was hard to choose one but in the end I have to go with this one: It may not be one that jumps right out at you initially but after many years of comic art appreciation I can truly say that this one transcends comics and enters into the realm of fine art in general. Every line is perfectly placed and it is impossible for me to think of a classier piece that is out there.

As a kid I read Wolverine #10 at least one hundred times. That and X-Men 213 were my two favorite issues. Wolverine was my favorite character (like it was for most everybody at that time) and Sabretooth was by far the most legitimate villain in the Marvel universe. He was totally detestable and evil. How it was suggested that he raped Silverfox before he killed her really established just how bad he was. Furthermore, he beat Wolverine soundly and it was traumatic to me at the time that the good guy lost. That story in its Canadian wilderness location and how it took place before Wolverine got his claws really did a lot to make me understand how those two characters hated each other so much. Needless to say, it was devastating to me in Wolverine #50 or so when it was revealed that the whole sequence was a memory implant or something. I was so baffled and disappointed that the writers would jump the shark like that and take away what should have been the iconic early wolverine tale. I stopped reading all together when he lost his adamantium and turned feral. To this day, my X-Men and Wolverine collection ends at 304 and 75 respectively. In my mind the events in #10 are cannon.