alexgross.com

first one was pretty funny and my son was like 4 or 5 years old. now hes 9 and the second one was mediocre. wondering at what point a kid will outgrow this series. but i'm sure we're in for number 3. 

On 4/10/2024 at 7:53 AM, Chip Cataldo said:

As a huge Byrne fan, you have insulted me. Also, you're incorrect. See: Byrne. 

Edit : Just make FF #242-244 into a movie. Count your billion dollars. Done.

i have had those issues since i was a kid. back then i was so disappointed in his self-inking post x-men that i dont recall much about the storylines, other than him putting himself in one issue yet again. maybe i should dig them out and re-read them. 

no great movie does not get ruined by a sequel eventually. 

On 4/3/2024 at 4:25 PM, MAR1979 said:

If you'd rather at some dude's package in the skintight Surfer suit there's nothign wrong with that. However speaking for myself and bulk of the potential audience for the film I'd much rather stare at a shapely female form with potential cam3l t0e in the taut Silver. BTW's I'm positive Lee and Kirby would agree with me!

good point! i didnt think of that. does make it somewhat more interesting, sadly. 

i was more bummed that we wont see the storyline from silver surfer 3 when mephisto teases norrin radd with reuniting him with shalla bal if he will only do his bidding. 

but like so many people, i'm beyond tired of marvel gender bending seemingly every character. i get it- women can do amazing things! they can be superheroes too- we know! it still wont bring teen girls to the theater for mcu. only taylor swift could do that. if that's their goal, they have cast the wrong person. 

wonka was great if you are seeing it with a kid. saw it with my 9 year old and we both loved it, to my surprise. i always have loved chalamet, but almost everyone in the movie was great, and the story was funny and interesting for a prequel. 

On 4/4/2024 at 7:23 AM, MattTheDuck said:

A picture from a local Estate Sale I will not be able to attend this morning because I have to work.  @alexgross.com

 

thanks matt- if you have more info on it please send it over--

On 3/30/2024 at 9:36 AM, Robot Man said:

My observations…

First off, BAD weekend for the show. Easter is a day spent with families. Dealers don’t want to travel. Only a couple of out of state dealers. Mostly the local crowd I usually see at shows. Not to mention we got another big storm blowing through here. Will really impact all the cosplay folks and the fun out door activities today. Was weird that unlike its big sister SDCC, you could just walk right up, buy a ticket and walk in. 

Lots of folks just gazing at the big high priced wall books. Seems like every booth had numerous high priced ASM 300’s. Why people pay or ask those prices for a book that is common as dirt is beyond me. I seemed to have all the GA boxes to myself. I fished out a few nice very obscure gems at great prices. Just not a lot of WWII, obscure publishers and scarcer GA. I brought a ton of cash and came home with most of it. Most dealers seemed happy with sales though. But what dealer would admit they didn’t do well? Hard to find many Pulps, my current interest. And what was there was priced insane.

It was pretty pathetic how small the “GA/SA Pavilion was. 5 or 6 small isles with a slight spillover. Looks like a small postage stamp on the floor map. A pretty large Artist’s Alley but I didn’t go because I really don’t know many modern artists and everybody I used to go see had basically passed away by now. I had no desire to shuffle the rest of the show of new toy dealers, T-Shirts, gamers and the great un-washed…

I actually waited in line at the CGC booth to get some pulps graded. There seemed to be a lot of confusion as what to do with them. I figured now is the time to do some. Not many on the census and a lot of them have very few sales. Many real good ones still fit into the lowest tier. For now… I also got this cool pin for my submission.

One of the best parts of the show is bumping into old friends and making new ones. I had a few conversations with my older buddies. We all agreed as to how many of us are dropping lately. Now is the time to keep in touch more often. Another thing that was a little disturbing was how many former old time board members have given up posting here. Most cited hostile interactions here as the reason. Real sad, as I have always enjoyed their posts. I urged them to return. Hopefully, they will.

Was very easily a one day or less show for me. Still what a great way to spend a day and will go back as long as it’s here. 

thanks for the posts and the info! wish i could have gone to the show. its nice to know that there are still a few lesser shows where some good dealers set up. 

On 3/28/2024 at 5:26 AM, Axelrod said:

So, what special friend/prominent member of the collecting community of CGC got this one graded?

apparently, metropolis/comicconnect, who are among cgc's biggest customers, submitting tons of books regularly. small wonder. very small. 

On 3/28/2019 at 12:13 PM, comicdonna said:

I sold Gator about 2/3's of my Action run in 2013, that won a best GA set award.  (Keys and non keys) Basically, I submitted my ask for each book, leaving a little room for profit.  Rick  sent the money, with bulk packaging instructions, and he paid for the shipping.  It was a great selling experience for me, with zero regrets.  I feel  I turned out way better, than if I chose to consign to an auction house.   

 

If I had  a key book to sell at a con, I would go to Rick's booth first.

yes i sold a large number of books to rick as well several months ago. after reaching out to a number of dealers, he made the best offer and was easiest to deal with. 

the state of the market is obviously huge in determining what a dealer will offer you for your books. when it's hot, i'm sure it will be more generous, and when it's post-bubble bursting horror show like the last two years, it's the opposite of generous. 

what was aggravating is the double standard that many of them use. all but two of my 15 books were white pages and several were pedigrees. almost all were major SA keys. when you are buying these from a dealer you will certainly be paying more. but when trying to sell them, you won't be offered more than if they were C/OW pages, especially in this lousy market. perhaps if the market was on fire that would have been considered a bit more. maybe. 

another bit from the dealer's playbook is that they will always try to make you tell them what you want for the books. it's like they went to the same school and were taught this on day one. 

rick actually gave me an offer instead of worrying that i'd shop it to another dealer and try to get more. it's sad that dealers i have bought from for many years could not step up a bit more with me when i needed to sell. 

but the good news is that rick @G.A.tor is a class act. if i need to sell big books in the future and do not decide to go the auction route, rick is the first dealer i would reach out to. 

On 2/28/2024 at 4:53 PM, DC# said:

And it the same auction - this earthbound, mere-mortal 3.5 had a nice night.   Best result since last summer.

 

this was a gorgeous presenting copy for the grade, in spite of the lousy label designation. really nice looking copy! 

a few reviews i saw imply that this movie is so bad, it's great, kind of like tommy wiseau's cult classic THE ROOM. 

is this at all true, for those who've seen it? obviously it cannot be bad in quite the same way since it's done with an enormous budget and a cast of real actors. but it's said that dakota's performance is only slightly better than tommy's, as is her effort level. 

On 2/15/2024 at 8:48 AM, MAR1979 said:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein

tell that to my wife, please!

hope everyone has a great time and looking forward to seeing pics. unfortunately not able to attend this year, and will miss the comics and the people-

if the US would just invade and annex canada, your shipping problems would be over! lets go back to the good old days of 1812 and try to make that happen people! 

as far as the other CL stuff goes, they dont have a buyers premium, unless they recently changed something. HA and CC both do have big fat ones. CL you pay what you bid. not counting shipping of course. maybe there is a fee if you pay by credit card. but if you mail a check, no secret fee or BP. 

Liman saying that a prequel would be better than the original is blatantly ridiculous hype. the original EDGE OF TOMORROW is one of the most compelling sci-fi movies i can remember. i watched it again last week for around the 5th time, and it never, ever gets old for even one moment. they need to stop making sequels and prequels to things that DO NOT MERIT THEM! let it be a great one-off! 

the best example of this is 9.8 vs 9.9. good luck seeing any difference with the naked eye. 9.9s are the most blatant case of a money grab for nothing more than an ultra rare label, not an ultra rare book. 

you are probably right in terms of value, but i find that 6.0 books often look bad. for some reason, i have seen better 5.0s than 6.0s. i always prefer to get a 7.0-7.5 if i can afford it, or a 5.0-5.5. 6.0 and 6.5 have always bugged me- it's neither mid grade nor upper grade, and as i said, the few books i have had in that range always looked pretty lousy. 

On 12/23/2023 at 4:07 PM, GrasshopperFF said:

 Thanks for helping JimJum, Alex. This will look good next to your Marvel version. I’ll pay Jim’s PayPal and provide proof of payment to Alex and @DavidTheDavid  

thank you! so glad to help in the little way that i can! the boards are really a special place in times like this. thanks to @skypinkblu and @DavidTheDavid for all your work in this endeavor- 

can i list something comic related but not a comic in this thread? since it's about raising $$$ for jimbo, i am hoping mike would allow it. 

On 12/21/2023 at 11:07 AM, DC# said:

A few notable results from Goldin last night......

X-Men #1 8.0 OW went for $62.2k - last sale was $43.5K in Dec 2022

Tales of Suspense #39 9.0 OW/W went for $80.5K - last was $78k in Dec 2022

 

that seems promising for the overall market given that goldin is usually on the lower end of sales prices compared to the more well-known auction houses. 

should be interesting to see if this trend continues at least for higher grade SA keys going into the new year. overall economic news seems to have significantly brightened in the last month and so perhaps that is helping in terms of comics prices. 

on the other hand, this could also just be a case of two high grade books that are desirable and not easy to find in grade being battled over by a few determined and wealthy collectors.