alexgross.com

comics inspired me to draw endlessly as a kid, and for my entire childhood i was certain that i would become a comic book artist. eventually, i got to art school and discovered other ways to make art for a living that were more appealing than drawing 22 pages of difficult things like environments and perspective each and every month, but the inspiration that comics gave me and the love for the whole magical world of superheroes in particular never left me. and as @MattTheDuck said, those books from the 60s, 70s, and early 80s still bring me back to that formative time in my life almost like a time machine. it's rare that anything can make me feel like a kid again. but those 70s marvel and dc books have that special power over me. btw my 8 year old loves casper comics and we have gotten a bunch of them from the 70s/80s. i read those all the time in summer camp along with richie rich. interestingly, they don't take me back with the same power that superhero books do. i never tried copying the covers of casper, but i pretty much learned to draw from marvel and dc comics. so for me, a BIG part of the timeless love of old comics was the artwork. the stories meant little to me if i didn't like the artwork. here's one i did back then clearly based on a 70s justice league cover... and then an image of what i do now. the connection is pretty direct for me.

perhaps before you go accusing people of spreading fake news, it might be more useful to ask where the story came from. byron may have misread the idea that the novel itself was pulled from shelves when it was apparently the graphic novel version. and it's a shame that the washington post can't be bothered to put an addendum at the bottom of this article stating that one week later the graphic novel was returned to the shelves of the library. but his post is clearly in good faith and the fact is that most media now are more interested in the first, sensational headline than the less controversial resolution that may come a few weeks later.

"Batmania," oil on canvas, 36 x 33.5 inches. this one took awhile.

for a book like that, i don't think it makes much difference. it could mean a few less bidders at an auction, but ultimately, if the book is well centered and presents nicely, which many 9.8s do, then OWWP and WP should be similar in price. some buyers just won't bid if it's not WP, but plenty will. some books can have white on the spine showing, and there are collectors who do not care for this. see attached. the 9.8 has a big white bar up the left side, whereas the 9.6 does not. many collectors prefer the 9.6 in this case. page quality is less important for them. so, if your book has a white bar it might be less desirable to some collectors. but again, there are many who won't care.

we are about the same age based on these books. DKR was so popular at my local store that i couldn't get a first printing. by the time i could get a copy it was like a third printing or something.

with all due respect, nonsense. speculators with crypto and other money certainly elevated values of books in 2021. that doesnt mean they 'created' this market. they created the enormous leap in prices. this market was here before them and will be here, and strong, when they leave. look at any gpa blue chip key graph from 2008-2020. it gradually goes up. 2021 will have been a blip.

in economically dubious times, the fearful and needy sell. the wealthy buy. some wealthy sell keys to get into higher grade keys. newbies who bought blue chip keys in 2021 are a small per cent of this hobby. if you've been to cons you can see it in our collective middle and old age. cgc has been grading books for 22 years now. this hobby is built on a massive demand from geezers like me and many other boardies. it will continue to prosper for years to come. the sky is not falling on comics. btw AF15 is almost always well represented in auctions. its never been a rare book.

ditto this. dont think pressing will do much for you either.

well, if he really needs the money, then i suppose he spent too much last year. if he doesn't, then, as @piper said, all he needs to do is hold some period of time (a few years or several years) and they will likely prove to be great investments, depending on how much he paid. 'buy low sell high' is both the simplest and trickiest investing advice i've ever heard.

just picked this up from HA for a decent price. perhaps the first book i've bid on in awhile that has benefitted from the market's softening. until now, everything i looked at was still going for gpa or over. though it was cheaper than it would have been last year, still quite a bit more than in 2020.

the second one was the inspiration for the TOY STORY movies-

with the amount of truly high-end, high-value books that Lou has, he'd need dozens of safe deposit boxes. and they have to be the 10x10 ones which are quite difficult to find. here in portlandia, i have learned that none of the banks, including where i have my 3 boxes, have the safe deposit rooms climate controlled. once, i went in after a heat wave and the room was disgustingly hot. so much for that box. in los angeles, the whole bank is usually climate controlled as it's such a necessity there. so that seems to depend on where you live in addition to the individual bank. but it does not seem to be a practical option for lou unless he's just talking about 24 books or less. you can get about 12 books in one 10x10 safe deposit box.

that didnt take very long to go off the rails...

congratulations on an awesome book! the picture looks good to me. the label is not blown out, which is often a clue to when a seller has tweaked the levels to hide flaws. what's your white page undercopy, and when/where you selling it?

this was the best presenting 8.0 copy i have ever seen. it can be hard to know how accurate a pic on an auction site is, but this is a beautiful copy with white pages to boot. had i suspected it would go for under 60k i would have done some selling in advance to try and grab it! in a couple of years i think it likely that this particular book will have proven to be a steal.

nice! i guess it was the previous one that seemed pricey- $100 for just the one day. this sounds like it was a great deal.

thanks for sharing your take on the event. the summit was indeed open to the public, it is just an expensive ticket. i'm not sure what gave you that impression... the first one in washington was a smaller show it seems than this time around. i'm sure the involvement of heritage helped this become a much bigger deal. just wish dallas wasn't so far from some of us!

@GreatCaesarsGhost thanks for sharing those! love to see more. are people buying the big books as far as you know? how are sales? the last summit in bellevue was fun but the graded SA keys from places like dave and adams were pretty ambitiously priced.

as has been discussed before, i believe that "faded lime green" is simply a different green used in some printings of the book. i've seen many beautifully presenting copies with bright colors that have the light green color. i take your point that many people feel the dark green color feels richer than the light green one. the 7.0 i shared is yellowed and indeed has some fading on it. and it also has the light green color. there are plenty of yellowed and faded copies with the dark green too. your copy presents really well for the grade-

this one is really going to hurt gpa average. apologies to the seller of this book but it's one of the worst 7.0 white pagers i've seen. a good example of why one should buy the book and not the label.

heres my watch list from the heritage weekly auction that just ended yesterday. every single book on here is down either a little or a significant amount from the 12 month average, but remains well over the 2020 average. avengers 57 for example in 9.4 was a $2100 book in 2020. in this down market it sold for $3120. down from a peak of $3500 but well up over 2 years. ff52 was a $1580 book two years ago, now it's over 2k. i know alot of run books are down more than this, and modern stuff is dramatically down. but for silver age key and semi-key books like the ones i always watch and sometimes bid on, things are still far into the black over a 2 year timespan or longer. of course heritage may be rigged, but i'm seeing similar results on comiclink which is the other site i mainly use for bidding and watching.

too true. he really didn't care. still, i wish he had a sweet looking copy with his handwriting in it somewhere. that would be neat.

i couldn't agree more. i still don't have an asm1, but i have this:

boy that's a disappointingly lame copy for having belonged to ditko!