ExNihilo

No gloves? Now I know why some of my books have "fingerprint" in the graders notes.

Hand the artistic duties over to Fortiche and give me an animated series. Put together a team of writers and set the story somewhere between War2 and WoW. Trying to build around existing WoW lore is just way too complicated. Seriously, I watched Varian Wrynn get kidnapped (Vanilla) and now his son, Anduin is grown up. And wasn't there some time travel hijinx? It's time for the next generation to feel the pain I felt when Grom sacrificed himself for his people. And if not WarCraft, then give me something set in the StarCraft universe. Or Diablo. The key is competent writers and a company that cares about the lore instead of smashing things together. It's so much easier to tell stories animated than it is live action. You're no longer restricted by the physical limitations of humans, wires, and stunt teams.

Back in my day 1 hour was enough time to organize a group and do a dungeon run. Maybe 2. 3 hours wasn't enough to complete end game content. :P

Just because someone plays a famous comic book character doesn't mean the person who plays them is popular. Would you say Ezra Miller is popular? It's all in the portrayal. And unfortunately, a character like Wonder Woman is hard to cast because the person needs to look a certain way. Did Brandon Routh become popular? I certainly enjoyed his portrayal as Clark Kent, but he didn't exactly become a house hold name. Gal's not the best dramatic actress, but she does carry a certain charm to her. She played the part of Wonder Woman well enough in the first movie. If the writing had been better, I don't think we'd be having this conversation, which just illustrates how important a good story is.

Given that Gadot and Cavill were two of the best castings for the DCEU, it's an absolute waste that fans were given such limited films. Cavill's Superman in particular. The dude embodied Clark the same way Chris Evans was Captain America. He owned that role and it'll be difficult for anyone to follow up. As a Marvel fan, I'm more than happy to cast Cavill as Wonder Man or Brian Braddock or something else equally befitting. The guy deserves it.

I"m guessing all it means is that the studio doesn't want to move forward with the existing material/-script to save money. I'm sure Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman will find a home somewhere in Gunn's universe, it's just gonna need to be started from scratch with a -script that fits in to whatever larger connected universe James Gunn wants to build.

Honestly, the guys across the street had a chance and then they promptly lost 300 of their customers books.

Tier (also list FastTrack where applicable): Modern S/S FastTrackTAT as of Receipt Date: 10 daysNumber of books: 1Shipped to Sarasota: 11/16 Received by S&R: 11/19 CGC Entered/Received: 12/2Verified: TBD Scheduled for Grading: TBDGraded: TBDShipped/Safe: TBDReceived (by owner): TBD And thus the waiting game begins. The only reason I did FastTrack was because I thought turnaround times were long and I wanted to ensure the book made it back to me in case of a celeb signing I'd like to have added to the book at a future date. Looks like I could have saved myself a few bucks by going normal speed.

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

Didn't Mark state he no longer does signing events? Could have sworn at one of the Star Wars conventions or something he said it was his last.

That's because the barrier to entry is high. Not necessarily in the sense of creating a similar product, but the establishment of trust and goodwill. No one wants to use anything else because there's zero history between consumers and competitors that equate to equivalent resale values between brands. CGC is held in a higher regard and it doesn't look like anything will change the minds of consumers. The last two years we've seen countless QC issues, acetate gate, and massive turnaround times, and customers continue to submit in droves. Seriously, the QC issues should have been enough to reduce trust in their product, yet here we still are.

If Rocket dies, I'm gonna lose it.

Thought I'd try bumping this question. I just called eGerber and asked if both sides of the board were archival safe and whether I needed to be concerned about the non-white side damaging the books. The woman didn't really provide a convincing response as I suspect she is more accustomed to handling customer service and sales requests. I was hoping maybe she could forward my question to someone with more technical knowledge, but didn't push too much. So it begs the question, has anyone heard anything more definitive? I like putting books front and back to reduce the cost of materials, but obviously don't want to do that if one side of the board isn't protected.

I would reach out to Customer Service for individual requests. Questions and topics in these forums tend to be broader in scope. Turnaround times are estimates, they're not firm. You also need to account for business days and holidays. Generally speaking, once your book gets past the initial status, it's just a matter of patience (for better or for worst).

CGCMike posted somewhere that they signing is supposed to occur in December.

Silver Surfer #44 is the first one that comes to mind given its significance to Marvel comics and the MCU.

I need to see a tour of ivdyer's full collection. It's not just comic stuff, but all the other pop culture related memorabilia you have that goes with the books that is so impressive.

I'm with you. I HATED Registered Mail. Watching the Registered Mail tracking was torture and would take an ungodly length of time to get from Sarasota to California. For all the protections Registered Mail is supposed to offer, the service was always worst, probably because it travels by vehicle instead of any air service. I would see my package update (when it actually updated) slowly move across the country. And then when it would arrive at the local sorting facility, it would just sit there for days. On multiple occasions I could see the progress updated to "On the Vehicle/Out for Delivery" and I would wait and wait and nothing would arrive. Check back in at night and it either would update to show it was checked back into the facility or it wouldn't show any updates at all. Honestly, Registered Mail took 2-3 weeks from when it would leave Sarasota to when I would finally get it. Compare this to USPS Priority Mail (which is what I always use) and my packages ALWAYS make it cross country in 2 days. I'll ship something out Friday and it'll be at the destination by Monday. And to make things worst, Priority Mail is half the cost of Registered Mail. The argument was that Registered Mail had higher insurance, but I never had an issue with Priority Mail and insured amounts. This must be dependant on your FedEx driver. I get work documents sent to me from Canada fairly consistently. Just a plain ole 9x12 envelope. And without fail, I have to sign for it. There was one time I missed so many delivered dates that I had to go to the sorting facility to pick up the package. It wasn't a problem when I worked from home, but now that I'm back in the office I end up staying home just to wait for some packages every so often. Finally told the Canada team to send the documents to our office so at least that's been resolved.

I'd like to request CGC notate the first "battlestaff appearance in Superman comic where the battlestaff breaks when used against the Man of Steel". This isn't to be confused with the first "battlestaff appearance in Superman comic where the battlestaff DOES NOT break when used against the Man of Steel". I'd also like CGC to begin notating the first appearance by Age. For example, we have first Silver Age appearance of many characters, but why not "first Bronze age appearance of Two Face", "first Copper Age appearance of Two Face", and "first Modern Age appearance of Two Face". And since team ups are all the rage, let's get "first Two Face and Penguin team up" by age as well. Bingo bango! There are now soooooo many more keys for people to speculate on. On a more serious note, CGC does notate the first appearance of the Batmobile, so they do mention inanimate objects. It just really depends on the relevance or popularity of the item. Like, it wouldn't surprise me if "first kryptonite" was actually notated somewhere as well.

It needs to be said that the series involves A LOT of talking and some people will find that boring. I personally think it builds the tension, but I do admit that some episodes probably could have been cut down or eliminated. That said, the format of the show and each episode results in a far more interesting season than any other live action Star Wars series we've seen to date. Mando and Boba Fett all followed a somewhat predictable pattern of character introduction, character introduction, side quest, back to a previously introduced character. I'm somewhat concerned about the upcoming Ahsoka series because I LOVE Ahsoka and I want the show to be good, but I'm now hesitant because Filoni's style seems to heavily mirror that of the directors from those two series. Andor to me was a complete departure from everything else. Superior writing, acting, cinematography, score, story, directing. Everything. It's small, but I feel the fact that Andor was actually filmed ON LOCATION is tremendous for the look and feel of the show. There's something that can't be replicated in that 360 degree projection stage that Favreau and the rest love to use. I adore Andor, I recognize it has its faults with pacing, but my God does it deliver on all the other fronts.

Yeah, to the relief of my bank account, I opted not to go. I hope everyone that did had a good time though.

Does anyone have a Day 1 report? I'm on the fence about buying a last minute Saturday ticket. Didn't buy anything on Black Friday and now I've got a hole burning in my pocket. Part of me is tempted to meet Jim Lee. Another part is tempted to see if Art Adams has any cool sketches available for sale.

The absence of any sort of merchandise for Arcane is just criminal. No vinyl soundtrack release, not a lot of statues, no artbooks, barely any shirts, and not a single funko! (There are Funko's for practically EVERYTHING). So all too happy to add anything Arcane related I can, including this commission sketch cover by Chrissie Zullo of Vi and Gwen (both voiced by Hailee Steinfeld). Currently on its way to CGC and then to a Hailee signing whenever the next opportunity is.

People/characters I'm a fan of: Chrissie Zullo, Hailee Steinfeld, Spider-Gwen, Vi As soon as I saw Chrissie post a sketch of Vi last year when Arcane was released, I knew immediately she was the perfect person for a Vi/Gwen cover sketch (both characters voiced by Hailee Steinfeld). So happy I was able to get a limited commission spot during a convention appearance. Too excited to wait 6+ months for it to be slabbed before sharing, but this is on its way to CGC (and eventually off to the next Hailee Steinfeld signing opportunity).