ExNihilo

I think it's supposed to release on blu-ray in August.

If I remember, Titanic was in theaters for at least a year. I recall looking in the local movie section of the Sunday paper which would list the top movies in release and how long they had been out and Titanic surpassed 52 weeks.

20 years from now? When discussing the film to non-comic book fans, that's already how I describe it.

We still read the tales of Ulysses, Jason and the Argonauts, Hercules, etc. Who's to say we won't still be reading about Spider-Man in a 1000 years?

Are these paint pens the same as the gold/silver pens? All my sigs are from the last 2 years so the books look fine so far. Also, does the climate of the room in which the books are stored play a role in the degradation of the sig? All my books are tucked away, in a space with relatively low humidity and the temperature remains fairly constant.

Someone on eBay recently bought Hulk #14-17 (1st Red She Hulk arc) for $10.50! How's THAT for value?!

I learned this the hard way when I first joined the board, but you need to re-evaluate what you describe as "key". There are major keys and there are minor keys. And if I'm being honest, what qualifies as a minor key is sort of becoming a joke. It's like anything related to a movie is a "minor" key. Major keys are going to be first appearances of major characters or on the rare occasion, an important life changing moment (ie: Death of Gwen Stacy). Minor keys are going to be first appearances of lesser known characters. Books like 1st Stormbreaker or 1st Cap Falcon, I feel like are speculators inflating prices to take advantage of sudden market awareness. Like, Silver Surfer #44 used to sell for barely over cover price. It was always the 1st Infinity Gauntlet, but its importance never became relevant until the movies. And even then, what happens in 10 years when the memory of the movie has long faded or been eclipsed by something else? Civil War #1-7 as keys? Hahahahahaha, what a laugh. The majority of those moderns you listed likely won't stand the test of time. None of those books are going to be in the same boat as an ASM300 or Silver Surfer 4 in the future. Maybe a character will develop into something important (Hope Summers perhaps?), but the rest find value for some small reason. Those 18 ASMs...i'd venture a guess that most are because they're J Scott Campbell covers with low print runs.

Federov, Yzerman...that whole roster was when I started paying some attention to hockey and is the reason why I'm a Red Wings fan despite living in nowhere near Detroit/Michigan.

"THE Premiere Publisher in the Industry" would have been more accurate. And by that I mean the leader in publishing premiere (#1) issues due to all the reboots.

"Flagship" is such a terrible pronoun to describe the leader in an industry. As you pointed out, characters are flagships within a publisher. So Batman and Superman are the "flagship" characters for DC. Spider-Man is likely the flagship character for Marvel. As far as flagship books, one could debate whether that title belongs to a solo title or a team book. You could base it on popularity, or sales, or historical significance. If it's the latter, it could be fair to say something like The Avengers is Marvel's flagship title because of it's prominence throughout publication history and because so many A list characters have passed through those pages at one point or another. But on the topic of which publisher is best? That's a conversation that could be discussed all day for years to come because there's no real clear cut winner. In truth, their focus is on two very separate things. On one hand, you have these characters that are nearly perfect (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman) and on the other, you have flawed characters constantly dealing with personal issues. I've heard the argument that Marvel characters resonate more with people because they are flawed. But that could also be part of the Stan's sales pitch back in the day.

I'm a fan of whatever Hickman does. If he mandated or fought to cancel the X-line so he could start his story fresh, I am 100% behind him.

No matter how you define it, the period following Secret Wars was bad. Poor writing, no real editorial direction, bad gimmicks (all those variant lenticular covers), loss of talented creators. And it all led to the shake-up that saw CB Cebulski moved up to Editor-in-chief. Honestly, ever since then, the brand has turned around. But things were looking REAL bad for a time there. DC went through a similar period where New 52 was kinda lambasted by the fans. On the flipside, Rebirth was well received. That Rebirth coincided with Marvels downturn only served to magnify how poor Marvel stories were flagging, comparatively speaking, at the time.

Who went on to lose, nay...embarassed, in the first round. (EDIT: not a big hockey fan, but i think the Lightning may have tied the record for most wins? But they certainly didn't beat the record for most points.)

Is no one else using this when transporting books? Plebes.

Here's a hot tip: if you have some random wires sticking out of it and a clock, you just might find yourself with a lot more space than you were expecting, as well as some unexpected security to provide "assistance".

well great, now i'm worried about some of my books...

True story. There are so many variants these days it's kinda disgusting. If there's art that you like, sure, go for it (assuming it's priced within reason). But i hate when books have like 20 variants as it just feels like it's watering down the marketplace. Half of those covers don't even look good.

None of my books have ever come back as 10's so i think CGC is highly inaccurate. (PS: Welcome to the boards.)

Yeah, in my younger days I would have dropped the book based on the art. But as I've gotten older I've come to appreciate a good story more. del Mundo's art is terrible. If it wasn't for the fact that we're finally getting the War of the Realms, I just might have dropped the book sooner. I really don't understand why Marvel editorial has opted to lean towards this cartoony aesthetic for a lot of books. I much prefer DC's stable of artists with the likes of Lee, Fabok, Capullo, Eaglesham, Kubert, etc.

They are sanctioned by Diamond/Publisher. I believe in order to get an exclusive variant, you have to request a certain number of copies from the publisher and then commission the artist. Diamond is still the distributor of the books (I believe). Yes, printed by the publishers. Most of the covers you see are probably store exclusives and your LCS is unable to purchase them. A lot of times, you kinda just need to follow artists on instagram as they'll often give a sneak peek of upcoming covers. For bigger issues, there are some comic sites that will aggregate covers. For example, comicburst compiled all the Detective 1000 covers here. Unfortunately, a lot of these covers aren't necessarily revealed until after your Previews orders should be placed.

Tailspin implies that there are no good stories out there worth reading. There are plenty of good books being put out by Marvel right now (Thor, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc). Some books flounder, but to say "their" (implying all of Marvel) is a stretch.

Shoot, when I was 14 there was no such thing as a tracking number. You mailed in a form and waited patiently 6-8 weeks for your package to be delivered.

Marvel's best books right now are stuff like Immortal Hulk (white male protagonist), Venom (white male protagonist), and ASM (white male protagonist). God, I hate when identity politics gets in the way of a good story. /s

I thought this was going to be a post about the Martha's.

I'm guessing the creators have gone to CGC and explicitly stated that they require the special slip, otherwise they're not authorized to give a signature series label for their books. I think there are some creators who explicitly don't allow their signatures to be graded at all. So in my case, CGC asked my facilitator for the slip before accepting the books. When he said he wasn't aware of the new policy, they sent him back to JSC's table to acquire one.