EC Star&Bar

When I did my earliest buying around 1974-1975, a place called "News and Book Center" not only had 2 spinner racks with newsstand releases, but they also had a third rack devoted to 3-packs of Whitman editions from Western Pub., comprised of the issues concurrently published with the Gold Key brand.  Sort of odd, as they could've just stuck with the returnable Gold Keys.  

On toward 1977:  Between that place, a drug store, a greeting card shop, and a "Book World" store, I was spinning as many as 7 racks every Saturday morning.  Even with that many, sometimes only 1 copy popped up, as was the case with my copy of Superman #300 ('76) at Osco Drug.

Great find for sure.  You are killing me with that one.  I was unable to find the newsstand edition of that JLA issue anywhere in my area when it was published, as the DC Implosion had an effect on distribution.  Never had problems finding the title for years before and after, just that one issue failed to hit local stands.

I wonder if back cover overspray affects the grade the same as an equivalent amount on the book's front...?

Very nice copy.  It's too bad DC canceled Captain Comet Archives, it would've been a worthwhile collection.

I would not be surprised if JLA routinely outsold Batman when JLA 179 came out (1980).  Batman's popularity didn't begin to spike until Frank Miller etc. later in the decade,

I always liked Lady Blackhawk better than the male Blackhawks,  She had better legs.

Unless the cover paper is brittle, I don't think I could be convinced a collector would send the book in without unfolding that.  The eye-appeal alone would be a consideration.

At first it seems surprising a collector would be unfamiliar with these.  Many of us grew up with printed newspaper comics, and those were an everyday thing with Sunday and daily comics pages.  Modern offset-printed comic books are a different animal.  

8 hours ago, catman76 said:

The sales figures would say otherwise. The TV show made the comics and the character more popular and after the show was canceled the title went down to half the sales they were before the show...

"Batman" average monthly sales (this does not include Detective Comics):

1960: Batman 502,000

1961: Batman 485,000

1962: Batman 410,000

1963-64 NA

1965: Batman 453,745

1966: Batman 898,470

1967: Batman 805,700

1968: Batman 533,450

1969: Batman 355,782

1970: Batman 293,897

1971: Batman 244,488

1972: Batman 185,283

1973: Batman 200,574

1974: Batman 193,223

1975: Batman 359,000

1976: Batman 423,000

1977: Batman 375,647

1978: Batman 375,079

1979: Batman 333,231

1980: Batman 301,102

These numbers reinforce and add to the astonishment over the astronomically high recent sale of a copy of Batman 181 (6/1966). That issue came out in April of 1966, a full 3 months after the debut of the '66 Batman TV series.

Great letter - it had the effect of reversing the bias on the Zener diode in my brain...! 

I've had many if not most of the thoughts, anxieties, etc, expressed by others in this thread.  One thing I wanted to mention:  as one reason for switching over primarily to collections of comics in book form in recent years, I believe in the future my books can be dispersed much more easily, including looking into university libraries interested in donations of my holdings.  Worldcat.org gives me immediate info on which libraries own what.  The future home of one of my 4 copies of Suicide Squad Silver Age Omnibus will be...?

Anyway, I'm glad to learn that there are other Disney comics fans here -- I watch quite a few collectors on YouTube, and it seems Disney Barks Ducks etc. are rarely appreciated in comparison to superhero and Star Wars fandom.

"Pair down"  -- ?  "Paired down" -- ?  I wonder what pare down or pared down mean. 

Oh well, back to eating my pear. 

Most of you are aware that when the 'Tec 40 cover was drawn, it was The Joker.  However, it was intended as the cover for the 2nd Joker story, which instead appeared in Batman #1.  So the 'Tec 40 cover was then used to accompany its Clayface story.

In Mister Miracle #3, Jack Kirby is named as colorist of the cover of #1.

Tarzan #209 has been credited to Tatjana Wood at the GCD, and I believe that may be accurate.  I have a couple of copies of that and it's striking. She used to use some bold reds and yellows.

2 hours ago, Sweet Lou 14 said:

I still think Avengers #12 is my favorite Kirby Thor / Avengers cover.

That's a little bit of a coincidence because just a couple of days ago, I obtained an Avengers Masterworks Vol. 2 with this issue for the first time.  All newer editions have featured this cover on the dustjackets, while the earliest one had #11.  (Softcover Avengers Masterworks #2, 2009, has this cover inked & colored by Dean White.)

Showcase Presents Strange Adventures Vol. 1 started with #54, the first Code approved issue -- so I appreciate the reprinting from #53 in this thread -- thanks.

2 hours ago, jason4 said:

Have to say avengers 1 is a pretty important thor book. 

When I think of Silver Age Thor, the first 2 things that come to mind for me are: 

Cover of JIM 83, Cover of Avengers 1.  (Next are the splash and last page of 83.)

I have a copy of Action Comics 439 (1974) that I bought off the stands new, where there are 4 staples.  Two of them are interior only.  Apparently when it was run, the press ran out of covers so it was sent back through to be stitched again with the cover.  Only time I have encountered 2 sets of staples in a new comic.

37 minutes ago, James J Johnson said:

Here's the case-cracker. The Det 359 equivalent of the picture of Joe Pesci in the shower.

As the cut progresses, top to bottom, or further from the body towards the body of whoever is trimming this, the elbow draws out, the natural tendency to angle the wrist outward to follow the forearm. This typically results in an outward arc of the trimmed edge as seen here. On the white line to the right I replicated and exaggerated the fluctuating trajectory that the blade followed at the end of the trim closest to the trimmer's body!  There is no bowing out at the corners in normal production on the factory, original production cuts. This is definitely a tell for trim and I'm confident that if submitted, this feature will not be lost as a tell by CGC. 

Bolstering this, there are what were small chips and tears on the edge of the cover, which should have been at least a half a row of "checkerboard" wider! Which happens to be just about the exact distance to where the pages end if predictably mirroring the back cover configuration. 

 

Regarding wideness of the go-go checks, how do you explain the CGC blue label 8.5 on ebay whose checks are LESS WIDE than those on this raw book??  If they MUST be wider to be an untrimmed book, then the 8.5 on ebay is a MIS-GRADED trimmed book with a blue label, no trimming noted!

James' analysis is very impressive, but I will still maintain that if the book can't be examined in person, we can't say with 100% certainty it's been trimmed.  We're presuming that the book's edge is perfectly flat when we view it.  But if the paper has a slight waviness, it will appear as an edge that is not perfectly "factory" straight.  "Bowing" due to a trim, or due to our perception? A book this valuable, altered or not, will likely be submitted, so I hope it is sent in and I'll be back to admit it if I was wrong.

On 11/2/2020 at 1:05 PM, Randall Dowling said:

I think to use the car analogy, if a car was in an accident, and you could hammer out the dents through some process and make it look like it had never been in an accident without repainting, just maybe some buffing and washing after the dents were fixed, and you then sold it as never having been in an accident, would that be an honest thing to do.

The answer, obviously, is no.  On a molecular level, the metal has fatigue and is weaker where it was once bent.  Comics aren’t any different. 

I would personally pay more for a raw book that had never been messed with and appeared to be a lower grade than one that’s been pressed and certified by CGC as a higher grade.

We run into however what really constitutes "messed with."

When I was collecting in the '70s, I would take some of my comics exhibiting spine roll and insert them into stacks of my dad's heavy "Design News" magazines, in a basement with a dehumidifier but not the driest area by far.  I was doing a form of pressing, but like people sometimes mention stacking under encyclopedia volumes, was it a "natural" storage condition?  Like any stack of comics subject to pressure by weight and relative humidity that's not low?  My type of pressing I've described I consider pretty natural, and so when it comes to the pressing issue, generally I don't have a problem when modern means are used to achieve the same end result.  Not "messing" with a comic can be a tricky standard to establish.

I've seen a couple of good youtube videos on staple replacement, there is good info out there.  Since it's pretty certain (if not 100%) that the original staples were opened up and the paper suffered damage, perhaps the best option will be to open and remove the existing ones, very carefully, in order to smooth out the paper.  This then affords the opportunity to change to proper replacements if needed.  If doing that type of work yourself, also look into using a steel ball bearing for rolling the paper back to "flatness." 

There are definite positives here, as so often rust migration is an issue and I didn't see that here.

One thing I learned in recent years is how the restorer can heat a staple to very high temps in order to get just the exact bending needed.  Not many of us own a kiln, however...!

It will be interesting to have this resolved.  You make an excellent point regarding how the pages protrude -- however, the cuts of other samples really vary as far as the right edge of the cover alone.  I still think the oddity can be solely a production thing.  The lack of squareness of the cover, seen from the blue dashed lines on the back, could account for some odd protrusion of the interior paper.

Most importantly, if you look at the partial checks to the right of the CCA stamp, one of the 8.5 graded copies clearly has slightly less check showing than this raw copy...!  And by that I mean very little showing.

This issue must have had a tremendously big press run by most any standard, in part due to the Batman TV series.  I've seen where even a DC war comic from '66-'67 had a half-million copies run off.  I think that can help explain inconsistency on the cover cuts.  

Another thing to keep in mind is that DCs of the "go-go checks" period had good quality, glossy cover stock that tended to not overhang.  (In '68, after that period, DC changed briefly to a less glossy stock that was more prone to tanning on the edges.)  I just don't think this issue tended to have edgewear that would compel someone to trim it.

I'm going to stick with my belief it may not be trimmed.  I realize this being a high-value key will increase the likelihood, but a factor is that unlike sixties Marvels, I think this book was not prone to the type of wear that someone would trim off.  This was probably among my favorite DC cover stocks.  I have a Fox & Crow /Stanley & His Monster from right around the same month that I bought with some significant cover dirt that cleaned off easily. Gorgeous result. This type of DC cover stock returned in '69-70, changed again in '71'-72, and with some exceptions like around '73 and '75, has not been as  good since IMO.  

There's a CGC 8.5 blue label copy on ebay currently that looks very comparable as far as the right edge.  Other high-grade copies exhibit significantly more checks by the CCA stamp.  So unless the 8.5's grader missed a trim, I think this book could well be untrimmed.  Inconsistent factory cuts?

6 hours ago, southern cross said:

Looking at that picture I see a very large amount of empty comic book boxes. You'd think thieves would just pick up a box with handy hand holds then to empty the boxes and remove books by hand. Looks strange to me but I don't have a criminal mind. 

Likely there were lots of "visitors" to the opened trailer at different times, who helped themselves to what they could easily carry -- but as you've indicated, the easiest way to make a haul would be "by the box"...!