larryfk

Bump for this cool little show with affordable entry.  1 week away!  If any of you guys that are setting up know whether they are doing a Friday night preview again, let us know. I have to travel south Saturday afternoon but hope to at least see you all that morning for the first couple hours. 

Even if they're not considered more valuable, aren't newsstand editions generally considered more desirable because they didn't have the same survival rate as direct editions? I've heard stories about newsstand vendors tearing the covers off comics that didn't sell, to return to the publisher.  And it just seems they would have been around a harsher environment, in general. Like, more out in the elements rather than the loving embrace of a comic shop.  I'll pay a couple bucks more for a newsstand edition if the grades are the same.

2 minutes ago, speedcake said:

I just started putting a few books up for sale on ebay again and pretty sure I spend way too long fussing over packing them for shipment. Maybe I care too much...

No way.  I will never complain, even about the OCD securest of packing.  I found an unbelievable copy of Hero for Hire #1 recently at an unbelievable price.  Like, this would have gone in that "Best Score" thread for sure.  I was so stunned by its beauty.  I even messaged the seller at checkout and asked him to PLEASE ship it securely.  It arrived in an envelope sandwiched between cardboard, which is good...but the comic was not affixed to the cardboard, which is bad.  It must have been sliding around all the way across the U.S.   The edge of the bag and board were sticking out past the cardboard when I unpackaged it.  And sure enough, the upper-right corner was SMASHED.  It lost probably 5 grade points because it wasn't packed securely and I had to return it.  It would have been one of life's great purchases, but now I'm living with the knowledge that there was a pristine raw copy of Hero for Hire #1 out there that no longer exists.

Just saying, please don't ever feel weird about layers of security.  Even if it takes 10 minutes to unpack it, it's worth it to get what I ordered.

9 hours ago, skypinkblu said:

The trick is to never tape the comic bag that is directly protecting the comics. You put the comics in their bags and then put the one book, or more (however many you have)  in ANOTHER bag. THEN  you can tape. I use magazine bags, or treasury bags, but even a supermarket bag will do.

Drives me crazy when I have to peel tape off a comic book bag. It's also very bad for my manicure;);)

I wrap the bag and board in a layer of saran wrap, so the tape touches that instead and it barely adds any weight.

Nice book, 9.0 or better.  The only flaw I see is a bend in the bottom-right corner.  Maybe that top-right corner is dinged just a bit, kind of hard to tell.  Is the back dirty or is that just the scan?  I see a couple horizontal lines to the left of Evel but that may be nothing in reality.

7.5 probably...are those spots over the red/white/blue "Captain America" on the comic or from the scanner?

8.0

3.0 or 3.5.  It looks like a VG copy with a couple substantial flaws that detract from a 4.0 grade.

Weather looks great.  My only chance may be Sunday, unfortunately... 

But that's got me wondering - curious what you guys that are regularly set up at these shows think.  Past cons I've always tried to get there early on the first day, assuming that's when sellers have all the good stuff out and I can have the pick of the litter, as it were.  But as a buyer, is there any benefit to going to a con on Sunday?  Do you guys keep adding new, key comics over the weekend, and/or offer deeper discounts as it is winding down?

I like all aspects of the con, but am really only there to buy awesome comics.  Just always assumed that the pool to choose from by Sunday may be too picked over, but maybe that's not the case.

Not sure if this is considered a "classic" cover...but one of my favorites from childhood that is still one of my faves.

On 2/12/2018 at 4:38 AM, 999ghosts said:

My comic book room / home office / game room / action figure room / collectables room / NERD DEN

Jij bent een Nederlander!

That teaser felt like a movie that the filmmakers shot a bunch of footage for, but aren't sure what to do with it yet.  Hope they have a plan for it.

It looks like Eddie Brock is telekinetic in this.  And was that a UFO crashed in the woods?  Assuming the symbiote crawls out of that and attaches itself to Brock.

On 2/6/2018 at 7:27 AM, jjonahjameson11 said:

It would be convenient, however, the introduction of a vampire (or werewolf) or what have you, would not have happened without defiance of the Comics Code, and hence, makes a stronger argument for ASM 96.

That's why I agree with ASM 96 as the "correct" answer here.  Marvel saying "meh, we'll publish what we want, screw your code" with maybe their most popular title seems like a good watershed moment to move from the tights-wearing superhero types (as self-conflicted and woke to societal ills as the Silver Age made them) into the return of the monsters, and Luke Cage and Punisher and all that great Bronze Age stuff.

An affordable 4th appearance of Spidey.  Or, tied for his 4th appearance.  Or not his 4th appearance at all...I think there's a thread about this one somewhere.

8 hours ago, Jayman said:

@finalfan7asy perhaps email them the pics you posted here and explain your concern that the shipment was damaged. They might offer a refund or exchange. Worth a try...

Try this.  I just got a pack of Silver/Golden fullbacks that were fine, looked like the second photo.  There is another pack coming in the mail next week, will check them out and chime in if the texture looks anything like the first pic...

The three on bottom I already had, the three on top were a total Christmas surprise.  I was ranting about all the "first appearances" of this character a few weeks ago, and I guess somebody was listening.

4 hours ago, namisgr said:

Congratulations on having experienced what is known in the field of cognitive neuroscience as 'one-trial learning'.  It's a good thing the damaged book was as valuable as ASM #25, as the magnitude of the mistake is sufficient to drive home the lesson after only a single instance to come up with a foolproof way to remove comics from their storage bags, and never deviate from it.

No kidding.  I've always played fast and loose with tape and last weekend a bit got stuck smack dab in the middle of ASM #39.  My favorite comic book cover ever.  I almost died of a heart attack when I peeled it off and it left a couple small white spots just below the Goblin's glider.  Of all the dozens of times tape got stuck to a cover it never peeled off color until this issue, the most beautiful of all comic book covers.  Luckily it is a low grade copy and now I have an excuse to buy a new (nicer) one.   

But yeah, it was sufficiently traumatizing and I'll never ever, ever, ever mess around with tape again.  Never.

Those lines of magnetic force around Magneto on the cover of #1 - I noticed that effect around him in X-Men: Apocalypse.  Thought that was a fun touch.  I don't remember seeing them in any of the other X-Men movies.

I wanted to know more about DC owning Marvel's distribution rights, that was news to me.  The show made it seem like DC was severely limiting the number of issues that Marvel published during the early days, not sure how true that is.

Lee and Kirby were just two very different people.  All my appreciation goes to the artist who toils and creates, and does all of the real work.  But unfortunately sometimes genius needs a huckster to make things happen, and Marvel definitely wouldn't have happened without both of them.  Not to say Stan Lee's not a genius too, he's brilliant.  Just saying that sometimes it is painful to see the good-looking smooth-talker get all the credit when they are really standing on the shoulders of giants.

Oooh, what a great topic.  For me it was always Mary Jane...especially the Todd McFarlane version.  Just ridiculous proportions.  

58 minutes ago, Marwood & I said:

On the flip side I once was strongly berated by an eBay buyer for packing a valuable book I sold him too well. He said it took too long to open. I seem to recall finding it very hard to resist the urge to tell him to pop off and make love to himself. 

Heh.  I've cursed under my breath a few times at books that are packed too well.  Just impatient and would never mention it to the seller though.

On 10/23/2017 at 6:14 PM, celluloidbuff said:

I enjoyed the show quite a bit, as did my nephew and his buddies that tagged along.  Everybody in our group founds lots of goodies.  Nephew filled out his Spawn collection, even picking up a Phoenix Comic Con limited edition (500 print run) cover slabbed 9.8 with a cool cover by Michael Golden / Todd McFarlane.  That was his "big get" for the show.

I picked up a boatload of blank sketch covers from multiple vendors, and a few more goodies (ASM 700 collage cover, Darth Vader 3 1st print) from mysterio's booth.  I struck out in my quest for Star Wars action figure variants (slabbed or raw) that I didn't already have, but I did pick up a few odds and ends like some Granov ASM covers and some Alex Ross Star Wars covers.  We also ate at a local diner and visited BOOM comics before we blew town.  

Glad to hear you guys had fun, celluloidbuff.  We also got some awesome stuff at mysterio's booth and had a heck of a day overall.  Isn't the BOOM shop something else?  They must have 10,000+ sq ft of space there.  It has been fun watching them fill it up over the past couple years, and they probably still have space to add a lot more.  

Nice.  Will hopefully be there at 7pm on the dot.  I'll be the really big dude looking for Silver Age Marvel stuff

Works great, thanks for creating this!

Thanks for checking, mysterio.  Tickets received!  Can't wait until the weekend.  Just saw another thread about a KC Con in November, so better check that out too.