shadroch

As I understand it, Phil's exclusive deal with publishers involved the publishers expediting Phils orders and shipping them for free. Other distributors existed but were at a huge disadvantage. You could buy from Seagate and get your books faster and shipped for free or buy from Irmjax or a half dozen other places and get them later and pay for shipping. When comics were 25-30 cents, the difference wasn't that great. Buy from Phil at 40% off or from your local newspaper distributor at 30% off. Until comics got to fifty cents each and Phil started giving better discounts, it really wasn't a huge advantage. I started looking into opening a comic shop around 1980, but it would have been back issues only. By 1983, it was viable. Many of the people I talked to emphasized the advantage of now having a new source of future back issues, rather than looking at the sale of new comics. I would order 100 copies of this month's Xmen, not because I could sell them this week, but because they invariably went up in value and would be a steady seller. My records are long gone but my memory of the pre- Secret Wars days was that my back issue sales brought in more revenue than new books. In 1980, there were two comic shops in Queens. In 1985, there were enough to hold a shop owners soft ball game. By 1988, the Batman movie caused it to explode. When I sold Quest End, there were four other shops within a mile of my shop.

Would you go on a website and ask strangers for stock picking advice?

Ray Palmer is no Hank Pym. One of the better Legion storylines had Darkseid transport Daxxam from its red sun system to our yellow sun, creating a world of supermen. Great concept but the conclusion was pretty lame as 15 or so Legion members, aided by the Legion of Substitute Heroes, kicked their collective asses.

You know you are old when you consider a book from 1983 as new.

Who cares where they came from. How much will they go for?

I can't believe no one has come with a mechanical method of counting pages. If there was even a task that called out for robots, this is it.

Imagine if 100,000 humans suddenly had Supermans powers and abilities. Better yet, imagine you suddenly did. You can hear everything that's happening on the planet. Billions and billions of sounds flood your ears. You bend down to pet your dog but your newly found super strength ends up flattening him. You rush home to show Ma and Pa what happened but you miscalculate your momentum and end up smashing into the house, demolishing it. You desperately try to use your x-ray vision to find your parents in the wreck but because you can't control your powers, you end up accidentally incinerating them with your heat vision. I will leave to your imagination the damage an uncontrolled super-urine stream could do. Or the Super breaking of wind?

Nothing can go wrong with that, I'm sure.

Brian is far from a fool. He has been a leading voice in the retail community for two generations. His columns are widely read and he was the one who sued Marvel over their insane policy on long delayed books. I don't agree with him on this, but he is the one whose entire adult life has been on the front lines of the industry.

Has it ever been documented just how that arrangement worked? Was Kane paid by DC and he paid the artist or did DC pay the artist and also Kane? Were writers also involved? Were artist like Jerry Robinson DC employees or did they only work for Kane?

When did the term Copper Age become accepted?

When buying, they are Whitmans that many collectors say are reprints. When selling, they are rare early Direct Market copies with extremely low distribution. I personally call them Whitmans, but has anyone come up with an explanation of why Marvel Whitmans tend to be found in much higher grades than their DC counterparts?

Those prices are whacked. Somebody added a couple extra zeroes to the modern prices A two second search shows the Bo Derek issue listed on ebay for $25 or less, not $7,000 as listed .

Hibbs has been on his soapbox for years about the broken direct market. Now he seem to have a new target.

I'm sorry, but the reasons most comic shops in San Francisco went under had less to do with speculation and more to do with rising rents. Shop owners were priced out. On the other hand, I definitely want some of whatever he has been smoking.

I'm not sure people understand how small Phil Seulings operation was in 1974. Seagate opened and existed more to get him stock for his monthly show and to supply dealers at the show. Seagate co-existed with his comic store and I'm not sure they had any dedicated employees in Brooklyn. What people now refer to as his " distribution center" in Sparta was a backroom of a friend of a friend's. Even in its hay days of the early 1980s, Seagate worked out of a storefront with a front office of Phil, his girlfriend, two salesmen and two girls who tried to make sense of the non computerized office. The shipping Department was one guy with a couple of high school kids who helped out the day the books came in. Even when he was chartering a plane to bring new books to NY the day they were printed, he only needed one van to bring them to the warehouse. If I recall correctly, Phil didn't move into a real distribution center in Sparta until Pacific Comics went belly up. By the way, no one persuaded Marvel to do away with Phil's monopoly. New Media sued in Federal Court and won. Marvel had no choice in the matter. I might be wrong in saying New Media won the case, as it looks like the parties reached an out of court settlement. In any case, it was a slam dunk.

Rest in peace. Our hobby would be very different if not for Mr Cochran. A true giant.

Without seeing it, it sounds like overspray from a distributor spray painting the edges of the books. It can't be easily removed but doesn't greatly downgrade the book unless it's very excessive.

CGC evidently uses Newton Rings as an additional authentication method. They are like holograms. When you see a book with Newton Rings, you know it's an authentic CGC product. The rest of the industry is sadly lacking in Newton Ring technology.

Can anyone help me with an approx. value of these toys. They are by Revell, but are toys not models. I'm guessing eary 50s, but dont know. One is called ChuChu, the little engine with personality and the other is the Maxwell auto action pull toy. Both are in the original boxes but boxes are rough, and the Maxwell is missing the driver. Both have pull cords that cause the toys to buck and make noises. Someone wants to consign them but he has no idea what they are worth.He's had them since the early 60s but they were handed down to him by an older cousin.

Are we talking about the guy who wrestled as " The Mighty Chang"? I always thought he was Indian or East Asian.

Ditkos is too busy for me, and the coloring on the Marvel Tales is way too garish for my taste. I'm not crazy about Kirbys cover either. Its always looked faded to me.

It might be blasphemous, but I greatly prefer the Lee- Romita era books over anything before or since.

I bought and read every Marvel and about 15 DC books a month, and thought DC was making nice progress when it imploded.

Most blues artists sold their rights away when they were recorded. Many would almost be considered work for hire. Leadbelly would write, sing and record a song and get paid $25 a song, with the producers now owning all rights.