shadroch

I recently read the MOKF Omnibus. This series simply did not age well.

Prior to 1974, I'd only buy an occasional comic and generally it would be the JLA as it had a lot of heroes and most stories were self contained. That summer I started working and I was supposed to save $12 a week and have $3 spending money. My parents actually thought comics encouraged reading so they agreed my comic purchases would not count for spending money. I had a slight reading disability when young and although it went away by third grade, my Mother always did whatever it took to keep us reading. The weekly trip to the library was a big event Comics were .20 cents so I could buy up to ten a week. This is when I started buying Marvels with their continued storylines. It was tough when comics went to a quarter and I had to cut my purchases by 20%. DC publishing 50 and then 60 cent Giants didn't help my budget at all. I dropped most 100 page titles and as a result had money for some new books I hadn't picked up yet- Conan, MOKF, Swamp Thing. Years later, when I sold my original collection the buyer commented about many of the 100 page books being in so much worse shape. I explained I rarely picked up one of those the first week on the stands. They were last in my budgeting so sometime I'd grab one on a slow week but often skipped them entirely.

Did you give them a chance to make it right.? If they said it was unrestored and they were wrong, they owe you a refund.

A special prayer for Mike, who put a lot of fun into an increasingly cookie cutter industry.

There were some "Uncle Stan" books for sale on ebay a few years back. I'm not sure if anyone verified the story or not. I had a friend on LI that had a distant relative that worked for some company and Marvel and Dc sent them free copies, most of which ended up in his hands.

The stories of him not saving his books go back to the mid to late 60s. People wanted to know about his Marvel books, not stuff from the past and he said he didn't save them. Do you think he pulled out a reference comic when he wrote Bob Banner instead of Bruce, as one example. I do believe what I believe and will express it whenever it comes up. I personally don't care if you believe it or not. If one chooses to believe, good for them. My conclusion comes from twenty years of Stan regretting he didn't save his books and then suddenly remembering that he had, just when they would be at peak value. Not unlike how Chuck said for years that the MH2 collection was either all sold or had been mixed into his regular stock, yet somehow two pallets of the stuff sat unnoticed for twenty plus years until he got to slab them and try and get ridiculous money for them.. People do strange things for money.

A simple look at the prices these books got when offered seems to show how the prices skyrocketed. Stan repeated that he had not saved any books on many occasions. It seemed like it came up every Q/A session he did. It's a great story. I own file copy myself, but I believe it's a work of fiction.

I'd call it an early graphic novel but it's not squarebound, as I recall. There is a color reprint but I don't think that is square either.

Maybe I'll try again with the volume up louder. I remember being blown away by them the first time I saw it.

Six players. Once in a while, five. $1500 a person. It can easily take two hours for a game to really develop to the point where multiple properties are fully developed and by then its often down to four players. Its rare we play to the bitter end. Once there are two players, a lot of people take the second place prize and concede to the guy with most of the money.

I'm just learning the game but I've noticed people that have all four railroads usually get squeezed out. It's nice early on getting Boardwalk style rents, but as people build hotels, the RR becomes almost a safe space. When you find yourself on the Orange, about to run the gauntlet of all hotels on Red and Yellow, that RR is a shiny oasis, at $200 a visit. Edit- I've played since I was a kid. When I say just learning I mean learning the cut throat play for pay game, note the cute game we play with out nieces and nephews.

By coincidence, I watched the beginning of the movie last night. I remember being absolutely blown away by the then state of the art credits. Not so much anymore.

I have a late 50s game that has those rules. Most people ignore them and make up their own rules. Free Parking, being the best example.

Stan, for years, said he regretted never saving any of the early Marvel stuff. He later said whatever books he had saved were damaged in a flood. Then CGC came along, prices skyrocketed and he suddenly remembered he had them all along.

Glad it worked out for you guys. Here is to hoping Peter and his crew overcome whatever problems they are going through and this becomes a thing of the past.

Thanks for the memories. RIP.

A woman responded to my want ad a few months ago. She had bought a storage unit that contained several hundred unopened variant versions of Monopoly. She thought she had gold. She probably still has them. If you ever get to Atlantic City, tracking down all the streets can be a fun afternoon.

Opened up a Giant Sized Superstars #1 and as I was thumbing through saw a stain that got bigger as I turned the pages. Got to the centerfold and there was what I believe was a slice of pepperoni. Bought the personal collection of a guy that owned my local pizza shop in Queens. Bunch of late Bronze/early Copper but the box also contained two envelopes of scantily dressed young men. I thought about returning the photos but decided it was best if I didn't. I was at a show with Mark Zaid and his little brother when they both bought Cerebus #1s. When his brother opened his, there was a second copy inside. P.S.- they all turned out to be counterfeits.

We always played that if you could afford to build three hotels at once, you could. Out here they don't. We are planning a big game for next weekend and negotiations for house rules are ongoing. We started the night before the Super Bowl , with a penny per dollar($15) buy in. Now there is enough demand for a couple games a week and some are talking about a dollar per dollar buy in, winner take all. I will pass on that.

I've recently started playing fairly high stakes Monopoly. Folks say Illinois and Red have an advantage over yellow because one of the cards sends people to Illinois.

If you could pick one property in Monopoly, which one would it be?

I got a chance to shoot the exact machine gun used in the Wild Bunch today. There were actually a couple of them, from the movie as they heat up real fast. Sadly, it's a prop gun and only shoots blanks but it was still fun. Those guns are really heavy, not very portable. I'd hoped for a chance at a Gatling gun but they had a very limited amount of ammo for it. I was told they expect all the heavy machine guns to sell for several thousand dollars each. I think that's nuts for prop guns that can only fire blanks but I suspect the people who buy them probably think I'm just for dropping that on a comic book.

Getting the last word is the whole point of these threads. Otherwise, we descend into anarchy and end up discussing stuff like what if Bruce Banner had found Thor's hammer, or if Storm or The White Queen makes a better Halloween costume. We get the worse offenders all slugging it out in one thread and relative peace breaks out throughout the rest of the forum.

I've thumbed through most of the early ones. Haven't remembered anything but as I said I read it for a minute before I was told not to read in a moving car. I've tracked down my other two childhood grails. A DC Giant where Jimmy Olsen has fire breath and was the mouth of a dragon for Chinese New Years, and the one that took me forever- a story I thought was a Mandrake the Magician but turned out to be a Giant Man story. Talk about looking in the wrong places.

There was a house full of kids so who knows what actually happened. I probably pestered my Aunt too many times and my Father had had enough. I was an Army brat and worked on living up to the title.