RockMyAmadeus

This was, in my comic collecting life, the very last "multi-part series within a series" in Batman that I ever bought new. Comics had gone up to $1.25, and it was getting very spendy (hey...it was 1993!) I had gotten a bit burned out with comics after Death of Superman several months sooner, and I was wondering if I should keep buying new stuff. I actually missed the first few parts, so I had to get #488-494? #495? as "back" (still on the shelves) issues, but I got back on the train with #494, #495 or #496. I think the last new issue I bought before that was in the early 480s. I remember buying #478 for sure (the creepy diptych of #477 and #478 stuck with me), but things get a bit fuzzy after that. Anyway...suffice it to say, Knightfall had kicked off, and was quite the rage in the comics world. And, of course, the story had actually started with Vengeance of Bane several months earlier, which I DID buy new, and which I thought was pretty clever...being a continuation, of sorts, of the "Venom" storyline from LOTDK #16-20 a couple years earlier. I also picked up Sword of Azrael (see? It was getting very expensive!) which was also a lead-in to Knightfall. #488-#491, of course, are the unofficial "Knightfall prelude" (along with 'Tec #657-658), so of course, I had to get all of those, too. What greeted me when I came back, however, was the very cool (to my young adult mind) Kelley Jones art. And, of course, the Sam Kieth covers on 'Tec certainly didn't hurt. For some odd reason, I was still buying 'Tec. Anyhoo...so, now, after all these years, I've managed to put *most* (would have been all, but CGC is hammering things at the moment...yes, I DID submit multiple copies of the missing books) of the run together in SS 9.8. Again, another set that I wish I started 10 years ago, but didn't have the money to do, because I would have certainly gotten Norm, and now...well, it's too late. Sigh. At some point, I hope to track Travis down and get him to sign my #488-490. I was glad that Kelley has started to do more cons, because he's always been a hard one to track down. He only does "West Coast" cons, so when he showed up at Wondercon last year...I knew I had to strike! Then, in November, he was in Vegas, and I knew I had another opportunity, so a huge thanks to Sam and Kelley for showing up and signing this past year. Anyways, without further ado, my Knightfall set so far...WITH later printings!

This was a really good discussion, with lots of important points made by many, even if everyone didn't ultimately agree. Thanks for bumping it, kav!

That's not true even in this crazy market... until the character is even rumored to be adapted to some other media. They're all overpriced. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Oh, shoot, I got books to sell! Nevermind, they're all STUNNING BARGAINS!!

If one considers nothing but statistical distribution, setting aside the standards of CGC (unpublished OR stated), there are thousands and thousands of books sitting in 9.8 slabs that are objectively worthy of being in 9.9 or 10 slabs. And that's unfortunate, but what are you going to do, other than continue to point it out?

All of them.

It's (sort of) a triptych:

That would be very coincidental if that was me in the shop when you happened to come in, 20+ years ago! But I do remember having some form of that conversation with the guy. Cue Twilight Zone theme. Do you remember the store further along the coast...maybe, I want to say, in Capitola or Soquel....that was a comic store/pet store? Very nice guy, but he was apparently getting out of comics around 1996...and I thought I was scoring big when I bought several long boxes of new-ish comics, mostly Image, for "half price" (meaning $1.25-$1.50 each.) This would have included stellars like pre-Ellis Stormwatch, Brigade, Cyber Force, Youngblood. If only I had waited...the heyday of eBay was just around the corner... Oh well, he was a nice guy, and he treated me with respect, so hopefully the money helped him out.

You're speaking my language! Batman #433-435 is one of the best Batman stories ever, from "The Batman Renaissance" of 1986-1989. That's the two word issue, and is a master class on storytelling by Byrne and Aparo. Either that mini or Wolverine is likely the first time I was ever exposed to Byrne art. It was one of those "mystical" books that I just missed out on getting by a few months. By the time I started looking for Batman in earnest, it was $5. $5 in 1990 was a boatload for a comic that was 75c less than a year earlier. Too bad Byrne won't sign. Sigh. As far as the Tec Annual, are you looking to get the other two slabbed as well? (GA Ann #1 and Question Ann #1)?

The only two I have worth showing off (white at the spine of #122 artifacts from the scanner; not on the book):

Mixed metaphors usually pair nicely with a lightly sweet riesling.

outstanding!

FQ #1 was 1. printed in slightly higher numbers...I believe, 2. printed with higher quality (yes, as disappointed as they were with it, it was still much higher quality than Cerebus #1...as the 57 9.8s on the census attest), 3. Elfquest, while quite the independent powerhouse, was never the 800 lb gorilla that Cerebus was, mainly due to the personality of Dave Sim. And, perhaps most importantly: it's not Elfquest #1. That fact is substantial.

Hey, waddaya know, I just checked the census, and apparently, that Wetworks #2 is the only 9.8 SS that exists so far. Sweet! (Of course, the 3 9.6s are also mine. Sigh. )

Next up: the Quesada 1996 Puzzle Panel! Unfortunately, that one is going to be exceptionally more difficult to assemble, because they are 1. much, much scarcer, especially in high grade, than this set, and 2. Quesada charges a $30 per book CGC punishment tax, and there's no way in hell these books are worth that much. They are, unfortunately, dollar books, and to spend $60-$70 per book to get the complete 9 piece set...and stand a good chance of not getting 9.8s....makes it very, very much not at all worth it. We'll see, I guess. That set may remain a dream forever. Too bad, too.

Again, a little backstory: while these aren't the very first multi-cover panels pieces to exist (that honor would go to Unity 2 years prior), this is the first VARIANT set produced. At the time, as some may know, Image was incredibly late with everything. It had become so bad, the distributors forced Image to make their product returnable...unheard of in the Direct market! So, yeah, it took a while for this set to come out. The first two were Deathblow #5 and Kindred #3. At the time, Kindred had taken the comics world by storm, and having the third issue have a surprise 1 in 4 (meaning every 4th copy was a variant) made collectors go absolutely nuts. Unfortunately, by the time the later ones came out, the furor had died down, so the later ones are actually more difficult to find, especially in very high grade. It took almost 9 months for all 8 to come out. In order of release, they are: Deathblow #5 Kindred #3 Gen 13 Ltd #5 Wildcats #11 Stormwatch #10 Union #0 Team 7 #1 Wetworks #2 I've been trying to get a complete 9.8 SS together for several years, but I never seem to manage to get my copies and Whilce together at the same time...and some of them, like Team 7 #1 and Wetworks #2 are dastardly hard to find in 9.8, Wetworks #2 because of a production flaw that put a dent in the bottom left hand edge of the back cover. But, finally, all in one go, here it is: Here's what the set looks like in one image, sans slabs: And individually:

I love that speckle foil. I wish someone would do it again. It's been 20 years for pete's sake.

This is for @I like pie Found the stuff I hadn't shown before from SD last year.

This is where a knowledge of the history of these things comes in handy. Hulk #181 was produced by a company, World Color in Sparta, which had perfected making comics decades before. Hulk #181 is just as common, if not more so, in ultra high grade as most other books of the era. And it was printed to the tune of 300,000 or more copies, with about 200k "sold." On top of that, the book was part of the quasi-illegal Mile High 2 warehouse find, with dozens, if not hundreds, of absolutely uncirculated copies of that book and many others from distributors who had reported them unsold and destroyed. That's on top of the 200,000 or so reported sold. But Cerebus #1 was printed locally, in Kitchener, Ontario, by a newspaper printer called Fairway Press, to the tune of 2,000 copies, total. And the quality was terrible. Right from the start. So, it's not a fair comparison.

Q.E.D.

I remember back in the day when people didn't use what they thought mods had said to others as weapons to wield against them.

It's all still here, it's just gone underground. The board has some very clever (not bright...but certainly clever) trolls, who know how to provoke without it looking like they're provoking, so they can claim plausible deniability. It makes for a much more "polite" place, but all the hatred, rage, and insanity is still there, bubbling under the surface, like a New England Thanksgiving, waiting to boil over at the slightest (and seemingly utterly insignificant) disturbance. I far prefer people be honest and open about where they stand, and I know I'm not alone. We've sacrificed substance for form, and created a Potemkin Village all our own.