RockMyAmadeus

Deathlok appearances were hot for about 20 minutes in 1991, when Deathlok got his own series.

Too bad I didn't see that. That's a steal of a price.

Turtle's information is great, but there may be a little more to this book. "The Spider's Web", a comic store in Puyallup, WA, had McFarlane sign a number (1,000? 5,000?) of each edition. They can be told by the small Spider's Web stamp on the back cover, AND...Todd only signed on Spidey's right knee, and never signed there again. If you have one of these, and it's 9.4 or better, it's worth slabbing. It will still be qualified, but collectors like this particular signed book.

I truly, sincerely hope that no one at CGC got tired, or ever gets tired, of the critique on their grading. Third party grading works when it is a consensus; people, with opposing interests, who agree on the condition of the item being graded. If (or when) we reach a point where it's "the grade is what we tell you it is, and if you question it, we'll make things difficult for you", then third party grading will be finished. No third party grader can afford to curtail critique. That's not how it works, and everyone involved in graded books...buyer, seller, grader...should keep that firmly in mind at all times. If we all do, then it will continue to succeed. If we don't...the process will eventually fail. It is vital to the interests of all involved that educated people, acting in good faith, should be free and able to have open and fair discussions about the process. While it may sting to be critiqued, the responsible person will consider it, and it keeps everyone honest. All that notwithstanding, I don't think that had anything to do with why the thread was locked and done away with.

I'm a bad influence...you better watch it, next thing you know, I'll have you smoking in the boy's room... And for the record, neither you nor I had anything to do with that thread's poofage, multiple margaritas notwithstanding.

It takes a lot of guts to post something like this. Kudos to you.

Rarely has a company been so poised for immediate success, only to so badly squander and fritter away the good will of a community so completely. This is what happens when you do not listen to, and become dismissive of, your customers. This is what happens when you take criticism personally. This is what happens when you hire your friends, rather than hiring competent professionals. This is what happens when you treat people with partiality.

Oh come on. It could be a LOT worse... You could be me.

What I have been able to uncover is that newsstands did not and could not place orders. An ID (Independent Distributor)/Curtis regional sales manager would place orders for their region, and newsstands simply "got what they got." There was no mechanism in place to order anything, and the only thing a newsstand could do...if it was even interested...was mention it to their distributor. One more reason why the Direct market was such a fast success.

Yes, this. I think this was mentioned in this thread a while back. It would be the same for other insta-hot books, like Thor #337, Batman #426-429, ASM #361, Hulk #377, etc. I don't know if there would have been literally no copies returned, but it would have been significantly lower than normal...but, it's possible every copy printed was sold, and there were no returns continent wide for those books.

$1s it is! I've been saving them from the strip club. Yes, you heard me right...

So, I want to make this clear...you do NOT accept $10s or $100s...?

1992 wasn't the mad year, Superman #75 notwithstanding. DC could have printed double what they did, and they still would have sold out. They went to 4 printings based on demand alone. and finally figured out how much to print to satisfy demand. No, the glut year, the year the bloat reached its greatest volume was 1993.

The difference in fonts used for the prices is endlessly fascinating, especially at a time when regular DCs and Marvels had been standardized for decades. Several of them seem to be last minute "oops, we forgot to run the Canadian newsstands!"

I...I don't even know what to say to this savage butchery of the poor word...

"Discover Comics" was the 10,938,845th Stu shill.

The root cause of why these programs are viewed negatively is why the "symptom"...tiered pricing...exists in the first place. They aren't independent of each other, the one is the direct response to the other. About 3-5 years ago, some facilitators got it into their heads that they could create a monopoly of creators, that they could "stable" them as it were, and this...inexplicably...was tolerated by CGC (which it never should have been.) The way those facilitators managed to do this was by telling these creators that the CGC Signature Series program...about which most of them had no idea...was being used to profit off of them, and that they needed a piece of that. In fact, as far back as 2011-12, there were some facilitators who were actively telling creators they needed to "charge more" for CGC, because...and here's the crux of it: 1. That money wasn't coming out of the facilitators' pockets, so what did they care...? THEY (almost always) didn't have to pay the upcharge themselves, after all...and 2. It was an easy way for facilitators to convince creators to sign large numbers of books at one time: offer them large sums of money that they didn't have to take out of their own pockets. This isn't supposition; this is straight out of the mouths of creators. "I have been told I have to charge more for CGC" is a statement I've personally heard from multiple creators. And why have they been told that? Because self-interested facilitators, in their effort to monopolize creators, have lied to them, and failed to explain CGC and what it is. And, as a result of those lies, many creators now look at everyone doing "CGC" and "slabbing" as someone potentially taking advantage of them. Except it is much more nuanced than that (the value of a book is determined by what it is, and its condition...signatures rarely add value to anything but the most key books and/or in the highest grades), and that nuance was never explained and completely ignored, because, hey, it's admittedly hard to understand. A signature added to a beat up copy of a non-key book...or even a decent copy of a key book...doesn't magically add value to that book. YES, a signature CAN add value to a book...but the reason it does so is because of the underlying book itself...not the signature written on it. Have there been bad CAWs? Of course. But that isn't even remotely the issue. A bad CAW is a reflection on themselves, their facilitators, and CGC to an extent...but there are plenty of professional CAWs, who do things well, and about whom there has never been a complaint, who represent themselves, their facilitator, and CGC in a positive, professional light. And every CAW ought to consider that they do not merely represent themselves in the field. Most of them do that. The behavior of a handful of bad actors is not even remotely why creators have a bad view of the program, because, again...most of the creators don't understand the program, and often don't even realize when a "CAW"...a term I imagine 99% of them wouldn't know...is standing in front of them. Time and time again, however, the phrase "I've been told I have to charge more for CGC" or "Is this for CGC/grading?" or "if it's for grading, it's a higher price"...none of which has much to do with CAW behavior...has been given, because the creative community is convinced that anything being signed and going into a slab means someone is profiting off of their signature...and, by the way, asking a question they have no business asking in the first place. "Complaining" about tiered pricing is the only way that the problem can be resolved. Making people aware that it's a problem, and clearly explaining why it's a problem, isn't making the problem worse. THAT is the education that needs to be going on. It's easy to say "well, I already got mine, so too bad for everyone who comes after me. Not my problem." and then dismiss those who come after. And, of course, because collectors behave like addicts, and don't want to upset things, they tolerate it...and there are plenty of people willing to exploit that...and here we are. Again: tiered pricing hurts creators (they don't get business that would help them), it hurts CGC (fewer submissions), and it alienates and frustrates collectors. It has created a wall of "second class citizenry" between creator and fan, with mistrust and suspicion on the part of creators that isn't justified. And that's neither healthy, nor can be sustained, in the long run, for anyone.

Oh, and far more importantly, not being made to feel as if I'm doing something shady/unethical/immoral/scummy and/or "not a real fan" if I choose to participate in the Signature Series program. That's been the worst part of all of this.

Yes.

By the way...despite the attempt to, yet again, muddy the conversation...Neal Adams doesn't charge a different price for his signatures based on where he thinks they go, so the discussion isn't about what Neal Adams charges.

You would if you had an agenda. Yes. And my agenda, as I've said from the start, is to pay what I think is reasonable. Everyone has an agenda. Anyone who says otherwise is lying. What matters, then, is whether or not people are honest about those agendas.

Maybe the goal isn't to force people to change...but rather to present an argument that is persuasive and compelling, and maybe they'll change on their own. Forcing people to do what you want...? Yeah, no, that generally doesn't end well.

Only $50,000? Why...who wouldn't positively leap at such a discounted price...?

Nobody's told anyone they couldn't. I'm sorry that some people don't understand the issue. It's been explained dozens, if not hundreds, of times: Charging different prices for the exact same service, the exact same effort, at virtually the exact same time, with absolutely zero consideration for that difference in price, is discrimination. Discrimination isn't always a bad thing, but discrimination based on the false idea that anyone and everyone doing Sig Series is "making money" is a foolish course of action. Are people allowed to be foolish? Of course. But speaking out against foolish courses of actions is not wrong...it's a good thing. So long as creators continue to do this, they will lose customers, CGC will lose submissions, and collectors will be frustrated. Some people may not care about any of that...but I do.