RockMyAmadeus

Yes, but you're a funny insufficiently_thoughtful_person, so...all good.

Not solidly attaching the book to the cardboard pads renders the cardboard useless in preventing impact damage. The book slides inside the cardboard, and as the cardboard is smashed, so is the book inside of it. It seems like such a no-brainer, but millions of sellers can't get it right. They also think a few pieces of scotch tape is sufficient. Books should be shipped, at a minimum, in a bag and board, placed inside a larger bag (Silver, Gold, Magazine, whatever works) and THAT bag packing taped the hell out of to the center of much larger cardboard, so that the book cannot move, and any impact is absorbed by the cardboard...not the corners of the book.

The weird thing is, it's not really even that dynamic of a cover to begin with, to have so many swipes/homages. It's because it is on the book that it is that it is so famous. There are quite a few covers that McFarlane did that are quite a bit better... Hulk #340, #345, ASM #298, #308, #312, #313, #316, #325, #328...even #300, though that's just mostly "300s"...are visually more striking.

You have no history in "this", but you certainly have history where I'm concerned, and you are hardly an unbiased source. Or do you think no one on this message board can read between your lines? Oh, and context, as always, is everything....a concept you don't like when it doesn't suit you.

RMA, just let it go. I had no idea this was such a sore spot with you. The sad part is in the middle of my explaining to you what was going on in my head you abruptly ceased our back and forth, deleted the PM on your end, and immediately ignored me. So how does one reconcile when that happens? (You keep mentioning reconciliation so I ask). POV That was about the most transparent "I know you are, but what am I?" responses I've seen, and then compounded with further invitation to dialogue. Anyone paying attention can see where the sore spot lies. I didn't open this conversation with you, after all. You asked a question, you were given an answer. You didn't like the answer, so I explained it for you in greater detail. My proclivity for over-explanation should not be construed as a "sore spot." I'll overexplain anything, as I'm sure you and many others well know. To answer your further question: one reconciles by understanding ones own part in the problem, mixing it with time, and having a willingness to say that maybe the other party wasn't all wrong, that you might share some responsibility for the breakdown.

That Commodore emblem looks like a pretzel Worse, it looks like one of those reject pretzels that never see the light of the store shelf. Mutants!

Of course. And if I did or said something out of line (and I have no idea what; I wasn't particularly thrilled with the interaction, but it wasn't generally negative, either...it was just a deal with some casual chit-chat), how could I possibly make amends if I don't know what needs to be amended? And what good is speculation, when the person with the answers is withholding them? It's a waste of time. We've spent more than enough time on it, the answer isn't forthcoming, clearly, so we shall do what comic nerds (and people in general) always do, and leave things unresolved, with no chance of resolution. Same with POV, whose response only confirmed what I had to say, with no hope of reconciliation at this time. Unfortunate, but that's reality.

Like I said, no idea where this animosity comes from. Oh well.

Could be. PS. I took you off ignore. Did you read my last PM, the one I sent last year? Yes. Did you get my apology? I did not, but I'll go and check it. It's buried in my PMs at the moment. Thank you.

Could be. PS. I took you off ignore. Did you read my last PM, the one I sent last year?

I'm game. Why did you put me on ignore? Because I don't like the way you talk to people, myself included. I've told you this before. Why do you care? You don't like the way I talk to people? So three months before you put me on ignore you told me: "I have a TREMENDOUS amount of respect for you, as opposed to many others that I have very little respect for. You try very hard to understand where people are coming from, and you don't resort to childish taunts (like so many) when someone challenges your dearly held notions." Few observations: 1. Why does it matter so much to you that someone on the internet, someone you've never met, and will never meet, and with whom you do not see eye to eye, puts you on ignore? Is your life poorer because I put you on ignore? Many around here would say "God NO!" Why is it so terribly important to you? I don't have the date...clearly, you do...but this all happened YEARS AND YEARS ago. Like, what, 2009? 2010? 2. I did, in fact, have a tremendous amount of respect for you. Still do, in some respects. Funny, how people don't really fit into neat boxes. 3. A lot of things can change in three months. Three months is a veritable eternity on a message board. Obviously, things changed in those three months. Because that's my perspective. It comes from me. You don't have to justify yourself to anyone, and likewise, neither do I. Right? Don't I have that right, regardless of whether anyone else thinks it's legitimate or not? What I have NOT seen from you, Pov, is any move towards reconciliation, if you care. Could be; I am an oversensitive, easily offended jerk. Surprise! I try very, very hard to not assume the worst about questionable comments, and I fail a lot of the time. Does that mean your comment wasn't an attack? Don't know, because I don't remember the details. I also try very hard not to carry this stuff around with me. I was startled to discover, for example, that there were people on the eBay chat board...Johnny-come-latelies, but still...who hated me, and I had no idea. When, many, many years later, I discovered them here, I had no idea there was this animosity towards me because, generally, for the first three years or so of that board, all of us got along fairly well...or maybe I'm candy-coating my memories, who knows? All I know is that I didn't really have a problem with anyone there, except maybe Win, and even that was just back-and-forth (in my mind, at least.) The question I have for you, is, if you care (and you certainly don't have to), is it that hard to say "ok, maybe I was out of line, maybe I did say something wrong, maybe I said something that could have been taken the wrong way even if I didn't intend it that way, maybe I pushed a button I shouldn't have." And maybe...just maybe...you, rather than I, were the one who took things personally, that you were the one who was oversensitive in that instance, and maybe we BOTH have some apologizing to do...? No, there's been none of that. It's just "you thought I said something offensive, and I didn't, and you have no right to be mad at me. You're in the wrong, RMA, not me." How far does that get us....? And you wonder why I put you on ignore...? Really..? Lack of self-awareness, Pov, seems to be the order of the day around here. Hypocrisy doesn't mean that I (apparently) changed my reason for ignoring you. Far from it. Hypocrisy means that I condemn others for doing the very same thing that I do. And that, I did not do. If you want to call me a hypocrite AND a liar, I will simply tell you that there is no fundamental difference between "I don't like how you talk to people, myself included" and "you withdrew from interacting with me because I didn't like what you said about something, and accused you of challenging me." They are two halves of the same coin, if not even the same side. Both of those spring from the same thing: "I don't like what you say, and how you say it." That is not dishonesty, and it certainly doesn't make it hypocrisy. It's the same thing, expressed with different words. Frankly, POV, this all is half a decade old, or older. Why you still care is beyond me. Trust me...as many will happily attest, I'm not worth carrying this around with you. No one is. Finally...if I had already given you this answer, why are you asking again...? To try and "trap" me in some inconsistency, and point out what a fraud I am? Surprise again! We're all frauds, all in our own special little ways. But your accusation doesn't hold on this one. And unless you can see your way around to saying "ok, maybe I was out of line, maybe RMA has a point, maybe I have something to apologize for, too"...and God knows, you certainly have absolutely no obligation to even think so, much less do so...then, I don't see that changing any time soon.

...filled with rambling self-righteous indignation and a distinct lack of self-awareness is like.... Which is still no explanation, but it's a start. I doubt I'll get anything specific, but it's nice to know at least part of the reason. Sacentaur knew, or should have known, who I was long before we met in person in 2013 to do a deal. I have never had an issue with sacentaur and have no idea why he would be interested in meeting with me, and doing a deal with me, if he felt this way, and I have never said anything negative to or about him to anyone before, ever, to my knowledge. And if he didn't feel this way beforehand, he sure didn't do his homework. It's not as if I didn't flap my gums enough to get a read on who I was beforehand. It's hardly a secret, after all. "Distinct lack of self-awareness"...right. You'll not find many people as open and honest about who they are, and how they are perceived, examples given even in my post to Branget here, yet the accusation of a "distinct lack of self-awareness" comes nonetheless. I think the lack of self-awareness doesn't really lie in my court. Anyhoo, question mostly answered.

I'm game. Why did you put me on ignore? Because I don't like the way you talk to people, myself included. I've told you this before. Why do you care?

Clearly you can't be trusted. I avoid your sales threads and I'm sure I'm not alone. +1 (Lack of full disclosure from a greedy flipper who rationalizes away scenarios = Ignore) Speaking of ignore, it's always interesting seeing who has you on ignore, especially when you don't know of any specific issue or problem between the two of you, and you've done business with before and met in person. I suppose, however, when you take strong stands and make your opinion known, people will be bound to have problems with it. Curiosity, of course, plays a part, because you want to know what it was that you said or did, but generally, you don't find out. Oh well. Pot meet kettle. Oh, you want to do this publicly, then...? I've got nothing to hide. How about you? I'll answer anyone who wants to know why I've put them on ignore. Do what exactly? You were an to me in Phoenix for reasons you've imagined and I decided it wasn't worth my time. Not much to it. I was looking forward to seeing you. Ok, let's do this, then. Last year, you and I spoke at the Amazing AZ con about pressing and other things. I encouraged you to buy an 8.5 slabbed Walking Dead #1, and said I would be willing to do the work on it. I told you I wasn't a "pump and dump" mill, that I couldn't press large scale numbers of modern books, but that I was happy to do higher value, better quality books, if I could have the time to do them properly. You agreed to let me do the work. I did the work on it. It got a 9.6. That's a pretty phenomenal bump, all things considered. I asked you to leave me kudos about it, because that is precisely the kind of hard data that folks like to see..."it was a CGC this, and became a CGC that." You didn't. Not that you were obligated to in any way, by any means; I've had plenty of customers who prefer to remain anonymous, but they at least give the courtesy of explaining that. You did not. However, in the meantime, you sent me three more Walking Dead #1s to work on, which I was glad to do. However, after only having them a short time, you sent me a PM asking if I could have them by "such and such a convention" (which was, I believe, a week or two away at the time.) I told you that I couldn't, and without further explanation, you asked me to ship the books back to you...which wouldn't have been a problem, if I hadn't very carefully explained to you, at great length and detail, that what I do isn't like what other pressers do, and it takes time...likely a few months, with all the other work I was doing. That wasn't a problem with your first books. You gave them to me at Amazing AZ in Feb, and I gave them to the person you designated at the Phx Comicon at the end of May. But, after having your other books, you pulled them, with no reason given other than the "can you have them by thus and such a date?" after I had already told you that I don't work that way, and which had been fine on the first go-round. Ok, fine, not really that big a deal...until this: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=8959146 There are a lot of people who don't read my posts...no biggie. But you're going to post that, and then wonder why I don't want to interact with you...? Seriously...? I get a lot of mess on this board...again, no problem, I expect it, if not encourage it. But for someone who claims he was "looking forward to seeing me" to encourage people against me like that (whether you see it that way or not isn't relevant; people who don't like me were encouraged by your statement), and you have to wonder that I didn't want to deal with you? Strange, odd standards, but pretty usual for Branget. I had zero interest in interacting with you, and it is only unfortunate circumstance that you happened to be where I also happened to be. You would have thought you would have gotten the hint, but you didn't. I do not like, or appreciate, confrontation in person, and avoid it if I can. You had to make it awkward by continuing to try to engage me, when I made it beyond clear that I wasn't interested. Then, as the pièce de résistance, you send me a PM while I'm out of state with essentially no internet access, then remove yourself before giving me the chance to explain all of this privately, because you immediately put me on ignore. You decided, without bothering to investigate, that I was just going to ignore your PM (which I still haven't red; I saw you removed yourself and put me on ignore, cutting off all communication, so there was no need.) Finally, you call me a hypocrite publicly for not telling you why I'm ignoring you, when it should have been abundantly clear from this post in response to you back in November: To which you replied, in no uncertain terms whatsoever: ...and yet, here we are, with you being offended when I take you at your word. I would have been happy to explain all this privately, or not explained it at all, until you called me a hypocrite publicly. This is all really unnecessary melodrama. None of this needed to be said publicly. Since I have explained to you why I ignored you, no, no "pot meet kettle." And that, as they say, is that.

You might wonder if ASM #574, which tells the story of how Flash lost his legs, might get some action...

CGC uses the dates as they appear in the books, and some reprints (like these) don't change the original dates. One might think a tad bit of research would be in order for a professional grading company. Let's not get lost in the weeds. Publication month/year is all that matters. Reprint dates aren't even generally made public (except in cases like Bone, interestingly enough), much less have any bearing on the original publication date. For a reprint to have a new date on the label, it would have to have that new date somewhere on the book, and would probably have to be substantively different from the original (like the EC reprints of the 1970's.) Was MOS #18 5th printed in 1994? Probably. The first "DC Universe" UPC logo books have a Jan 1994 (printed in Nov 1993) cover date. But it doesn't matter, because the cover date is still Dec 92, and that didn't change. Trying to figure out the "actual date" would be a task beyond the scope of CGC. RMA, not directly related but I've got a question for you....which I'm sure you know the answer to. I actually *remember* you breaking this down but I can't find where you posted it. What are the top 5 (or 10, if you want to go that far) toughest books to find, in the cumulative DOS & ROS storylines....as far as reprints and DCU logo reprintings are concerned. to find because the ROS DCU's were (exclusively or mainly) sold in prepacks. I know JLA 69 4th is fairly tough...Adv 497 3rd...MOS 19 3rd.... But I could have sworn you posting *somewhere* on this board, that Action 686 (DCU logo) was the hardest one and that even you have yet to come across a copy. Is my memory correct? The thread you seek lives in the modern forum. It's nice to have minions...

Clearly you can't be trusted. I avoid your sales threads and I'm sure I'm not alone. +1 (Lack of full disclosure from a greedy flipper who rationalizes away scenarios = Ignore) Speaking of ignore, it's always interesting seeing who has you on ignore, especially when you don't know of any specific issue or problem between the two of you, and you've done business with before and met in person. I suppose, however, when you take strong stands and make your opinion known, people will be bound to have problems with it. Curiosity, of course, plays a part, because you want to know what it was that you said or did, but generally, you don't find out. Oh well. Pot meet kettle. Oh, you want to do this publicly, then...? I've got nothing to hide. How about you? I'll answer anyone who wants to know why I've put them on ignore.

Hello Doc. Long time no see.

Joe Collector was the one claiming ASM #129 was "$25 on eBay", which I don't believe. I bought a large run of Punishers...the guy was a Punisher fanatic...for $300, which included #129 up to about 1991. A long box full of just Punisher appearances...in, I want to say 2002 or so. Still have the #134 and #135, because they were flawless. Probably a 9.8 on the #135.

When you write put that in writing, you clearly with the naive exuberance reserved for the mentally damned what you're talking about. In fact, when you state Jack Kirby rising from the grave to do his first SS event you are insight yourself frighteningly vaunted. What I'm really implying is that I am in possession of. I would never what I'm really getting at but let's not kid ourselves about knowledge Once your do not know and an intellect that exceeds not only yours but that of most humans on the planet, and certainly the ninnies who frequent this board of the hobby reach the whatever asinine opinion you're spouting at the moment levels of my own, which is about as likely as anything we can talk again.

A walk down Copper Age memory lane. I remember having that Hawk & Dove mini series. The artwork was actually not bad compared to the later New Mutants work. I forgot about this one. I know we've talked about this book before in other threads, but I'll state one more time that for all of the Liefeld gets, this book absolutely stood out on the racks when I was a kid, and I read it over and over again, simply because the art was new and exciting. Of course, even as a kid I realized that some of the anatomy was wonky (I think there's a DPS of the Hulk fighting Wendigo, and one of them has, like, an extra arm's worth of arm in their arm) but it was so dynamic and different, it really flipped my lid. I think Rob's early work, when tempered by a good inker, is still pretty fun stuff. This is a pretty good cover due to the Williams inks. They're pretty heavy here and that's why this art has a "Jim Lee" looking quality to it. When you look at the NM issues that McFarlane inked, they look as much McFarlane as they do RL. Yes, Cable definitely has the "McFarlane pout" on the cover of #87. McFarlane inked the covers to #85-89 and #93, for anyone interested.

I'd like to know exactly how many of these people were routinely buying cases of hot books, and how many they were buying. In late 1990, when this book came out, "case buying" wasn't really a "thing", with, of course, some exceptions. I worked for a small comics distributor during this time in the SF Bay Area. He was servicing card shops, since that was the "new thing" for them to get into. No one ordered anything by the case. It surely happened, but to what extent? Were 1,000 people buying a case each? No, because that would have been 200,000-300,000 copies right there (I believe NM were in 300 count cases at that point), and the print run was around 250-300k total, including newsstand copies. Did anyone buy a case of New Mutants #98? Probably not. Did people buy cases of #100? Sure, of that I have no doubt. The print run for #100 was around 500,000, so there were probably 100,000 or so of those represented by the "case buyers." But #98...? There wasn't anything special about it, other than being a late run Liefeld New Mutants. Yes, but were people willing to wait the nearly 18 years it took for the book to finally start "taking off"? What about people who had them in 1994? 1998? 2002? 2005? At some point, life takes over, and waiting for that ship to come in isn't going to be worth it to most, and they dump. The book was a dud from 1993-ish to 2007/8. That's an awful long time to wait, if that was the plan. I know that the 15 OO copies I bought, plus the 7 or so I added to that stack over the years, were sold in 2010-2012, for roughly $275 each....20 9.8s, 1 9.6. I got in at 90 cents on the first 15, so I didn't have much to lose. I only have two left, one of which I bought off of eBay for about $100 back in 2013 or so. I passed on a raw 9.8 for $160 in August of 2014 (bought an incomplete "complete" set of Metal Men, Showcase included, instead ), and was told that he had 7 others just like it that a dealer had bought before me. That's the way it goes.

Yes. Though that didn't happen for quite some time. I imagine the peak price was $10-$15 at the time of the first mini in 1993. PS. your sig pic is disturbing.

You are easily offended. You ought to learn how to have a discussion without having an emotional reaction. You are quick to accuse people of "mocking" (and Roy's not even the mocking type), but get offended when someone responds the same way to your mocking comments and memes, wondering out loud why people aren't getting your "joke." Do you have any proof of this? Because it's contrary to the way the market works. This is nothing new, and not confined to New Mutants #98. People overstate the things they are selling, and have since trading began. There are a couple of hundred copies of New Mutants #98 for sale on eBay right now, with several more hundred recently sold. Even the most cursory glance will tell even the freshest novice that this isn't rare. It isn't 1991 anymore, and buyers aren't confined to information from a few dealers. The internet changed everything. While it's true that there are some ignorant consumers out there who don't pay attention and will believe anything they're told, that's not true of the majority of people. People naturally look to their own interests, so they're not going to be spending hundreds of dollars on anything without doing even a modicum of research about it first. The internet changed everything.