Gonzimodo

On 9/7/2024 at 11:31 AM, Dave2739 said:

Haslab Rattler is fully funded.

https://toynewsi.com/278-54554

I was really surprised when I saw this.  Friday night and Saturday morning must have seen a crazy amount of backers, because I was starting to lose hope that we'd hit 18k when I checked on Friday morning.  Now it's well on its way to 23k with a little under ten hours left.

I think they're kind of cute, but I think it's completely stupid to put them only on current ASM issues.  You get a cute Disney Avengers cover, then open up the book, and it's current ASM.  You get a cute Disney X-Men cover, then open it up and it's current ASM.

Why not just make them reprints of the comics they're copying?  Almost all of those comics have been released as True Believers or facsimile editions already.

Anything to pump up those ASM numbers and make people think you're still a viable company, I guess.

On 8/21/2024 at 12:29 PM, bc said:

I didn't realize AOL was still in business.

-bc

My wife still primarily uses her AOL email address.  

On 7/9/2024 at 9:42 AM, Gonzimodo said:

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I actually have this t-shirt!  I bought it when my place of employment told us we could wear patriotic t-shirts on the 4th a few years ago, so I went looking for the most ridiculous one I could find.  I was hoping to find something along the lines of a wolf howling at a red, white, and blue moon, but Walmart definitely did not disappoint with this bad boy.  

We went to a bar after work that day and I was complimented on it unironically at least twice that I remember.  It's become a special treat for my friends when I pull it out every couple of years on the 4th.

RIDE ON, FREEDOM!!!  

The shirt, I mean...  

On 7/4/2024 at 1:44 PM, jimjum12 said:

 

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I actually have this t-shirt!  I bought it when my place of employment told us we could wear patriotic t-shirts on the 4th a few years ago, so I went looking for the most ridiculous one I could find.  I was hoping to find something along the lines of a wolf howling at a red, white, and blue moon, but Walmart definitely did not disappoint with this bad boy.  

We went to a bar after work that day and I was complimented on it unironically at least twice that I remember.  It's become a special treat for my friends when I pull it out every couple of years on the 4th.

RIDE ON, FREEDOM!!!  

I've always been a run collector, but I've never had deep enough pockets to buy any of the big boy books.  I look back at prices for Silver Age Marvels in the '80s and wish I could have bought all that stuff back then, but realistically, $100 may as well have been $1,000,000 for me at that time.  As I aged and finally started earning more money, I was still too cheap to pull the trigger on certain things, and now prices are at the point where I know I'll never own them.  I've accepted that and now just fill those holes with omnibuses.

I also no longer get excited about diving through dozens of long boxes to find the cheap fillers I still need, which is pretty sad when I think about it.  I used to get really jazzed about that, and now it almost gives me anxiety.  

I use Comic Pro Line's bags for anything not "worthy" of a Mylite (because I just can't afford thousands and thousands of Mylites) with E Gerber boards because I really like the CPL bags, random quality control issues aside.  (I'm still working on bagging and boarding everything this way, so I hopefully never have to do it again.)

I'm really not very impressed with the thickness of Half-Backs, although the last two batches I've gotten have felt a lot stiffer and sturdier than previous ones.  I don't think the Comic Pro Line boards are fully buffered, though, which is the only reason I haven't gone with them.  However, I see on their website that they're coated on both sides, and from what I've seen, that type of board usually holds up pretty well over a few years.  

On 6/18/2024 at 12:25 AM, Hepcat said:

For some 25 years I've been bagging and boarding my best comics in Mylites or Arklites backed by Half-Backs or Thin X-Tenders:

With shipping costs so brutally high I recently decided to top up my supplies at a local comic shop instead of ordering an economic quantity of 500-1000 from Gerber or Bill Cole directly. But I was given the hard sell on acid-free backing boards ostensibly superior to those from Gerber or Bill Cole at several of the biggest shops. I am however reluctant to switch. For one thing the competing boards don't have the same texture/finish and mixing a different product line into my existing storage system would bother me.

But my real question I suppose is whether Gerber and Bill Cole still offer acid free backing boards superior to the others.

Out of curiosity, what brand(s) were people trying to push on you as being superior to E Gerber and BCE?

My advice is to read that thread again and don't go anywhere near those "acid free at time of manufacture and coated on one side" boards.  Stick with E Gerber, Bill Cole, or any other fully buffered board.

The HasLab cantina doesn't have enough bells and whistles to justify that price, IMO.  The pieces look pretty good, but there's not even a basic floor or a stage area for the band, and it probably should include more figures at that price point.  I'd really like to see one in person sometime, but I have no interest in owning it, myself.

However, the rumor mill is saying that the next GI Joe HasLab will be a Cobra Rattler, and I'll definitely be in for that!

On 6/5/2024 at 11:08 AM, Jesse-Lee said:

I disagree. Growing up, the only comics I had access to for a long time were at the drug store and the grocery store. I love newsstands - especially copper age newsstands - because it's nostalgic for me.

In my early days of collecting, the first time I saw non-newsstand edition comics were in those wonderful polybagged three-packs at department stores.  I didn't know what to make of that Spider-Man head where the UPC usually is, so I thought they must have been reprints or something.  (The fact that my first couple of three-packs actually were GI Joe reprints didn't help.)  It was at least a year or two before I was finally educated on the difference between newsstand editions and direct market editions.

On 5/17/2024 at 6:10 PM, SpineTic said:

#ASKCGC - 9.6 vs. 9.8

 

 

Geez, I really need to get the CGC Grading Guide and recalibrate my thinking.  Foxing and corner bends are allowed in 9.6 and 9.8?!

I'm even more clueless about this stuff than I thought!  

On 5/20/2024 at 7:53 PM, 143ksk said:

 

 

Where can I get me some of that sweet, sweet polka dot paint?  

On 5/14/2024 at 11:04 AM, 1Cool said:

If someone pulls out a physical list I'd say their average age is in the 65 range and if they have their list in digital format they usually are 50 ish.  I don't think I've seen a person under 40 have a list of filler books in quite awhile.

This checks out.

I just switched from physical to digital about a year ago, and I'll be 53 next week.  

On 5/11/2024 at 7:39 PM, Qalyar said:

However bad you think it is from the cover, it's worse. A scan is available on the Internet Archive.

Don't say you weren't warned.

That was amazing. 

I'll be 53 in a couple weeks.  It feels really strange to write that.  Wow.

I also had a paper route when I was 13-14, and all my money went to comics and GI Joe toys.  

I still have a full run of Wizard.  Man, I loved that magazine.  Sure, it could be a little juvenile at times, but it was always in good fun, and they did a good job making you feel like a part of their stupid little "cool nerds" club.  It was always the first thing I read when it came out, and I have them to thank for my love of the original Valiant comics.  My best friend and I had a blast trying to find all the items for one of their annual scavenger hunts, which was pretty difficult in the pre-internet age.  I mailed away for most of their "1/2" issues and still have a all the cards that came with most issues.  Good times.

I think it lost a lot of its magic when it went from the thick, squarebound comic size to the regular magazine size.  It just didn't seem as cool or special for some reason.  

Funnily enough, I stopped buying it about three months before it stopped publication, so apparently I wasn't the only one who had given up at that point.  When I discovered that they had ceased publishing, my OCD self had to buy those final issues, of course.  

BUY THE LABEL, NOT THE BOOK!!!

And yes, every time you drive by, you think, "Meanwhile, at the Hall of Justice..."