Gonzimodo

Huh, I just realized that most of my entertainment budget still goes to comics and GI Joe toys.  

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..."  

On 4/4/2024 at 12:53 AM, onlyweaknesskryptonite said:

This place is really cool in person.  It's a natural history museum with a five-story OmniMax theater.  They show only educational movies in that format, but they are breathtaking.

On 4/2/2024 at 12:02 AM, BrashL said:

Hey here’s an idea, why don't we stop using the internet to “call people out”. What kind of world is this if every time anyone makes a mistake it’s fair game for it be blasted to the entire world. It’s just a disgusting lynch mob at the end of the day. 

No one was trying to protect anyone from him and they weren’t trying to confront him. The goal of putting that all out in public was to ruin him and I’m sure they were very pleased with the results right up until especially when he took his own life. 
 

This whole thing is sickening and sad. If someone did something you think is wrong but isn’t criminal, don’t use social media to convict them in the court of public opinion. Being a creep isn’t a crime, neither is being an individual_without_enough_empathy or weirdo or whatever. No one deserves to have their entire livelihood and identity dismantled for being guilty of any of those things. 
 

Social media really is the worst thing to happen to society. 

FTFY

On 3/13/2024 at 9:06 PM, Tom789 said:

Apples vs. oranges?

Yeah, probably, although when I went back and rewatched parts of the video, they aren't magnified that much... 

I think I'm just being too harsh.  Someone must have peed in my Cheerios that day. 

On 3/12/2024 at 4:22 PM, RockMyAmadeus said:

 

Cool, thanks for the clarification on that.  I know I'm too clumsy to wear gloves while handling comics (which that post indicates is pretty common), and I seem to be a freakin' greaseball, so I usually wash my hands after reading only a couple comics at a time.  

I'm even more confused now after watching the video.  There still appear to be obvious color breaks, blunted corners, and/or bindery tears on the 9.9s and 10s.  Of course, the video is magnified quite a bit on those closeups, but even so, they just don't look to me as though they should be 9.9s or 10s.  The 9.8 he highlights at the end shows a really ugly, blunted corner.  I know certain defects are allowed at that level, so I'm probably just glamorizing the 9.8 grade too much.

I don't know, though.  Maybe I'm crazy in thinking that a 9.9 or 10 should, you know, at least appear to be perfect to the human eye. 

He seemed to indicate at the end that they were going directly from his prescreen to encapsulation, but maybe I misinterpreted that.  So no interior checks for loose centerfolds or printing errors or a second set of eyes on them at all?

I was also expecting him to be wearing gloves if he's prescreening for cream-of-the-crop 9.9s and 10s, and I really did not expect to see the books handled so roughly in their stacking and sorting, especially when he straightened the one stack by standing them upright and pounding/ruffling them on the table after checking them for blunted corners.  

This video was informative to me, but probably not in the way CGC hoped it would be...  Am I being too critical here?

@mycomicshop is always buying collections, and they have great consignment and auction systems, too.  So you could consign or auction the more valuable books as you see fit, and MCS will probably buy the lesser-valued stuff that the big auction houses may not even look at.  Or they may just buy the entire collection outright if you don't want to deal with the hassle.

I see @shadroch has suggested some other big names to check out.  

On 2/28/2024 at 2:23 PM, shadroch said:

What they should be doing is hitting street fairs and big events.  Set up booths and hand out books to civilians, not give the customers of comic shops another book.

Yeah, I just went and read the original story, and these appear to be going exclusively through the direct market.  

I guess nothing's stopping retailers from ordering a ton of these and doing as you say, but is the shipping on them free?  And how many retailers have time to do even more free promotion for a company who doesn't seem to give a rat's patootie about them most days?

"...iconic issues that spotlight the Marvel characters and comic book series currently at the forefront of pop culture."

On 2/21/2024 at 9:10 PM, Mickey7 said:

I thought I read that moving forward, the GI Joe retro figures will feature a thicker cardstock.

Yes, the next waves of them will be on a thicker, more typical style card back.  This was confirmed in one of Hasbro's product reveal videos, and the Cobra Commander that came with the HISS tank is the first one they've released like that.  It's a HUGE improvement. 

On 2/17/2024 at 11:46 PM, Chip Cataldo said:

Has anyone ever shipped or have shipped to them a USS Flagg, Defiant shuttle or Terrordrome before?

Yes, I bought a Flagg on eBay a few years ago, and it came in a rather large, heavy box.  Everything was packed well, and nothing was damaged. 

It also included the original box, which was mailed separately, broken down flat and protected by large sheets of cardboard.

Other than the conning tower, the Flagg breaks down pretty well, though.  The Terrordrome would probably be fine in a large enough box with just a few parts removed.  I don't have a Defiant launch complex, but from what I've seen, it looks rather large and fragile, so I wouldn't want to ship one of those.

On 2/17/2024 at 2:42 PM, whisp said:

I haven't owned one of the retro card back yet but my understanding was that the card stock is flimsy and thin.  

It feels somewhere between the cover of a typical wall calendar and the cover of a Prestige format book like Dark Knight Returns.  Very flimsy for toy packaging.

On 2/17/2024 at 1:15 PM, Buzzetta said:

I opened my Snake Eyes so it was not a deal breaker, but everyone I know who received it directly from Walmart got their sample mangled.  Mine came boxed and it was still mangled. 

I got very lucky and mine was not mangled somehow.  My Zartan and Destro were, though.

I love this thread.  It's almost as entertaining as updates from The System.

On 2/8/2024 at 7:49 PM, ADAMANTIUM said:

I feel you. So. Prepare for a  

I bought my hulk 181 slabbed from Dale Robert's cgc 7.5,. It was my first purchase over $500 and it arrived cracked, which Dale paid for reholder back in about 2016. It looks nm but has a semi bad case of foxing that makes it 7.5. I'm still trying to be OK with that and now this new added drama? it is what it be.

The other 2 hulk 181 I've owned were much lower grade and submitted myself.

My asm 300 9.8 I traded one of the lower grade 181 + some cash for, I vaguely remember the boardie, but was such a good even trade at the time it is hard to complain. Again given the drama one may now sell for more, but one may be less stressful

My asm 252 is 2nd gen label 9.6 no worries.

My asm 194 is a cgc 7.5 that my brother bought me raw that I subbed.

It means I haven't had to keep up too much with any lists, but now that there is like 600+ other that aren't on the list? 

Oye! It is what it be.

Time to breathe again will be after any of it sells a long while from now Lord willing 

I'm with you.  I've been holding off on submitting books because of all the craziness with QC issues and scandals, and it's reaching the point where I may not ever submit anything now.  In the list of books I want to submit are ASM 300, Hulk 181, ASM 194 (newsstand), and NM 98 (MJI).  The ASMs are really nice and could potentially hit 9.8 (potentially...), but they'll be staying raw for the foreseeable future.  I'll just keep monitoring the boards and hope things turn around.  

Somewhat on a related note, I recently found some old backing boards that were stamped by a local store that hasn't existed for many years now.  I happened to visit another store on the other side of town and found that former owner working as an employee at this newer store.  The next time I was there, I brought in a couple of those boards, and it started a really fun reminisce-fest.

Weird stuff like that is just another reason I love this hobby.  

On 2/6/2024 at 10:58 AM, comicwiz said:

It raises questions of uncertainty in a situation that should not leave such doubt as to how it's being handled. Also, if you're going to say approximately 269, round it up to 270 for crying out loud. No one is going to hold them to it, esp since they already publicly said there was no insider (and it turned out there was) and there was only one person involved (and there's at least two we know about from the lawsuit filing). 

This is one of my biggest pet peeves in life.  Someone will say "about" or "approximately" followed by a very specific number.  JUST ROUND IT SO YOUR STATEMENT MAKES MORE SENSE!!! 

Sorry, everyone, back to business...

On 2/2/2024 at 9:37 AM, GACollectibles said:

Those shelves are on casters, I would think he wouldn't do the signing in the vault, hence books have to get moved to signing area.  Is there any indication they were stored there unsecured? 

 

It looks as though this is just supposed to be a funny reaction of Todd seeing the stack of books he has to sign.  As you say, it would then make sense for the comics to be on a shelf with casters so CGC can move everything to the signing area all at once.  There probably was some kind of security watching them, and they just stepped out of frame to get this picture.  

(First time I've seen the picture, so I'm probably being Captain Obvious here...  )

On 1/22/2024 at 12:39 AM, Krydel4 said:

That's why I said it was more reality warping like Scarlet Witch. Probability by its very nature is never a zero or one it is in between. But as a wise man once said it's impossible to put a Cadillac in your nose.

And now I'm going to be singing that all night...  

With access to official CGC equipment, labels, etc., who knows how much damage a dishonest employee could actually do?

Back in high school, there was a kid whose mom worked at the state license bureau, and he had a sweet gig creating fake IDs for people.  He'd steal the keys to the place and make "real" fake IDs on the official State equipment.  No idea how he never went to jail for that...