KCOComics

I think Robin was only created to give Batman someone to talk to in this early days. It's hard to get into Batman's head when he has no one he can trust to explain what he's thinking to. How much of Adam West's brilliance would have been lost without Burt Ward being there to explain things to?

I'm sorry to hear about this! Good luck and keep us updated.

I like Sup 5 better, but generally prefer the Action title.

@MattTheDuck and @Sauce Dog Can you tell us how many people have responded or the total $$ reported as stolen? If you don't want to disclose, that's understandable. I'm just curious how much traction you are getting.

Imagine finding one if this original paintings today? What's interesting is, however has them, likely has no association with comics and has no idea what collectors would pay for them. Thanks for posting this! Really interesting read!

Agreed- if it's all legit he'll happily meet at a police station and tell him it's a cash deal.

That's still a lot of red!!! But you are seeing more green compared to last sale!

I'm not a big participant over there any longer, so feel free to ignore me. But I do want to caution against making it more difficult for folks to participate.

I've had a lot of success trading up over the years. I've tried to get in with entry level copies of big keys and then find partners willing to trade. Patients is a virtue!! Every situation is unique, but I'm happy to share war stories. Some advice: I've had good luck finding books for sale on the boards, agreeing to time payments, and selling my lower grade book to fund the new purchase. I did a trade with Mycomicshop that I felt was very reasonable. It was a big SA key for a big GA key. They made me a very fair offer and after you factor in auction fees and other factors, I'm not sure I would have done any better selling the book on my own. I was able to trade a short box of descent SA / BA books and a lower grade DD1, for a JIM83 and a higher grade DD1. The store wanted SA inventory and as much as enjoyed acquiring the books, I haven't missed them. I've traded with dealers several times. Yes, they need to make money, but I've found most to be pretty reasonable. I've also been willing to walk away when it doesn't make sense. Watch the WTB threads and post about what your looking for. Be reasonable in requests. No one wants 6 long boxes of modern drek for an AF15. Place a value on your time. Maybe I could have sold my short box of SA comics for more. There was some decent stuff in there. But it would have taken me weeks and months to price, sell and ship each book. Good luck!

I know the Mask 1 and 2 and his Blue Bolt and Suspense covers justifiably get a ton of love, but is there a better example of Cole than this cover? The use of color and the visual story telling is just fantastic!

And a White pager!! Craig Flessel at his best!

I'm a fan of many of those old stories lol. But I can appreciate the writing grew more sophisticated and adult with time. Still - Fantastic Four had really hit its stride by #46. Stan and Jack at their best. You might want to check it out.

Are CGC comics a good investments?? For higher dollar books you wish to easily resell yes. It standardized grading and generally removed the risk of unidentified restoration which was very important. Are you assured to always can resell your book to the price you paid for? nope - market conditions change and many books arent worth the cost of grading, yet we see them graded all the time. No!!!! Do not slab cheap books. It's not worth it. A lot of stuff I've seen you post about, will never be worth the cost of grading and you'll never resell it for more than the grading cost. The Value in those books is exactly what you use them for. To read and enjoy the stories. So don't have them graded. It will cost a lot, you won't get to read and enjoy them and you will never recoup the money when you look to resell.

Very sad - I never knew or interacted with Mike, but for those of us who marry GA books, his site was invaluable. His collecting bio is also on the site. I haven't read it in a few years, but remember really enjoying his story. Condolences to his loved ones. He was a tremendous asset to this little hobby of ours.

I was a literature minor in College. I'll share one of my favorite professors thoughts on this. He claimed that Edgar Allen Poe was the father of Science Fiction. He also said Poe was the founder of detective stories. Keep in mind, I'm passing on someone's opinion. This isn't researched, but it is something I always thought about.

Yngwie I enjoyed in passing (if possible). I couldn't really listen to a full album, but when I heard him I would be like "oh yeah, that's cool"

In the late 90s, my college buddies and I saw Derek Trucks (He would play the Dwayne Allman role for the Allman Brothers over the final few decades of the band) open for Eric Johnson. We were big Allman Brothers / Trucks fans, but never heard of Eric Johnson. Derek was great, but that night Eric Johnson stole the show. We had never seen anyone play guitar like that. The next summer we went to see Eric Johnson play as part of G3 with Joe Satarini and Steve Vai. While the show was great, I gotta admit it was a little too much for me. It was like 5 hours of those guys playing at light speed. I was happy I went and I firmly believe Eric Johnson is the greatest guitarist I've ever heard, but I wouldn't go to another show (by contast I've seen Trucks either with the Allman brothers, solo or with Tedschi and Trucks 5 or 6 times since).

Have they ever explained why they don't do back cover scans? The added time? Or a software limitation? It always seemed odd to me. I've asked them for a BC scan probably half a dozen times and they've always emailed them promptly.

To answer this initial question- the last 5 or so pages of this thread are a big reason why new folks don't want to come around. It's hard to follow all the history and who is offended from what. It turns off those of us who aren't in the club. As the people like Kav and others who were in the club just get tired of it all, threads like this with pages and pages of fighting grow few and far between. The new blood just can't keep up. And for the record, I don't have anything against any of you. I think you all have a lot to offer the community and I often find your posts insightful. But this is exhausting.

For what it's worth, I didn't intend for my initial post to be victim shaming. It's more HR poor business practice shaming. If you go back 2 or 3 years ago, Hero had a great reputation. They were well trusted and if I wouldn't have hesitated to pay up front if that was the policy of a trusted professional. With hindsight you see the risk. I was very fortunate when I had resto work done. I had consulted a few boardies and got a small list of names to work with. Since then, I have done several jobs with Kenny and the work has been unbelievable, the prices very fair and TATs felt long at the time, but he seems like the Flash compared to stories I've read here. It was never more than a few months.

This is an interesting take I haven't thought of. I think you see this play out in the "clubs" for Key books. All talk these days is generally about auction results. That happens because the barrier to entry is so great on books like AF15, you don't see a lot of new collectors "joining the club". I do wonder though... how many of those long conversations were purely about comics? I've read through a few old threads and there was plenty of mud slinging and personal jabs, but not a ton of conversation purely about comics?

At the risk of beating a dead horse.... The full payment upfront baffles me. I can kind of understand this for pressing which is fairly straightforward and should have a quick TAT. But for restoration work? Why not 50% down? So both parties have skin in the game. Right now, he has 0 incentive to do the work he committed to.... but if you could gain tens of thousands of dollars, just by finishing the work on hand, maybe he would do something really nuts, like work to dig himself out of a whole.

You are right - apologies. Lots of card and video games, but I didn't see any comics. I can't imagine there are two Bargain Boxes in the same city? My guess is, they changed their focused and abandon comics?

https://m.facebook.com/bargainbox.z Looks like they are open.

I do think we saw a population spike during the pandemic. All of the SA key book threads were having lively discussions about auction results and current value. It's a lot less fun to discuss prices on the way down.