I have that Windblade comic, too, but mine isn't signed. When I saw that, at first I thought it was Barry Blair's first comic, but after pulling it out of my collection and looking at it, I realize I was mistaken.
Elflord was actually his first comic, if I recall correctly. I obtained Elflord through eBay quite a number of years ago when I was on a quest to locate and purchase every Elflord I could find, as well as all its spin-offs, as well as anything else I could find from Barry Blair. I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that only 500 copies of Elflord were printed. If that's true, then that one is quite rare. There's no telling how many of those 500 copies were accidentally discarded; lost in fires, floods, or tornadoes; eaten by dogs; "artistically enhanced" by well-meaning toddlers; etc.... I got into an eBay bidding war with someone from France. I kept outbidding her and eventually ended up paying $165 for Elflord. I also remember reading that this was the first comic book Barry Blair ever got printed, and that he was sixteen years old when he made it. This is all coming from memory, of course, which may be faulty. Someone who knows more about this may be able to add more information or offer clarifications.
The two scans in one image included here are scans of my own copies, post-processed. These haven't been graded, but as I look at them, they're both in fantastic shape. Windblade is, of course, a bit discolored with age, which isn't apparent because I removed that discoloration with image processing.
Heh... I once had the idea that I would simply scan all my favorite comics and enjoy them digitally. That was a massive project I never finish. I have several gigabytes of raw scans that have been sitting around for over ten years. :)
