Dick Pontoon

I have zero patience for youtuber videos. I'm incapable of watching. They're like a wall of text to me, TLDR. I'll have to wait to read some posts on the subject.

"Boot Buddies"?

Well, the show is in Concord NH, about 70 miles away from Boston. If I was flying, I'd try to get a flight to a NH airport, as well as a hotel in NH.

Paying extra for an hour of elbow room without the crowds is totally worth it to me. However, when the charge for early admission moves from $30 to $50, more than 3x the cost of the regular $15 admission then it no longer becomes worth it to me. It almost sounds like we've been at different shows. I always opt for the early admission and have never come across any sleepy dealers who aren't set up. Load-in happens on Friday. Maybe I just go to different tables. The 2023 "swag bag" was a complete joke, just utter useless drek. They weren't anything to write home about in years past but at least came with a few things I sold to amortize the cost of the ticket.

Methinks you mean people with severe OCD have to have both.

You beat me to it! https://www.cgccomics.com/news/article/12753/

With all that wear, staple rust and stain, tape pull/ink loss, water spot on the spine I wouldn't go above a 3.0.

I wouldn't tape that back cover to the book since it's the wrong one. The back cover should be a Mason Shoe ad.

Sure thing! Jim's is usually the first table I head for. I usually get the early bird ticket so I can have a little more elbow room before things get crowded, but I don't know if I'll do that this year since the tickets are now $50 instead of the regular $15 admission. $25 or $30 I didn't mind but $50 is a little steep.

Nope, definitely not! I imagine Jack drew that scene for the gag of Ben falling out of bed without consideration of the Baxter Building living quarters.

It's always been a 1-day show, I don't believe it's been changed this year. The show is on April 13th. The only evening activity I'm aware of (please correct me if I'm wrong) is a limited seating dinner with Steranko on the 12th. And the J&S Comics who sets up at this show is based out of CT, they're not the J&S from NJ or from NC (if there is one there, too).

I've been slowly re-reading the series when time allows, and this morning after starting #65 was surprised to find out that Johnny and Ben share the same bed. Huh-wha? Did I forget about that arrangement in earlier issues?

And if the OP is in the market for an FF #23, I'd say this one is priced a bit aggressively. A graded 4.5 just sold yesterday on ebay for $127.

Are you looking at the top 2 pictures? I believe the OP is saying his copy (top 2 pictures) looks way better than the copy on the bottom, which is not his and looks like a 6.5. I can't really tell much from the top 2 photos, they're too small and have heavy reflections.

2002 is a typo, no? I thought you're in your 50s now, not 70s.

The typography is all messed up, like Dr. Balls said. I would stay far away from these books.

I'll second that.

I doubt it. In cases like these, part of Danny's m.o. is to feign ignorance and then cheerfully take the return and issue the refund. He wouldn't come up with a ridiculous ploy blaming the submitter for undisclosed resto.

Here's a few threads of interest. Maybe these will keep you busy enough so there's not another half dozen BA773 threads on the first page by the end of the day.

Can you share some pictures of the books and the seller's ebay ID?

That's because its newsstand version without UPC. If you look under the sticker, you can see the UPC box. Three different covers were printed: https://www.comics.org/issue/275076/cover/4/

Cal! https://www.ebay.com/itm/296234891836

Some of my pathetically low bids are still winning!