scburdet

8.5/9.0. A little edge wear & some light scuffing/ink loss in the black around the title

It took me a few minutes to figure out the perspective on the spine photo. I'm going with 5.0. My read in the guide is there seems to be more leniency than I would expect for chews, if that's what it is. I think you get a little lucky b/c you can't really see them from a top down view. It looks like the impression from the writing could be pressed out if you were to roll the dice.

Ok. Think my guess is valid then. Hope for a 6.5, expect a grade lower.

CGC guide says a sub crease maxes out at 7.0. Since I can't see the crease, I'm going to say there's a chance 6.5/7.0. The only other thing I really see is the top/left top edges of the FC look a bit rough & grubby. Seems like a book very susceptible to looing grubby with all the white areas.

Is that a piece missing along the top, back edge? It looks like it is, and it continues through several pages. Need some info there to make a good assessment. This book is very much on my radar. Creature from the Black Lagoon was the first creature feature I ever remember watching as a kid. Probably explains a lot of my interest in Man-Thing, Swamp Thing, Manphibian, et al. Pending the divot, I'd say 6.0±0.5

Looks like about a 7.0/7.5 minus the detachment (corner crease, a few bends, soiling), but I don't think that would be high enough to convince a CGC grader to give it a qualified grade. Around 3 is the standard for a detached cover.

Can you post the full front & back photos? I believe if the book is significantly higher grade ignoring the detachment, you can get a qualified grade.

I'll be a little more optimistic & say a c/p gets this to 9.0, but I would only invest 8.0 as-is in an offer price

Front: some spine stress lines, something color breaking about the marvel comics bar, outer corners a little rounded. Back: around the smiley face & gift wrapping on the other side is what look like some ink transfer or something. Hard to say from photos. Outside the shadow, it looks like a color breaking line through the BR corner of the business reply card 7.0/7.5

3.0, outside shot of 3.5

Exactly my thoughts before I scrolled down to the replies. If it was the spine or the little piece, I would say 7.0/7.5, but combined, maxing out at FN. Still sharp

about 1/2 dozen World of Warcraft books around the 9ish. Good for a WoW lover, not great candidates for CGC grading at the cost/book. Probably good candidates for your frequent suggestion of Mylar toploaders

Thanks. I re-checked too. There was a sold issue 8 on ebay within the last few months. I saw it earlier and then forgot. It has a Punisher story, which now I will have to find of that part of my collection https://www.ebay.com/itm/255951903117

Basically jives with all I've found. MCS mentions a lot of Byrne story & art in early CPL issues, but not Layton art. Obviously, it was his publication so there could be something in 1-8, but I haven't even seen so much as a blog post with someone showing images of those issue. They must have been around at some point if MCS has them listed. I can't imagine making the inventory entry if there was never anything to sell Felt pretty fortunate that there was even a copy this nice out in the wild for sale. There are others, but a lot look—to be charitable—pretty crappy.

Please check out the thread guidelines. 1 book/post w/front & back photos and 3 books/day limit. I don't know WoW comics, but my brief research suggests getting a lot of these graded will be a large expense with little chance of adding value. If these were in pristine condition with a shot of getting a bunch of 9.8s—maybe. From what I can see generally, you are likely to be paying more per book to grade than their FMV.

6.5±0.5

around 7.0, unless the corner is a production issue. I too doubt that hypothesis. Classic looks better than the grade IMO

I agree. I was expecting a lot less in terms of content. I love learning about old, often forgotten, stuff like this

I am not familiar with the CBCS process other than knowing they do sig verification. The downside to slabbing this one is that the unverified signature will be inside. A green label where you can see the signature allows a buyer to do their own amateur verification. Taking anything on faith with collectables is dicey. Beyond that, you just have to assess based on sales/personal preference whether the investment in signature is worthwhile. Sign/grade is going to be more expensive unless you have a standard tier book, where it will be about the same cost, or a higher tier book where it could be cheaper. A lot of collectors thumb their noses at signed blue chip books, other collectors love them. There's no real rule here other than what you want personally.

no. Not unless it was near perfect, which this isn't

👈 Huge Man-Thing fan 7.5/8.0 just b/c of the creasing along the outer edge Revise down to 6.0 tops b/c I missed the crease at the BRFC. Kind of blends into the yellow if you're being lazy about scanning the book

From my new/old hobby of picking up benchmark creators from before they had mainstream success. I'm sure there must be something that pre-dates this, but it's the earliest published pro/amateur art by Bob Layton (cover inks).that I can find. Perhaps more notable for an unpublished Ditko Blue Beetle story

You would get a yellow label for CC, and a thin green qualified strip above. Looks around a 9.0/9.2 otherwise

The one short color-breaking crease on the BRFC probably set the bar 8.5±0.5

7.5/8.0 I can see enough stress lines that break color & ink loss (scuffing?) to expect something just under VF+ or NM