Qalyar

Thicker is the 1st print. But your default assumption should be that you have a 2nd; there were an enormous number of those produced. Micrometer measurements aside, the 1st print cover is almost twice as thick, on average, as the 2nd print cover (there is some variation within both runs). It's pretty noticeable in hand.

So, I do feel a little bad that I've derailed the point-scoring discussion into set-construction discussion, although they are related. For points -- and points alone -- I think the most important thing we need to consider is whether points are intended to compare on an apples-to-apples level between sets or only within their set. The Collectors Universe companies (PCGS/PCA) have registry systems where their points are only intended to compare to members of the same set. For example, the point values for Lincoln cents use the same basic point range as the pre-1838 quarters. Most Lincoln pennies are "rarity 1" for their score factor, which means "pretty darn common"; the 1831 quarter is also rarity 1 (because it's easily the most common pre-1838 quarter). But while even MS-65 (top grade) example of most Lincoln cents can be had for a couple hundred bucks or less, an MS-65 example of that 1831 quarter is a $16,000 coin. But they're worth the same amount of registry points. I'm not sure that solves the problem of point adjustments entirely, but it's worth consideration, I think.

Any word yet this week? Not to put too fine a point on it, but I'm concerned that these books are all going to need to go back for data correction...

I ... don't really know how to solve the problems in a way that will make everyone happy. I've been a proponent of "lots of sets" because: I want my sets to include literally everything. Variant covers, nth printings, direct market/newsstands (...pedigree slot nonsense notwithstanding...grr...), whatever. I don't want to in the cheerios of people who hate newsstands or hate variants or whatever else. I want sets to be defined in ways that make sense. I also appreciate that mandating that sets mean "full runs" isn't even applicable to... well, an increasing percentage of the community, who literally only care about 1st appearances and major events and are largely willing to discard the "run fill" in between. Even if that makes me very sad.

Well, it doesn't help that you don't show us all the way to the bottom of the first copy. But, in general, there's nothing abnormal here. Comics are not precision-crafted books, and some variation in alignment and wrapping is entirely acceptable. Heck, there are early Silver Age books that didn't even leave the factory rectangular.

I've always liked the idea of clear boards, but the price difference is daunting. And some of the past versions were pretty cheap-looking, although I think more recent ones have been nicer. Still, cost makes it unrealistic to go ham on these with any significant volume of books. Nice for a few display choices, or when the BC is significant, though.

Black Hole 12 was released 9 years after the series started, so needless to say, interest had waned a little bit. 4324 copies ordered per Comichron, but Fantagraphics did a lot of nonstandard distribution; still, total copies are probably in the ~5500 range at best. Pleased that CGC gave it the "last issue" notation. Another 12-issue run, but this one sadly didn't get a "Last issue" call-out. Also sad that I couldn't squeak out a 9.8 here. And, yeah, I know, literally no one else here cares about Midnight Nation, but it has a lot of personal significance for me. And hey, here's a thread where it's on-topic to post about it. Pirates of Dark Water was a 6-issue mini based on the under-rated cartoon series. This is issue 9 of 6. They apparently felt it sold well enough to warrant continuing the run past the original series end. This last issue inexplicably has a fantastic Charles Vess cover that doesn't match any of the artwork used anywhere else in the title. And yes, this series had both direct market and newsstand distribution; this newsstand 9 presents tolerably well despite a couple significant, unfortunate defects. These are surprisingly not-growing-on-trees for early '90s books. I have an Animaniacs 59 around here somewhere that I really wanted to post in this thread, but it's not where I thought it was, so there's going to have to be some box searching in my near future.

End-of-week check-in on this. I know you've been talking to the web folks on the grounds that this might be a display issue, but I suspect that this is actually a data entry problem, wherein whatever new process was set up to flag these books as Newsstand Printings is putting that data in the wrong database field. How big a problem this represents depends very much on which of us is correct...

What does the indicia say? Many, perhaps most, of the reprints on this series have reprint notes.

That really is the most likely answer, and I'm sad I didn't think of it right off the bat. But let's be honest, weird printing shenanigans from Image sound plausible, you know? I mean, CGC doesn't recognize them, but you've got the copies of Spawn 1 with the broken inside-front-cover logo due to a printing problem for part of the run. Weirder things have happened.

Ah. Well. That's reasonable. It's not that I don't think those are deserving of real space in sets, in some fashion. Hell, I collect weird foreign republications of weird books no one else cares about! I've got a whole custom set for foreign repubs of Black Hole and would have slabbed copies of the Italian edition of Midnight Nation except that the only copies I've ever been able to get are sub-reader dogs. But CGC's labeling of foreign variants and foreign republications has gone through at least one major change in the recent past, and might very well do so again before the dust settles. Accordingly, the census for these books is a disaster, and trying to codify them into the registry would be a nightmare.

I don't think this is necessarily true. To be perfectly honest, I think that every mini-series, maxi-series, or ongoing title that has ever been published should be able to be represented by a competitive set if someone is inclined to assemble one. If that's the only person in the world who cares about Vext (DC, 1999), Captain Canuck (Comely, 1975), or Adventures of the Jaguar (Archie, 1961) then that person is going to get the "best in set type" badge every year until the sun dies. And that hurts no one. The value of those little green ribbon icons is not lessened by having more of them distributed. Sure, the small, obscure, and/or unpopular titles will not win Best in [Foo] Age. But so what? Most sets won't, by definition. And who knows, maybe someday the world's only remaining superfan of Archie's Jaguar will put together something worthy of Best Presentation. We collect comic books; anything could happen. No offense, but I hate this. Making all variants automatically non-competitive is a shorthand way of saying that your way of collecting books matters more than mine, when one of the guiding principles here on the boards (in theory, at least...) is that people ought to be free to collect how and what they like. It's also very anti-Modern, because for a lot of Modern sets, the variants -- of whatever form -- are the only things that are difficult to find, or worth bothering with. Even for older books, that might be true. That Adventures of the Jaguar collector might very well be disappointed to find out that his rare 15 cent price variant copies (I believe there are 5 issues with these!) wouldn't count for anything at all. To my surprise, there's even one 15c variant on the census right now, so this would be relevant if someone asked for a set for this book today! Here's the thing. I want people to be able to have sets that display what they enjoy. I don't want that to take away from others' ability to have sets that display what they enjoy. Some people want one book per issue. Some people don't think newsstands are any different from direct market books, but still want cover variants and distinguishable reprints. Some people want as deep a collection of their preferred titles as they can get. And I think we should celebrate all of those options. My interest in standardizing sets isn't to take away from the experience of people who want something different than I do -- or, for that matter, something different than you do, because I certainly don't want my sets to be exclusively first-print only. In general, the Registry does ... okay ... with the idea that there can be versions of a set with and without slots for variants (although I hate the "Complete" nomenclature; how about just "With Variants"), and I'm fine with the idea that we might need a third category for "...and newsstands too" (I like calling the latter "Specialist", as these sorts of things are called specialist collections in other collectors' hobbies). I'm not at all okay with the idea that only one of those gets to remain intact. On the other hand, I do want to help figure out a way to make the inclusion criteria for sets make sense. When it is limited to just one specific title? When is it an entire category or theme of books? Right now, that's the part that's the Wild West, and what I think needs to be re-examined. Let's go with that hypothetical Captain Canuck collector, because that ought not single anyone out. We'll pretend that there are suddenly slabbed copies of this whole thing. It's a thought experiment, people! The title was a 14-issue run in 1975 from Comely Comix, but there are a ton of one-shots from various publishers (the 2014 Calgary Entertainment Expo exclusive Captain Canuck Summer Special is a moderately difficult book to find). And the series eventually got picked up and continued by Chapter House Publishing. Unusually for indies, that 1970s series has (for at least some issues) both direct market and newsstand distribution editions, but no variant covers; the later titles featuring the character sometimes have many variant covers. How do we represent this with sets? We could have: Captain Canuck (Archie, 1975) [Title Only] -- this has only the 14 slots, one per issue of the title itself Captain Canuck (Archie, 1975) [Title Only, Specialist] -- there is no "With Variants" here, because the only variants are newsstand editions; this slot has 14 direct market slots, plus one for each issue with NS copies. Other titles with enough issues to count as a set could qualify for their own slots, too. Captain Canuck (2015, Chapter House) certainly, but not Captain Canuck Legacy, which was advertised as a miniseries but only saw 1 issue. Captain Canuck [Category] -- this has one slot for every Captain Canuck book, from the original Archie series to the Chapter House stuff to the various one-shots. Captain Canuck [Category, With Variants] -- same thing, but now Captain Canuck Legacy #1's 1000-copy special edition has its own slot, as do the retailer incentive covers of the 2015 Chapter House series, and so on. Captain Canuck [Category, Specialist] -- as the previous one, but the 1975 newsstands have their own slots too. If we did that, our Captain Canuck collector could get little green ribbons for 5 or more sets using effectively the same physical collection of books. But so what? You can't cash those in for CGC credit. It doesn't matter. It inflates their "total collection" point value, but that is literally the least useful thing the Registry offers. On the other hand, it means someone who just liked the original series can compete with their 14-issue nostalgic run without getting into the weeds or caring about some wacky revival series 30 years later, and if @Iconic1s decides that Captain Canuck is cooler than some dead Superman guy, there are sets available without the newsstands but with all the other goodies that made his sets so compelling. Everyone wins.

I pinged @Lobstrosity to the original thread on this in Ask CCG, and hope he has some input. It's... inconvenient that the discovery copy of this weirdness is a Signature Series slab, because we can't investigate the interior without breaking the chain of custody on the yellow label, which you shouldn't do. Hopefully, someone else can scare up another copy like this. For everyone else's reference, this is what the back of Spawn 9 normally looks like: This cannot have been an accidental creation. One, because that's not how printing works; and, two, because the addition of the white speckling in the black border indicates that the back cover was specifically altered between the two versions, in whichever order they were produced. That leads me to two plausible scenarios here, neither of which is very satisfying: The "no text" back cover was produced as some sort of preview or promotional item and predates the normal print run. Okay, sure, but then why is this a newsstand printing? The "no text" back cover represents a second printing of Spawn #9 newsstand, presumably produced in or after May 1993, so that the "Coming in the May 1993" text was no longer appropriate (nor was the "and every month!" because Shaman's Tears didn't release on anything like a consistent schedule). But the barcode is the same, and should have been changed for an intentional 2nd printing. EDIT: It occurs to me that the label says "signed & sketch by Ash Gonzalez ... on front & back cover". I'm pretty sure I see the back cover signature at upper left above the red frame. Is there any chance that Gonzalez painted a new white-speckled black frame over the existing border? @Coolspider Can you provide a close-up image of the upper left corner, and perhaps also the lower left?

That's interesting, since neither of those covers are particularly explicit.

@CGC Mike Any update on this? I've seen a couple other recent newsstand-labeled slabs, but they all have the same problem. The serial lookup shows the newsstand designation was entered as a Pedigree instead of a Variant, which makes them sort incorrectly in the census (and the registry, which inherits categorization from the census).

On aesthetics alone, the red one looks much better than the gold one. One, black-on-red is better contrast than red-on-gold. Two, red is a Superman color; gold is not. That gold one looks more like a celebration of the 49ers than Superman. No really guys, the S is for San Francisco!

@Lobstrosity Have you ever seen anything like this?

Sun fade. Especially with that area at bottom left mysteriously still in color. It was spared sunlight exposure, probably because of a price sticker or other label.

I love these wacky PSA promotionals. Out of curiosity, I've heard conflicting information about the different printings of #5. Does yours have newsprint or glossy interior pages?

I think figuring out how to actually define sets in some sort of standardized fashion will be helpful if there are going to be completion bonuses.

Agreed on all accounts. In increasing order of availability: Standard Direct, Newsstand, Deluxe Direct. But none of these should be at all scarce, and what the actual is with those prices? Entirely divorced from the reality of the book's supply; this is a bubble.

Wow. That is... not what I would describe as "color lift". They didn't remove ink from the paper surface; they removed the paper's surface.

I'd Mechanical Error that Marvel Must Have back to get the title corrected, since they seem to have confused it with the stand-alone #1. But I might not do so this instant, because they ALSO filed that newsstand designation as Pedigree not Variant, like the other ones above. And that needs to get addressed before any of these will be labeled correctly.

Huh. What do you know Wednesday, coming to Netflix Nov 23. Which is a Wednesday; I was going to be very disappointed in Netflix had it been otherwise. I guess we'll see how that does and if it restores interest in the franchise.

Entirely anecdotally, I'd say that #2 and #3 are tougher books to find than #1. And most of the mid-70s Gold Keys that I've encountered tend to be fairly beat. So this is a nice book! I do think if they ever do another film reboot of the property (and it's good...) or something else to bring the franchise back to public recognition, we'll see quite a few of these mysteriously emerge from their current resting places. But, again, I'd expect more mid-grade copies than 9.x if and when that happens.