Qalyar

"His Love" is also from Women in Love #3, where it began life as "His Kind of Love". This one was pretty easy, because I was pretty sure the title wasn't completely replaced -- those letters looked too professional to be Streamline originals!

Got one! This was previously published as "My Reckless Fling" in Women in Love #3 (Fox, 1949). As with several of these, the splash page has been removed from the start of the story. See scans here. EDIT: The panel removed from the right-hand page was a catfight slap.

Yeah, this one's also an early Wood book (for at least the first of the three stories). I think there are a dozen-ish copies on the census. The Crippen copy is a 9.0 because of course it is. MyComicShop actually had a 3.0 slabbed copy earlier this year. So they do exist, but of course, one of the slabbed books won't help to ID interior content. I figured if there was anywhere where someone might just have one of these sitting around idly, it would be this thread. For the record, here's the Crippen copy, from Heritage back in 2007 (EDIT: And I cannot believe that went for only $650! It, um, wouldn't do that now, I don't think!). Obviously, this isn't my book. But the thread needed a picture anyway, because the GGA cover -- very clearly modeled after Marlena Dietrich -- is up there with the best of the them.

This "just" seems like a suspiciously pointed way to make a first post here. Sad that your trimmed books don't get blue labels, I'm guessing?

I'm trying to help @Get Marwood & I on his project to document the original sources of stories reprinted, often with quite a bit of editing, by British republisher Streamline. The good news is that I've got a likely candidate for the unidentified title story in They Called Me a Flirt (which very clearly didn't have that name originally). The bad news is that I think it may be from My Confession #7, which is an awesome book with a striking yellow cover and GGA art ... but which also very much belongs in this "rarest romance covers" thread. And of course, none of the GA comic scan archives have been able to digitize one. Anyone happen to just have an unslabbed copy of this sitting around, able to check to see if the third story ("They Called Me Worthless") may have been edited into Streamline's "They Called Me a Flirt"?

I don't have a scan of this one (and definitely don't own a copy), so I can't confirm, but my suspicion is that "They Called Me a Flirt" may have begun life as "They Called Me Worthless", the third of three stories from the fairly scarce My Confession #7 (Fox, 1949). That's a great book with early Wally Wood art and a fantastic GGA cover. Skimming over the list of late 40s Fox romance titles (because I'm clearly being constructive this morning...), it also stood out as a reasonable likely candidate.

CVA or QES, basically. All but the slab slabbing, really.

That Adventures of Kool-Aid Man is weird stuff even for promotional comics, by the way. It started at Marvel, amazingly, for the first three "issues", then got picked up by Archie for issues 4-9. Most of the issues were freebie and/or mail-away promos, plus some newspaper-partnership giveaways. However, Archie actually sold some copies of (at least) 4 and 5, bizarrely enough. All in all, the series has a bewildering number of variants for this sort of thing. There are at least 3 versions apiece of #2, 4, 5, and 6. Somewhere around here I have a list of the ones I know to exist. I spent awhile trying to determine if there was a for-sale variant of #6 also, but never found one.

Or presumably any of the very many D&D-based comics? In any case, he signed quite a few source books (generally on the first page) and modules (location varies), plus copies of his Gord the Rogue paperback books. I've never seen his signature on any of the D&D comics, much less as a CGC Signature Series book, but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

There sure aren't. The former location of Streamline Publications on Curtain Road, is now part of trendy "nightclub in a ball pit" Ballie Ballerson. Meanwhile, The New Avenue Press address -- which was a public house before that -- now hosts the Blanca Bar restaurant on its ground floor. Really excited to see the rest of these, by the way. I ... did not expect there to be quite this many of them.

There are legitimate specialists in document foresnics. They're called "forensic document examiners" or "questioned document examiners". Certification through one of several certification boards (BFDE, SAFE, ABFDE, perhaps some others) requires a related bachelor's degree, two years of training at a document laboratory (and, for some of the certification boards, two years of independent document authentication work), plus a certification examination. Does that make a difference for signature authentication? Well, a 2001 study in the Journal of Forensic Science looked at exactly that question. Between Type I (inauthentic signature declared genuine) and Type II (authentic signature rejected) errors, their FDEs failed on about 4% of samples, which is a lot better than their random layperson control group, which failed on a little more than 15% of samples. Comic book signature authentication, specifically, is fraught with complications. Stan Lee, in particular, did not maintain a consistent signature style, especially over the last few years of his life -- which is, of course, a period when a lot of books got signed. Even FDEs are likely to have a higher error rate than normal. And let's be honest here, a ~5% error rate on signature authentication is not real great to begin with in terms of confidence that a signed book is or should be worth more than normal. But, of course, a bigger problem is that the people doing signature authentication in the comic book industry probably aren't FDEs. The "other guys" in comic book encapsulation almost certainly don't have certified FDEs doing their signature verification process. Maybe the people over at PSA are certified -- the company certainly plays up the technology aspect of their authentication service -- but given PSA's issues of late, well, maybe not; either way, PSA's on-item authentication labeling make them a poor fit for comics. Of course, most signed comics are authentic. This isn't sports memorabilia, and there's very little incentive to forge most comic creators' autographs. Unfortunately, the ones that are the most likely to be forged are some of the ones that would provide the most challenges (for various reasons) to an authenticator. People like Stan Lee, Frank Frazetta, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, Gil Kane, and Stan Lee. And sure, even then, most of those "verified" sigs are probably legit. But there's a lot of them, and the unavoidable errors rates involved mean a lot aren't legit, too.

So, I'll circle back on more of this stuff soon, including some of those adult indies. But a couple quick observations: Your copy of Three Dimension Adventures (the Superman 3-D comic) is the 90s era reprint not the 50s book. Sorry. Might still be a $5 sort of book, I'm not sure these days. Those two retailer review copies are what they sound like. CGC treats them as distinct books. They slab the Turok one as "Turok the Empty Souls Preview", for example. MCS and some other indexes seem them variant covers of the normal book. Either way, they're not super common, but far from rare. The Turok one might be a $10 book because people like Turok. Less for the Troublemakers. Speaking of "rare but not in demand", the two Buster Brown books. I'll save you some work; the top-right one is #15. The one to its left is #16. Most copies of these books are dogs, and in low-grade they are $5-10 books that probably sell very slowly. Mid-grade books (in the 5.0-6.0 range, demand a bit of a premium if and when they actually sell), and actual high grade books (> 8.0, say) are effectively non-existent for most issues in this series. If these seem to be structurally sound, I might post better photos of them in the Please Grade My Comics forum. Similar quick look at those indies. I'll look more later. Atomic avenue is not... well-founded as a price guide. I'll just note that up front. Whoever set that price for Carmilla was drunk. $5 books, maybe $10. Does #1 still have the paper outer wrapper? The Frank Thorne series is better; I think those are likely $20-25 books. I might try to move them at a little discount as a collection, though. Absolutely go check the printing number on that Cherry #4. Cherry (aka Cherry Poptart) is a highly collected title. However, that issue has -- at least -- 7 printings. First prints are the most desirable. Also check the printing on that Bizarre Sex #9 (...presents Omaha the Cat Dancer). First printings are the 2nd appearance of the character, and high grade copies especially have good value. Mid-grade later printings are probably still $20. Images of Omaha #1 is probably a $10-20 book based on condition. #2 is much scarcer and the Cerebrus cover goes a long way; let's say $25-30 here. No reprints to worry about on Images.

Someday, I'm gonna be cool like the (at least) half dozen people on these boards that have pulled Promethea 32 from a dollar bin. As long as I keep telling myself that... Someday... Seriously, though, nice pulls all around.

Image was (and still is) a major publisher. Not Big Two big, but it's not really an "indie". There's a lot of interest in (some) Image stuff. For the actual indie books, I will caution than a $20 indie will often be a slower seller than a $20 DC or especially a $20 Marvel, all else being equal. Indies just have a smaller collecting community. As for newsstands, so... for a long, long time, essentially no one paid the difference any attention. Spawn has a bunch of extra-weird newsstand printings, and Spawn collectors sort of identified the differences as collectible before some other categories of folks did. Newsstand prints aren't always rare (or, for earlier books, even rarer than direct market books). Post-2000 newsstands tend to be very elusive. But some books demand a considerable premium for newsstands, especially in high grade. On the other hand, there's also been some accusations of market manipulation for newsstand pricing. It is, broadly speaking, a controversial topic. Since you're coming here from numismatics, it's like if no one paid attention to mint marks AT ALL for several decades, then suddenly had to figure out which ones mattered. Oh, and without the benefit of published mintage quantities...

The Revolutionary stuff is better than the PC published books, because I can only assume that Personality paid their artists a whole shiny quarter based on quality. The same applies to their adult imprint, Friendly Comics.

Indie P-T plus a weird-looking Michael Jordan book makes me think you've got a bunch of published by Revolutionary in there. There's some interesting books you could potentially find in there, but Revolutionary books are harder to price than even normal indies. They mostly didn't distribute through traditional comic book venues at all, but through music shops, clothing stores (read: Hot Topic), and similar outlets. Rock N Roll Comics is their most famous title, and if you have any of those, just assume you need to check the indicia for a printing number, because there are lots and lots and lots and lots of them. Comic book collectors have generally ignored Revolutionary, but since you're going to be selling stuff outside normal comic channels, I expect their books will move well if appropriately priced, because they're appealing "cross-collectibles", interesting to more than one group of collectors. Oh, and some of their stuff is super weird conspiracy-theory fodder, which tends to sell okay just because it's so, so weird (Who Really Killed JFK?, for example).

I do understand the conflict. Marvel and, to a lesser extent, DC, are where the biggest potential for money books are. There's a pretty long list of $100+ Marvel books that could show up in a big dealer stock lot like this, and a fair chunk of DCs also. Unless you're outrageously fortunate to have one of a literal handful of specific rarities, there's probably no real shot at even one $100 indie. But I know that's not much consolation when you hit a box full of maybe-sells-for-cover-price-someday B-tier DC books, but still have to check every one of them because one of them might secretly be a key issue for some reason. Indies tend to be a lot of fun, but as with most things in life, "fun" isn't always where the money is.

Very nice. Those first 3 Ranma 1/2 issues, in particular, are surprisingly elusive books! Demand for them stays pretty high because, like I said, the trade paperback collections didn't reprint them in color. If there's a lot of Viz-published anime in there, other books that are worth more than bulk prices include Battle Angel Alita (probably $7-8 a book for the whole thing), Dragon Ball (early books are maybe $25, most of the run is $8-10 apiece), and some of the Pokemon stuff. Pokemon Part 1 The Electric Tale of Pikachu #1 can be a particularly high dollar book depending on printing. With some of these Viz books (although not Ranma, so you're good there), it's important to check the indicia for second (or later...) printings. All the Dragon Ball books got reprints that are worth quite a bit less than the originals, and the early Pokemon books have been serially reprinted -- I want to say Pokemon Part 1 The Electric Tale of Pikachu #1 has something like 14 printings? Generally, #1 is the most valuable (by quite a bit), but some of the later printings were mostly sold through nonstandard channels and are actually very scarce... if you find the right specialist buyer.

I try to keep informed on indie stuff, even -- like most of the adult material -- when it isn't stuff I personally own or collect. Lum / Urusei Yatsura (under various titles), Maison Ikkoku, and Ranma 1/2 are not at all adult titles, for the record. Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku are both essentially romantic comedies; they were also both pretty heavily printed and tend to be cover-price-or-less sorts of books. Ranma 1/2 is a genre-defying (romantic martial-arts comedy magical adventure, maybe?) gigantic series (120+ issues, all told), most of which are also cover-price material. However, there are a few Ranma books to look out for. Ranma numbering is divided into parts, so you have Ranma 1/2 Part 01 #1-7, then Ranma 1/2 Part 02 #1-11, and so forth. For whatever reason, Viz Media opted to release Part 12 as a single abridged version of the original story arc. Ranma 1/2 Part 12 #1 is a 64-page double-sized issue, so it's pretty easy to spot. Anecdotally, print runs were lower and sales were tepid. It's definitely a tougher book to locate but even then, it's just a $5-7.50 sort of item. It's also a 2003 release, so likely won't be in your boxes. But the real winners for Ranma are the first three English issues. Ranma 1/2 Part 01 #1-3 were all printed in full color by Viz; they were -- and are -- the only full-color printings of any of the story (including the graphic novels). They're also really easy to identify, because they have a band at the top of the front cover that reads "VIZ SELECT COMICS ALL COLOR". Especially in the NM-/NM range, those three issues are pretty solid $15-20 books.

7.5" x 5.25" is more or less a fairly standard digest size, and CGC certainly grades digest-sized books. But I seem to remember these being pretty chonky, so I'd make sure it doesn't exceed the 1/2 inch maximum thickness.

This is honestly not unusual for large specialist material collections in university (and other) libraries.

One of the medium's all-time greatest artists. And, perhaps more importantly, also a really great human being. He'll be very much missed, but the impact he made will endure forever.

Oh, and Lizard Lady is an adult spin-off of the Malibu/Eternity/Comic/Epic (it moved a lot) series The Trouble with Girls by Will Jacobs (which is actually a pretty funny superhero/spy send-up) . No idea if you have the normal stuff, but just in case...

Let's start with that one at the end. Slut Girl, published by Eros Comix (the explicit-content imprint of Fantagraphics), is an English translation of a series originally published in Japan by Fujimi Shuppan, by the reasonably-well-known dōjinshi artist Isutoshi. As far as quality goes for an adult comic (and make no mistake, this really is one), Slut Girl's quite good. Isutoshi is essentially famous for works that have interesting and believable characters and a solid sense of humor, in between the requisite explicit sex scenes. Both the artist and this specific series have pretty solid followings, and these books had tiny, tiny print runs. However, that Amazon seller who thinks #1 is a $1000 comic is simply insane. That said, I'd expect issues of this mini-series to actually sell at $40-50 (or maybe a little more) for NM copies. Maybe not immediately, but eventually. That said, if you have the full run of six issues, I'd probably try to move them as a lot, and at a premium. It's fairly tough to find individual issues (it was sooo tempting to make a "fill holes" pun here), so unlike a lot of mini-series runs, the whole of this one is probably worth more than the sum of its parts. Otherwise, several of the books on this list are things you'll want to evaluate carefully. Omaha the Cat Dancer jumps out in particular. Omaha is a historically important character (with, for the record, a first appearance that's so rare -- APA 'zine Vootie #8 -- that a lot of sources credit her second appearance in Bizarre Sex as "first" instead). There are actually three entirely different series under just the Omaha the Cat Dancer title (1984 SteelDragon, 1986 Kitchen Sink Press, 1994 Fantagraphics), and the first two of those have at least some books that saw multiple printings. Most Omaha stuff has at least some value, some specific issues and printings can be quite rare. I'd especially check printing numbers on anything by Slave Labor Graphics (just skimming, I see One Fisted Tales on the list). SLG was sort of famous for running overly small print runs with the idea that they'd just print another one (or another one...) later on. OFT had at least two printings for several issues; I suspect the first printings are the most valuable, but in some cases, the 2nd printings are less common. Some of the Eros Comix books did that too; I know Women on Top has at least five (!) printings. Meanwhile, Angel Entertainment really, really liked its variant covers and guidance as to what is cover A or B or C is difficult to find online when pretty much all of them have to be entirely censored anyway. Angel also liked being extremely confusing about how they title their books: the cover does not always exactly match the indicia. Girl on Girl and Phoebe titles are frequent offenders in both regards. That said, I don't have a very high opinion of Angel's products or either the value or marketability of most of their stuff, although you may find otherwise. Final note for the moment. Choices isn't an "adult comic" in quite the same sense as most of the rest of these; it's certainly not porn. It's exactly what it says, a pro-choice benefit comic, sponsored by the National Organization for Women in 1990. It's an anthology piece with contributions from absolutely everyone, from a bunch of female underground comics greats all the way to Cathy Guisewite (of the comic strip Cathy) and Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury), plus an introduction by then-sitting Congresswoman Pat Schroeder. I don't think it's as valuable as some online retailers seem to think it is (I think it's closer to being a $15 book than a $50 book), but it's a pretty cool piece of history.

QC shouldn't be expected to catch grading errors, because they are by definition not graders. Ideally, the QC process should let them catch label swaps, but I think that would require more discrete internal tracking than is going on currently. On the other hand, one might hope that really dramatic grading failures would at least raise a red flag at the QC step. I really thought that Marvel Spotlight 32 was going to be a label swap, but it's not; there was no other copy on that submission. So the point of failure there is really a straight-up grading failure, which is -- to be fair to CGC -- relatively uncommon.