Qalyar

That's still bad, because there should be approximately zero of this sort of error, but it's better than the alternative. If there has to be an error label, that 0.4 grade is just darkly humorous, though..

@BlowUpTheMoon Are all those yours, or are they compiled from a Facebook group postings or the like? If it's an online compilation, then we do have to keep in mind the problems of confirmation bias. People experiencing rare adverse events will share them widely; people experiencing common neutral events have no reason to share them. If that's actually all stuff you've gotten back recently, then there's either a significant problem or you're under some sort of gypsy curse.

In Stan Lee signature news, this thing is up at CLink. So, sure, there are fewer than 50 copies of this historically important issue on the census in unrestored 9.0 or higher grades. But it's cool to have Stan write a bunch on one of them, right? Especially when he managed to smear ink across the title. At least he didn't sign over Spidey's face, I guess. At the time I write this, the current bid has now hit $64,000 with over five days to go. Based on that bidding history, evidently, some people are perfectly happy with this book the way it looks now. But I think it's just sad, really...

I'd like to confirm that my German issues of Black Hole -- helpfully still titled Black Hole -- were labeled in issue order, not in the order of their corresponding US covers. So that's at least one debacle avoided. We'll see how the next batch goes in a couple months, when I submit copies of Agujero Negro, the Spanish republication of Black Hole for grading. I think the big question is going to be whether those books get labeled Agujero Negro (Spanish Edition) or Black Hole (Spanish Edition). At least there's no numbering shenanigans. I'll echo that the Los 4 Fantasticos situation above is a mess, and shouldn't ever happen that way. Here's hoping Matt is amenable to reevaluating the policy.

Moonshadow is pretty fantastic and deserves wider attention. Also, if you're into collectible collections, the 1989 limited hardcover is fairly elusive. Does the Epic imprint English republication of The Incal count? That was published in three graphic-novel installments rather than in comic book sized chunks, so maybe not. Still a highlight of the 80s in any case.

Anything that is not physically connected to the comic will not be slabbed with the comic, ever. If you send them a book with loose ephemera (bags, non-bound posters, COAs, etc.), they make a good-faith but absolutely not guaranteed effort to send it back to you. Although with how busy they are right now, especially, I wouldn't count on it. Basically: Unbag all comics before sending them to CGC -- if for no other reason than because many polybagged comics require a press to remove a sealing crease. Remove any unattached associated items. Don't make CGC's job harder than it is!

Obviously, only you can decide what's right for your collection. Personally, I'd only want a trimmed book on my shelf if: 1) like some GA oddballs, finding any copy is a coup; or 2) the book is so expensive that I'd be priced out of other options (but even then, I'd rather drop grade or opt for non-trimming restoration than take a trimmed book). I not a Spider-Man-man, but if I wanted to pick this issue up, I would buy a 5.5U for $250 every day of the week and twice on Sunday in lieu of this book. Quick searching revealed there's a 5.0U available right now for 379 and a 4.0U for 255 OBO. It's neither rare nor expensive enough of a book that I'd want a copy someone had -- repeatedly -- attacked with a paper cutter. If I accept that this book in a grade-equivalent blue label "should" be about 250 (as I'm too lazy to go check that right now), then I don't think I would value this any more than about 75 bucks -- 30% of the Universal price. If that. And I still wouldn't actually buy it at that price; the difference between $75 and $250 (or $379 or anything close) just isn't enough -- for me, anyway -- to sway me into owning an intentionally damaged book. Some people are probably bothered less by the trimming, and want a pretty looking copy for cheap. Maybe that could float the price higher? I don't know, I don't really understand what some buyers do.

Don't get me wrong, I own copies of this title. I just don't "collect" it in terms of variant completion or the high grade chase. Financially, I certainly could. There's, what, a half dozen or so variants that are north of 1k in 9.8 at this point, and a bunch in the mid-hundreds? Notwithstanding availability, I'm certainly capable of just buying the whole thing outright, right now... although I'm sure I'd would get some side-eye from my wife if I did that. The thing is, these days, I just don't have as much fun chasing the stuff that everyone else is chasing. There's no real adventure to it. Every retailer knows immediately if they have SiKtC #1 NYCC or the SiKtC #5 Frison variant or whatever store exclusive. Collecting hot books is just a matter of throwing enough money at available copies more quickly than the next guy. Hell, with the adaptation in the works, those will probably even appreciate from their current values unless they screw that up somehow. But I'm an iconic black hole collector; I don't resell out of personal collection except for undercopies and the like, so I don't really care whether my books are worth 10 bucks or 10 thousand. I have the first TPB because I caught on to the series a little late, and I read the rest off a pull list, and I let people who care about the monetary value of their collection gobble up the exclusives and variants on this one.

Also, I do have to add that SiKtC is... a really good series. I've sort of held firm to the idea that I'm not going to actively collect it (mostly because of the spec pressure on the book's value), but it's absolutely worth reading.

Glow in the dark.

I've always thought that one was useful as a one-image example of why it's impossible to reliably authenticate unwitnessed signatures...

They're not Marvel stuff obviously, but I just wanted to say that Dark Horse's three volume (so far!) Neil Gaiman Library is a fantastic series of giant hardcovers.

I have a lot of slabs with under 50 copies on the census. Some, like the various issues of Midnight Nation, are there because they have essentially zero FMV, so saner people don't consider slabbing them. But here's one (that I have probably posted about before) that's worth a bit more... and is kind of interesting. After completing Black Hole, Charles Burns partnered with comic/art publisher Alvin Buenaventura to put out this wonderfully weird book. It's basically an artist's sketchbook rather than a comic book, strictly speaking. There's no plot or story or dialogue, just reproductions of the sketches Burns used while creating Black Hole. It's absolutely a prestige piece, though. Sort of the coffee table art book of comics. The cover is a high grade translucent vellum, and the pages are a heavyweight archival paper. It isn't stapled either, but bound together with hand-strung black linen thread. This book is number 22 of 400, stamped in blue ink and signed by Burns on the inside back cover. There exists a separately numbered run of 100 books that are hand-numbered and have an extra unique sketch by Burns tipped in. Burns is really, really popular in the European art-comic scene, and a ton of these disappeared into that circle of collectors. Copies are not regularly available for sale online at all. When they do appear, prices in the $150-200 range for the series of 400 aren't unreasonable (I've seen some cheaper ones, but with considerable cover damage). Copies from the series of 100 go for quite a bit more than that because prices for Burns OA -- even tiny unpublished ones -- have gotten crazy over the past few years. This 9.4 copy is the top of the census. And the bottom of the census. It's ... the only one on the census!

My most recent shipment back had only one problem: a 2nd printing not marked as such. That's certainly no big deal compared to encapsulation damage, but you'd still think they'd try to tighten the QA up. Mechanical error shipments cost them a nontrivial amount on the shipping costs they eat for them.

The first edition book collectors' community is -- usually -- pretty accepting of author autographs. But even they have disdain for these personalized dedications to ... other people. It's cool if you're getting your beater OO copy signed because of nostalgia, but please don't ask for this on books that other people may want later.

Almost certainly not. For a book of this era and -- based on what I can see in this closely cropped picture, condition -- markings of this sort are common and do not warrant a Qualified label.

Exactly. I don't care if people get books signed that are keys. I care if people get books signed that are rare. There are, right now, 128 IH181 in 9.8U and 12 in 9.8SS. So... okay, that means 9.8SS are about 8.5% of the 9.8 population. That's ... high, but it's a long way off from the 10% mark that I view as sort of a danger threshold. And there are thousands of lower grade Universal copies to compete with hundreds of Sig Series books. The only obstacle to owning IH181, in nearly any grade you desire, is money. I rarely chase keys and I've owned three of the darn things at different times. But if instead of 100ish copies at 9.8, there are a 100ish copies total. Or less. Then... please, please think about what you're doing before you have it autographed. We're collectors, and I say very often that people should collect what they want. And I get it, people want to collect Sig Series books. But we're also, in a sense, custodians of the history of this genre and these books.

Except that's the poster for Chapter 10 of the Captain America Republic serial. This is the poster for Chapter 1:

Here's my take on it. I don't collect Signature Series books. My personal collection is all raws and blue labels (and a couple weird manufacturing defects in green but that's not the point...). I don't begrudge people getting most books signed. Like those ASM 298 and 299s just posted? Those are cool books. They're not what I collect, but I collect weird anyway. I have absolutely no problem with them. I have problems with Sig Series books when one -- or more -- of the following is true: Someone gets cute and has a book signed by someone not realistically related to the book. That Stan Lee on the Star Wars 1 35 cent variant that I posted? Yeah, that's one of the problems there. Stan Lee scribbles on DC books for the lulz? Absolutely. MCU actors signing books with "their" character (by name) but unrelated to the modern portrayal, much less their involvement with it are personally pretty far up there for me, too. Purely as a hypothetical: Sebastian Stan is awesome, but does anyone think a copy of Captain America Comics #1 would be improved by Stan's signature (on the grounds that it's the first appearance of Bucky Barnes, who becomes the Winter Soldier, who Stan plays in the MCU)? Or even Chris Evans, for that matter? At least, I hope that's a hypothetical; there are 3 Sig Series copies of Captain America Comics 1, after all (at least one is Joe Simon)... The signer does something to actively make the cover much, much worse. Sometimes this is the fault of submitters with "clever" ideas about where to put the window on their window bags. Sometimes it's the signers' fault. Stan Lee seemingly had a thing for signing across faces, for example. And while good sketches and remarques can be legitimately amazing, we've all seen bad ones phoned in with a sharpie. Perhaps most of all, it bothers me when legitimate rarities (either in terms of overall scarcity or even scarcity in grade) are consumed for Signature Series books. I get it. SS collectors want high grade copies, too. But the process isn't reversible. There are hundreds and hundreds of 9.8 copies of ASM 298 and 299; those signatures didn't realistically limit collector access to equivalent Universal books, but for some issues, it really can. For a dramatic example, let's look at the census for Captain America Comics 3. It's understandable why people wanted this book signed, because it was Stan Lee's first work for Timely. But it's a legitimate rarity, with 112 total copies on census (assuming there's no label duplication there). Sixteen of those books are signed (plus another six in hybrid purple/yellow labels). Over 10% of the slabbed copies. Now, to the credit of the Sig Series collectors, I suppose, the handful of highest-graded copies aren't signed. But they could have been. With enough cash, that sole 9.6 at the top of census could have been shipped off to a Stan Lee signing, leaving a handful of 9.2s at the top of the Universal census. Would that have made the book better? Would that have made the book's population better? It's possible in more recent books, too. Over 10% of the copies of Albedo 2 on census are Sig Series; fully 20% of the 9.8 copies are in yellow labels now.

Portacio did the pencil work for the cover to this 2002 EverQuest tie-in book. It is probably not the greatest example of his style, but I believe it was one of the first comic art contributions he made following his health crisis in 2000.

The foreign stuff is over in the foreign thread. English highlights of my most recent CGC box delivery: This is literally the least exciting piece in a collection of the EverQuest franchise comic book tie-ins. Transformations has fantastic people attached (Devin Grayson, Philip S. Tan, Whilce Portacio), but I don't think anyone involved really cared much and it shows. Literally every other book in the set (Ruins of Kunark, the weird Ruins of Kunark German limited, Accounting, and Quest for Darkpaw) has something about it that makes it an exciting book. This one? This one is more of a nod to completion than anything, but at least squarebound books with shiny, durable covers are relatively easy to hit 9.8s on... These are the two rarest covers of the Labyrinth 30th Anniversary Special. The first one is the Baltimore Comic-Con exclusive (cover by Eric Powell); the second was a Fried Pie store exclusive (cover by Joelle Jones). The Jones cover is one of my top 5 favorite Labyrinth covers, to be honest. If you don't think coloring-book style Ludo makes for a cute cover, you might want to consult with your doctor to see if you're dead inside. The lion's share of this box was Black Hole (some of which are over in that foreign thread). Here's #2 (3rd printing), #6, #9, and #10. I'm really happy about the 9.8 on that third print #2. All of the Black Hole reprint editions (and there are a total of 7 of them across the whole series) are surprisingly elusive, and are often harder to find in grade than the rest of the series (which is sometimes no picnic). My copy is the new top of census for this book. Speaking of reprint editions, there should be a really beautiful 9.8 copy of #1 (2nd printing) in this picture -- the first on the census. Except... it's not on the census, because it wasn't labelled as a 2nd printing by CGC, so back it goes for a mechanical error reslab. Such things happen, I suppose. It'll be exciting to get that back (again) with the right label, because the second printings of #1 and #2 are two of the hardest books in this title. They were reprints by Kitchen Sink Press shortly before it went out of business and the series was picked up by Fantagraphics, and so had fairly limited distribution. Also, I have some anecdotal evidence that a larger than normal share of these two reprints went to international buyers, which makes shipping-related damage more likely and just makes acquisition flatly harder. In contrast to my #1 2nd, my #2 2nd is easily the worst book in my run. Meanwhile, I'm not sad about the 9.6 on #6, which ties the top of census. I went through probably a dozen copies of this issue to find even this book (which I honestly was expecting might come back 9.4). Because of their thick cardstock covers, all issues of Black Hole are prone to bindery tears and color cracking along the spine fold, but #6 seems to be especially problematic in that regard. Most of the copies I've handled combined those two manufacturing defects such that the top layers of cardstock along the spine were essentially delaminating, like a spine split that didn't go all the way through the spine. I'd love to have this whole set in 9.8 some day, but right now, I'm happy to just own a clean copy of this issue! Also, this book (well, and a 9.6 copy of #2 I'm not going to bother showing off) was what I needed to finish -- at least for now -- my set of Midnight Nation. No one but me cares about this series at this point, I don't think. But that's fine. Sometimes books go in the personal collection because they're personal, after all.

Today's delivery from CGC brought me several foreign books. As always, I remain a terribly unskilled photographer of slabbed books. Or anything else, really. First up is this weird thing that I've discussed on the boards previously. It's the German edition of EverQuest: The Ruins of Kunark, released over two years after the English book, and well after everyone had abandoned efforts to spin off the MMORPG franchise to the comic book format. That isn't strange in and of itself, but this wasn't a general release book like most foreign republications. Rather, it was a 999 copy limited edition that was a convention exclusive at the 2004 Erlangen Comic-Salon. I really have no idea why this came to be, but the German comic industry has done some very strange things with their republications over the years. Extremely happy that this came back 9.8. Speaking of German , Reprodukt reprinted Charles Burns's indie masterpiece Black Hole. Except instead of republishing all 12 issues normally (which is what the Spanish republisher did), Reprodukt opted to produce six double-length books, each containing two issues of the original publication. They also opted to make some odd choices for which covers to use, especially for issue #1, which has the cover from the English #7. I had some concerns about how CGC would label these, given that they reuse (with modified title fonts and colors in some cases) the covers from the original series. But I believe they got them exactly right. Each one is Black Hole #n (in the correct order), with a boldface German Edition and a note indicating the two issues of the English series that are republished therein (so the Reprodukt Black Hole #1 says "Contains Black Hole #1-2". You may note that I said there were six German issues, but I've only posted four slabs here. My copies of #5 and #6 suffered a bit of a bend to the bottom right corner (while at the publisher's, actually, not even in shipping!). In any case, both books are awaiting a round of pressing. I'm fairly confident that the defects will press out of #5. We'll ... see about #6. In any case, they're going to have to wait until later this year to join their friends on the shelf.

Yes, that was the 35 cent price variant. No, that's not my book. On Ebay now for only $30K, Incase you want your technically-still-high-grade copies of moderate rarities "enhanced" with unrelated scribbles (and in case you hate money).

There are fairly dependable accounts that he signed some books at a handful of conventions in the late 60s and early 70s, and that he signed a small number of Mr. A books somewhat later than that. However, at this point, absent ironclad provenance, I can't imagine how any legitimate Ditko books could be distinguished from the comparatively plentiful forgeries. As noted upthread, signature authentication is not a reliable science; indeed, it is neither of those things.

Floating head covers. Every now and then there's a comic that makes this work (Spiderman 100, maybe), but for the most part it's just really awkward. Doubly so for talking floating head covers. But, of course, anything bad can be made worse by adding Leifeld, so... the random act of floating face on this one: