Qalyar

Blue, always. The only books I'm interested in having in signed form are the small handful that were literally only distributed that way (or at least intended to be distributed that way).

That is an awesome, awesome book.

If this is a fake "going out of business" push in order to sell more copy, then they deserve to have it immediately followed by actually going out of business. Their sales model was ... weird enough that I assume they're actually closing up shop. If not, well, no one should give money to a company that would mislead its customer base that aggressively, surely. EDIT: Ugh. So. Yeah.

Apparently "how we feel" about Bad Idea's odd distribution methodology is ... that it was not successful. They'll be ceasing operations around the end of the year. I'll grant that they did put out some good quality books. But the market isn't extremely generous to physical-comic companies right now. And the purchase restrictions and "club" approach to letting stores carry their books cannot possibly have helped them.

I don't think it's a lightning artifact. Compare the UL corners, which match pretty well in terms of background whiteness. I'm not sure this is better. It's certainly a lower contrast stain now that the pigmentation from the tide lines has been distributed over most of the back of the book. Arguably, I guess that means it presents better? But from a technical grading standpoint, there's now a larger area of the cover directly affected by the stain. So... I suppose it depends on what you want out of your stains?

I call shenanigans that their "newsstand" mock-up includes Dazzler #1...

I encountered a store at one point that tried to end-run this idea, in that they had no marked prices on their books (other than new stock). You brought books you wanted to buy to the counter, and they determined what they cost that day. I bought nothing from them, and judging by how quickly they ceased to be a going operation, neither did anyone else.

Fantastic book. And unless there's something substantially wrong with it that we can't see, you did good on the price too. That's probably my favorite cover from Avon's Witchcraft, although #5 and #3 are also both good and I'm not at all bitter about having let a nice copy of #3 go for far too cheap many years ago.

I've had the USPS drop off several registered mail shipments without getting signature confirmation (or even seeing a human) over the last year. That is not at all compliant with USPS policy for registered mail, but since nothing bad happened as a result, I've opted not to make a fuss. Picking an unnecessary fight with your mail carrier is almost as dumb as picking a fight with your office janitorial staff.

Any idea if this actually made it into one of the issues of True Comics itself, or if this was just a newspaper strip or the like?

Just to make sure no one accidentally thinks well of Bakshi, he didn't do the 1977 Hobbit animated film. That's a Rankin/Bass production (the people behind Rudolph the Red Nosed Raindeer, etc.), with the actual animation outsourced to a Japanese company called Topcraft (which you may know from the name of its successor company -- Studio Ghibli). It's actually pretty good. The same team did the 1980 Return of the King. It's ... not as good. Bakshi was only responsible for the 1978 Lord of the Rings, which was ... fairly awful, actually, but Tolkein carries a lot of dead weight. Bakshi's Wizards is also pretty wretched, although I guess some people like it? I've always thought it was cliched and hamfisted, even for 1977. Also, I mean ... the central plot driver is that two million year old Nazi propaganda films are used to inspire an army of mutants and monsters? Check me out of the suspension of disbelief party.

Lighting angle and the artwork is really messing with me on this one. My brain keeps wanting to see creases in the pink area behind the Flash that I know aren't there. That said, the top edge really does look a little wavy to me. Is that real, or just another illusory effect?

I hate tape. But sometimes, you have to do something to help a book's structural integrity. That said, if you ever decide that you have to tape a book, use an archival-quality one. Every time someone puts Scotch tape on a comic book, God kills a kitten. Also, I wouldn't tape -- archival or otherwise -- that ASM #6. Book should be just fine with limited handling (and surely, you're being careful and limiting direct handling regardless).

I have a couple GLODs for this sort of thing on titles I collect. I don't have any illusions that they're worth anything significant, but they're a fun addon to a run.

Oh, I meant that in terms of issues, not copies. I agree that estimates of raw distribution numbers aren't of much value unless they also account for attrition patterns.

And, for what its worth, I think 10% is a fairly good ballpark for that period of Spawn books. It gets a lot trickier when you try to jump to a different series, publisher, or time period. Sometimes even knowing what was distributed to newsstands is a battle.

It's also tricky because the books that have the highest volumes of CGCed copies aren't always representative of broader distribution patterns. Spawn #1 was an event. Are its distribution ratios the same as other books around the same time? Even other Image books? Additionally, Spawn collectors have expressed more interest than the hobby aggregate in tracking down and collecting newsstand issues and assorted other shenanigans (it helps that CGC recognizes the DM/NS split for a lot of Spawn issues due to differing paper stock). That's going to tend to push the slabbed numbers higher than they would be Random Marvel Issue #123, for example. And of course, some of the genuinely rarest newsstands, as the various companies were winding down their newsstand distribution entirely, are versions of books with minimal market impact in general, which makes all of this a lot trickier to apply. That's not to say this sort of analysis isn't worth doing, it's just that it has be done with a grain of caution and some understanding of the sources for error.

There are probably somewhat more newsstand editions in circulation (used broadly, as I'll get to) than these kind of surveys suggest. It's well established that the average grade of surviving newsstands is lower than the average grade for direct market copies. If we take on faith the axiom that the "average" DM modern in "unread" or "like new" condition is an 8.5 (which... sure, I guess that passes a smell test, maybe?), the equivalent NS book is probably more like 7.0-7.5. For a lot of moderns, a 7.0 book isn't worth slabbing and isn't worth eBaying. But there are still thousands upon thousands of mid grade moderns languishing in dealers' backstock boxes. I agree that late-Modern NS books are rare in grade and are rare in general vis-a-vis their DM cousins (although that's explicitly not true for earlier years...), but the disparity is likely a tad narrower than metrics suggest. But... with this being an internet-market hobby now, there's some question about whether backstocked books are "in circulation". Books in shop back room boxes aren't always even available for sale, aren't indexed. When stores close, the fate of "bulk" is... uncertain.

This isn't very GA-specific, but still... The missing and inaccurate information is the biggest reason why I haven't bought an OPG for some time. Other collectibles hobbies have comprehensive catalogs. They are often price guides, too, but their most important feature has always been their role as an index. A (generally) comprehensive, standardized catalog of what exists. For philately, there's the Scott catalogue first and foremost (with a few alternatives and specialist publications). Coin collectors have the Redbook and the Krause catalogs. We have Overstreet. Except that Overstreet fails at that role. I get that sometimes we learn new things about poorly documented bits of comic history (discovery of a new DC Universe variant, say). That happens to the other hobbies, too. But Overstreet, unlike Scott or Krause, seems uninterested in being truly comprehensive and uninterested in correcting its own elisions and errors. And their layout choices and cross-referencing shortcomings make a lot of things harder to find than they should be, too. Overstreet could do that. They're got the name recognition, 50 years of publication history, and almost certainly one of the best networks of research contacts in the hobby. They could be Scott, or Redbook, for comics. But over and over again, they've shown they don't want to be a reliable standardized catalog. They want to be a glorified price guide. And I don't need them for that.

Was a box. Seriously, no packaging would have survived what must have happened to this one. Hopefully, USPS will be non-argumentative about restitution. Also hopefully the book itself is at least salvageable....

Because it is somewhat difficult to imagine a book receiving this sort of distribution stamping without also ending up with blunted corners or spine tics. But, hey, sometimes you do get lucky.

You seem nice. I'm sure you'll do well here. In an effort to provide actual advice, if you want a grade estimate, the "Hey buddy, can you spare a grade?" forum is that way. But, as a general rule, if there's some weird problem with a book, odds are pretty good you're not going to get that 9.6. in this book's case, I'm going to guess there are other flaws as well and that you would end up well under that magic 9.6 flip point.

Did not take long for me to kick this can another issue down the road. Here's the newsstand edition of Rising Stars #16 (September 2001). No sign -- at least so far -- of #17 (January 2002), #18 (April 2002), #19 (September 2002), #20 (October 2002), or #21 (January 2003). And I still believe it is impossible for newsstand copies of #22-24 (Nov 2004 - Mar 2005) to exist because those postdate the last currently known Image newsstands. As always, extremely interested if anyone dredges up later copies.

You use stock photos that grotesquely misrepresent your item, such as using a late-modern newsstand printing stock photo in place of dollar-box-bait direct market copies. Then, you get defensive when asked for clarification. (You borderline fraudulent monkey, you.)