Qalyar

At first glance, these might look like normal copies of Black Hole. But if you're familiar with the series, something might seem just a little off about these covers. For me, the bottom-left one seems most out of place, because the title in the original is in all lower case... and not at all that weird green color! That's because this is the six-issue German edition of Black Hole, published by Reprodukt. Each of these is a hefty square bound book that reprints two issues apiece of the original English series, which clocks them in at around 64 pages. On fairly good paper and with stuff cardstock covers, they feel bigger than that. Quality is pretty solid, in part because these sorts of heavy covers hold up way, way better as square bound books than folded and cut by blades that aren't up to the job (nope, that's not a dig at the originals, nope...). Except for the covers and some section titles, the interior has received full German localization. But boy are some of those covers weird. Book 1, containing English issues 1 and 2, uses the art from 7, which seems to have been chosen utterly randomly. The remaining issues use the English covers from 4, 5, 8, 9, and 11, respectively, which means they at least have a cover from one of their constituent stories. Except these covers also aren't quite the same; for several of these books, they re-styled and/or re-colored the title text. The covers originally used for 7 (German 1) and 8 (German 4) are the most noticeable. I really have no idea why they re-matted the titles on these covers but opted not to localize them into German (in contrast, the Spanish release DID retitle them in translation). Regardless, these were released over about a six year period by Reprodukt, who then made full sets available in a sort of slipcased box set. These copies are from such a box set, but as far as I can tell, they are indistinguishable from individual copies.

Yeah, I think you might end up better than break-even on this one.

Sorry for the late reply here. I think if there's no listed printing information, it should be good to go as a 1st print. I know that for some of the later issues, the indicia clearly states print number for reprints.

If you want something more recent, Knights of the Dinner Table #1 (Alderac Entertainment Group, 1994) isn't exactly rare, with a print run of 3000 copies and 35 on census. But it is legitimately hard to find 9.6/9.8 copies (2 and 1 on census, respectively; many copies shipped with defects) and it's a popular title that moved beyond its indie published roots. Not that I think it's worth even close to the price the sole 9.8 is currently consigned for at MCS... But speaking of its roots, KoDT's first appearance is in Alderac's gaming magazine. Shadis #2 (1990) is pretty elusive, but was also (I believe) essentially a photocopied fanzine at the time and so may or may not be eligible for grading.

Not guaranteed. We're used to modern (here, broader than Modern) comics produced with enough quality control that all copies start out the same size. But for GA into early SA (and perhaps later for smaller publishers) that isn't a certainty. The blades used to cut comics to size were not always aligned correctly, and didn't always stay aligned. As a result, you can sometimes find books narrower or wider than expected, or even crazy looking things like trapezoid cuts (where the right side of the book isn't parallel to the spine). So, basically, mis-sized books are a cause for caution but not a conclusive red flag in and of themselves.

Sex sells Cry for Dawn #5. Obviously.

That's actually Steve Leialoha, although certainly not his best work. He's probably best known these days as Mark Buckingham's inker on Fables (since that won them an Eisner), but he's one of those artists who has done a pretty long list of work (for Dark Horse, DC, and Marvel) without ever really being an A-lister. That said, those Captain Justice covers? Still bad.

Technically this is a "Zodiac comic" cover. And technically correct is the best kind of correct! For the record, this miniseries wasn't exactly bad, and the art style hits its goal, but it certainly isn't going in a Best of Dark Horse.

Of course I have "previous knowledge". I read this board for probably 18 months, off and on, before registering or posting here. I've read an awful lot of this forum's back history. Sometimes old threads get linked, sometimes I just browse the back issues, as it were. And seriously, I've posted in other hobby forums, and been admin a few of them, over the last 20 years. Offline, I worked in several brick and mortar comics and collectibles stores and was operating manager for one for awhile when I was quite a bit younger. I'm not wet behind the ears. I know how comics and message boards work. Nevertheless, again, this is, was, and always will be my sole account. Look, I don't want to cause drama. I want to talk about comics. I especially want to talk about weird late-Bronze/early-Modern stuff that mostly isn't even the hot spec titles of the week/month/year. I've got some really cool German reprints of a great indie title that should be arriving Monday or Tuesday; I want to talk about those. I want to find people who can help me chase down the similar series I know is out there in Spanish. If you want to hold bad opinions about me personally, well, I'm sad to hear it. I've done nothing to wrong you that I'm aware of, and would have tried to make amends if I had. You're evidently mostly a GA collector so I doubt we would have ever had cause to do business with each other; my girlfriend would off me in my sleep if I got back into GA material. But that's not the point. Making public insinuations about my identity and public accusations that I am a shill -- and thus, by definition, violating the terms of use here and unsuitable for anyone to do business with -- is not cool, man. You've been here years more than I have, and have over 100 times my post count, so I trust you can see why I don't find this acceptable. Especially since you're refusing to retract or give me any means to demonstrate that I'm NOT what you claim, I'm going to await skypinkblu's response as to what my administrative options are here. Or, you know, just talk to me. I'm not trying to conceal who I am. Especially if you're willing to go to PMs about identity-related topics, I don't have anything to hide. It doesn't have to be this way.

You are wrong. Although I've been a reader of this forum for quite some time before registering this account, I avow in absolutely no uncertain terms that this is the only registered account I have had, or will have, here. I've been associated with this username in my hobby-related online presence (not just comics) for the better part of two decades. I am absolutely not a shill. Because this claim is potentially harmful to my ability to interact with the community and conduct business here, I'm going to have to insist that you retract it. @skypinkblu I'd like your input here in your role as coordinator.

Since the person he was responding to is me, and I believe this is the second time you've made a post that seems to insinuate something nefarious about me... Is there something you'd like to come out and accuse me of? Or do you simply feel my time at this forum is insufficient to entitle me to opinions about how the community does, or should, operate?

Link. I think that's much more aspirational than reasonable, to be honest, but if they get it, good on 'em, I suppose. Anyway, no, these aren't the Aircel series. The Aircel books were printed in much larger volumes and were sort of "indie comic spec books" for a hot minute ... but there's way, way too many of them for that to have been realistic. It didn't help that Blair's later career wasn't particularly impactful (and of course, his tragic death in 2010 probably bookends any chance of his series being seriously revived). However, the Nightwynd stuff is actually quite scarce, especially in high grade. Are they $1200 scarce? Ehhhh....

Some pack-ins are, well, packed in much better than others. Those GI Joe 25th anniversary toy comics were packaged in a way that (mostly) makes them capable of surviving shipping and storage and unboxing in pretty great shape. The opposite end of the spectrum is probably the Alien pack-ins with the Kenner toy line. They weren't literally wadded into a ball and dropped in the box, but they might as well have been.

For my part, I think he belongs join the HoS even if he's been permanently banned. The latter is a measure of CGC's forum moderation team's lack of further patience for his antics; the former is the community's. Besides, there's no way to be certain that, down the road, he won't come hat-in-hand to CGC, craft some vague apology for being a ban-evading shill, promise he learned the mistakes of his childlike ways, and get that ban lifted. But if that happens, he should still be on the Hall of Shame, because he still would not have the community's trust.

Congrats, man. That's a beautiful copy of what is without question a legendary rarity.

Most, but not all, are trimmed. And that makes sense, really, because the bulk of the bound volumes were produced from relatively early books (GA/SA, certainly). Go look at those books. It's sometimes a challenge to find two of them that have matching production cuts, to say nothing of the weird dimension copies or trapezoid cuts when the blades got out of alignment.

Conan is slow right now because the media focus is on contemporary superhero and action. Sword and sandals / sword and sorcery has been out of favor since some point in the '80s, I think. But that will change eventually; it always does. It's a genre that has gone in and out of favor essentially since the beginning of cinema. And Conan is probably the single biggest name-drop character for when it returns.

Trimming is really tough to call without the book in hand, but this doesn't raise red flags for me. There are several imperfection patterns that look to be carried through multiple pages, or through multiple pages and a cover. My initial impression is that this was a fairly miswrapped book, and that the cutting blades also could have done with a sharpening (from this period? shocking!). It is possible to fake that sort of micro-deckled look to the pages, but the vast majority of chop shops wouldn't bother, and I don't really suspect foul play here either.

Digital art creation still very much requires talent. I know how to use the software. I've done some internal-use commercial graphic design. If you spotted me ten years to work on it, I still don't think I could produce even that Venom cover up there, and that Venom cover is a terrible, ugly example of the medium. The digital tools are just different tools. Computer art design does not consist of telling the computer, Star Trek-style, to "paint Batman", or anything like that. It still requires a skilled artist to produce good art. So, yes, some people use digital art tools and create things that aren't appealing. Plenty of people do that with traditional media, too; no computer is to blame for Rob Liefeld.

Yeah, I had a set at one point, years ago, but they were total dogs. Looked like an actual xenomorph had played with them. Interesting read though.

That's the portfolio mini, right? And not the weird alternate storyline mini books from the toy packages?

Huge respect for this. I'm a big believer in chasing the Nth prints of whatever stuff I collect, and a LOT of them are hard, hard pieces to find. One of my pet series is Charles Burns' Black Hole -- someday this thing will get an tv/film adaptation and people will rue the day they mocked my taking it seriously, mwahaha! -- and a big ongoing question for me is whether a 2nd printing of #4 exists. There are quite a few places that reported it does, but I've never seen one and neither has anyone I know. If it's out there, it's a tiny print run and I want one badly. The world may never know. Aliens #6 2nd sounds exactly the same way.

This distribution experiment seemed from the start like it would go bad (for individual stores, or in general) pretty rapidly if/when something went wrong in the process...

The line is often color touch central. I know this particular issue seems to have a periodic problem with wear and scuffs near the Aquaman logo, so those are the places I'd start looking.

That's just a huge, ugly water stain that goes front-to-back, huh? Plus what I suspect is mouse chew. Rusty staple with migration. Binding separation at the bottom third of the book. The rest of the faults aren't really relevant in this grade band, so the big question is just how bad that water damage is going to be scored. I'm going to go with the current majority vote and say 1.5 here. But that's mostly because this book just doesn't feel as totally wrecked to me as most 1.0 books tend to. However, if this came back 1.0, I wouldn't feel like you'd gotten an unfair grade.